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L. T. asked the community

Should I challenge an interviewer’s timezone assumption?

Interviews Asked Active 5 Aug 2026
Question details

During a video interview, the manager assumed I could attend daily meetings in their time zone, even though the posting said distributed. Should I clarify my availability in a follow-up now, and how directly should I ask whether those meetings are mandatory?

Community responses

1 Answer

  1. Send a short follow-up now that treats this as a scheduling requirement, not a challenge. The important issue isn’t the manager’s assumption; it’s whether recurring attendance during those hours is essential to doing the job.

    Say: “Could you clarify the expected cadence and whether daily meetings in [time zone] are mandatory for this role? I’m available [your relevant overlap], and I’d like to confirm the working-hours expectations.”

    Be direct about any hard constraint rather than promising flexibility you can’t sustain. A distributed posting can still mean a team operates around a core schedule, and that may be reasonable if the role depends on live coordination.

    Use this criterion: if the meeting time would regularly conflict with your fixed availability, clarify before the process advances.

    Would those daily meetings fall outside hours you can consistently work?

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