pick up candidate from airport or let them Uber/cab to hotel?

Question

The practice of my department has been to pick up a job candidate from the airport when they arrive the evening before their campus visit and drop them off at their hotel. I find this awkward, but the idea has been that it is good to make a good impression on the candidate with a personalized pickup. What's the typical practice? Thoughts?

Comments

OOps, meant to answer not comment.  Please see below.

Answer 1

We also pick up candidates. I think it's the right thing to do and it also signals the JMC that we value his or her time. Plus it also gives whomever picks up the JMC the chance to drive through town a bit in order to talk about the benefits and opportunities from living here.

Answer 2

I can see things both ways.  

We're in Eugene, and if people are coming from the East coast, they might land at 11:00pm or midnight.  Usually UBER time if its that late.  

Also if people have been on a plane for 7-9 hours, they might prefer to travel in casual clothes rather than their job market attire.  At the same time, when I interviewed at UO, they asked if I preferred to go sleep (it was 8pm when I landed and I was on east coast time) or join folks to play darts and enjoy local pub food.  I opted for the latter and it was a great to get know people in a more chill scenario.  

So I see tradeoffs, but in most settings we offer to pick them up, but we're flexible and things can be situation specific.  It's only awkward when someone books a flight to visit us that goes through Portland because either didn't know what city our university was in, or they assumed it was so small there would be no airport (the MSA has 250,000 so there about 10 different connecting flights with all the major airlines even though we aren't a hub for anybody).

Comments

I've seen both too and I agree that either way can be fine and the best option may depend on circumstances like what time the candidate gets in or how far the airport is.  It is nice to have an opportunity to see a bit of the city/town on a visit.  Personally I think arranging for a car service to pick the candidate up is nicer than telling them to get a lyft/uber/taxi (though I'm older, so that might be a generational thing).