A fifth-year PhD student asks—

This feels like a stupid question—how honest do I have to be when an employer asks how soon I can start? I’d really like to take a vacation after finishing, but technically I could start right away. Would they rule me out for a job because I offered too late a start date?

In general, I’d say it is safe to translate the question from ‘When can you start’ to ‘When would you like to start?’ and just answer that way. So, if you’d prefer to start in two months, just tell them that you can start in two months. Start date is probably the most common thing negotiated for in your job offer, after salary, so think of the date you offer as a starting point. If, for some reason, the start date is very important to the employer (for example, budget concerns around the end of their fiscal year or something), they will probably simply ask if you can start earlier, and you can negotiate from there. In fact, in my experience, I have never met someone whose job offer was pulled due to offering too late a start date without the employer trying to negotiate first.

-David Blancha, Assistant Director, Career Development Team for Researchers