Job interview astrology is an election
Job interview astrology, in the tradition Canopy follows, is not a horoscope for your sign or a lucky date for everyone. It is an election: a search, inside the dates you can offer, for the moment whose sky best suits a meeting with someone who will judge your work. The best time for a job interview, astrologically, is that moment, and an auspicious day for a job interview is the day that holds it. The Arabic authors called the art al-ikhtiyārāt, “the choices”.
Canopy’s purpose for it is Job Interviews & Career Meetings, Muqābalat al-ʿAmal, and its guide gives the working rule: “Use the meeting’s own time and set Location to where it happens.” For a video interview, that is where you will be when the call begins. An election improves the conditions of the meeting’s start; it does not decide who is hired, and the guide says a window’s score “is not the chance of a good outcome.”
The applicant and the employer: houses and significators
Canopy reads an interview through three planets. The Sun, planet of authority, and Jupiter, planet of favor from above, signify a request to the powerful; for the interview Canopy adds Mercury, the planet of speech. The search elects the meeting for the Sun. Each one’s essential dignity counts in every window, and Jupiter and Mercury lose strength close to the Sun.
Four houses carry the matter, and House Ruler Analysis shows their lords in this order: the first, “Self, body, and overall vitality”, for you; the tenth, “Career, reputation, and authority”, for the employer; the eleventh, “Friends, allies, and aspirations”; and the sixth, “Illness, service, and daily work”, for the work itself. When the lord of the Ascendant, who stands for you, is not stronger than the lord of the tenth, Why this time? says so and the window is held back from the top of the scale, though it is not refused.
When an interview window is set aside
A retrograde significator undoes an election, a rule Canopy draws from Sahl ibn Bishr and the Picatrix. The Sun never turns back, but Jupiter and Mercury do, and while either is retrograde every window is set aside; a range wholly inside such a stretch returns “No window favors your chart in this stretch”. Mercury turns back about three times a year for some three weeks, Jupiter for about four months in every thirteen, so a six-month range is the surer search.
Then the first house, the applicant’s. Sahl and Māshāʾallāh held that a malefic in the first destroys an election, and for an interview Canopy refuses Mars or Saturn anywhere in the rising sign, not only within 3° of the Ascendant as for every purpose.
Mars or Saturn in the tenth, “the employer’s house”, is only a caution that costs the window ground. But if the planet ruling the tenth sign is retrograde or close to the Sun, the window is set aside: while Saturn is retrograde, windows with Aries or Taurus rising, which give him the tenth, are refused, and while Mercury is close to the Sun, so are those with Gemini, Virgo or Sagittarius rising, where he rules the Ascendant or the tenth. So is any window with the Sun in the sixth, eighth or twelfth house, the houses of illness, loss and hidden enemies.
The faults that strike every purpose apply too, among them a combust or void-of-course Moon and the via combusta; the electional astrology guide explains how Canopy reads an election. None is named on screen; a refused window simply never appears.
The best time of day for a job interview
Whole-sign houses turn once a day with the rising sign, so the Sun’s house is a matter of the clock. Roughly, he rises in the first, passes through the twelfth in the morning, stands in the eleventh or tenth around midday, the ninth and eighth in the afternoon, and sinks into the seventh and the sixth around and after sunset. The rule against the twelfth, eighth and sixth therefore removes a stretch of the morning, the hours before sunset and the early evening, by amounts that shift with the season, your latitude and the Sun’s degree. In office hours, late morning and early afternoon are what it leaves open.
The rising sign is the other filter: the hours when the sign holding Mars or Saturn rises are refused. The search does not know office hours either: some of its best windows can fall at four in the morning, so read the times on the cards.
The best planetary hour for a job interview
The tradition gave the Sun’s hour to dealings with those in authority and Jupiter’s to petitions and to whatever one hopes to see increase, as what each hour was used for sets out, and these are the interview’s own hours in Canopy. Jupiter’s counts most, since it also carries the credit of a benefic’s hour, and the Sun’s comes next. The hour of Venus, the other benefic, counts in a window’s favor too. Mercury’s, for all that he is a significator, earns only the small credit it has for any purpose, and the hours of Mars and Saturn count against.
With seven planets and twelve unequal hours of daylight, Jupiter and the Sun each rule at least one hour of every day, and in the Chaldean order the Sun’s hour comes two hours after Jupiter’s. The free planetary hour now tool shows whose hour it is where you are.
The best day for an interview: the Moon’s sign and mansion
The Moon, who changes sign every two to three days, does more than the weekday to set one day apart. Five signs count in an interview window’s favor: Gemini and Virgo, Mercury’s signs, Jupiter’s Sagittarius, and Libra and Aquarius; Libra only up to 19°, where the burnt path begins. Canopy also reads her approach to the Sun: applying by sextile, square, trine or opposition, she counts for more the closer she draws, while her conjunction, short of cazimi, leaves her combust and the window set aside.
Three lunar mansions count in an interview’s favor and one heavily against it, as this purpose’s own scores:
| No. | Mansion | Meaning | Tropical span | For an interview |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | al-Haqʿa | The White Spot | 21°26′ Taurus – 4°17′ Gemini | Counts in its favor |
| 10 | al-Jabha | The Forehead | 25°43′ Cancer – 8°34′ Leo | Counts in its favor |
| 13 | al-ʿAwwāʾ | The Howler | 4°17′–17°09′ Virgo | Counts in its favor |
| 17 | al-Iklīl | The Crown | 25°43′ Libra – 8°34′ Scorpio | Counts heavily against it |
Al-ʿAwwāʾ lies wholly in Virgo, so a Moon there gains for her sign and her mansion at once, as she does in the part of al-Haqʿa that falls in early Gemini. Al-Iklīl lies inside the burnt path, where the window is already refused. Each mansion’s own reading is on what each mansion favors. Two fixed stars are sought, Regulus and Sirius: either adds to the window when its zodiac degree is within one degree of the Ascendant, the Midheaven or the Descendant.
Interviews, reviews and other career meetings
The same purpose times a performance review, a final round or any meeting in which someone who decides things at work weighs you. Sending the application is a separate election, Job Applications & Resumes, which leans on Mercury and the Sun and keeps no rising-sign rule for Mars or Saturn beyond the 3° one every purpose shares. A request to someone in authority goes to Seeking Authority & Approval, and the talk about pay once an offer is made to Negotiations & Disputes.
How to find an auspicious day for a job interview in Canopy
Open Elections, choose Events, check the Location card and, under “What are you electing for?”, pick Job Interviews & Career Meetings, listed under Authority & Work. Set From and To, up to 183 days, about six months, and tap Find Best Moments.
The results list the windows scoring 50% or more, by Soonest or Best Quality. Each card gives the time, the Ascendant, the Midheaven, the hour’s ruler, up to three factors in the window’s favor and the score; open one for House Ruler Analysis and Why this time?, or Set Reminder. If the employer offers slots, search the days on offer: a slot inside a listed window is the one to ask for.
Find your interview window.
Free to download · 7-day free trial where offered · then a subscription · Supports iPhone Duo
Your chart and the interview
The election chart alone decides the ranking; your birth chart, once entered, moves a window’s score by at most ten points either way. An election rising in the sign of your natal tenth counts for the window, unless your natal Mars or Saturn is there; one rising in your natal sixth, eighth or twelfth counts against it, as does an Ascendant or Moon on your natal Mars or Saturn. Your Chart at Election Time sets your natal planets inside and the window’s sky outside. Canopy reads one nativity, yours, never the interviewer’s.
Questions
Is there an auspicious day for a job interview?
Yes, in the tradition’s sense, though it is found, not looked up: the day in your range that holds the strongest window. In Canopy, choose Job Interviews & Career Meetings and a range of up to six months; Find Best Moments ranks the windows. A good window improves the start of the meeting; it does not promise the offer.
What is the best planetary hour for a job interview?
Jupiter’s, then the Sun’s. Both are the interview’s own hours in Canopy, and Jupiter’s also counts as a benefic’s hour. The hour of Venus helps too, the hours of Mercury and the Moon only a little, and the hours of Mars and Saturn count against. A Jupiter hour with Saturn in the rising sign still fails.
What is the best day of the week for a job interview, astrologically?
By the old weekday rulers, the interview’s three significators rule Sunday, the Sun’s day, Wednesday, Mercury’s, and Thursday, Jupiter’s. Canopy weighs the planetary hour rather than the weekday, and every day holds at least one hour of Jupiter and one of the Sun, so a Monday or Friday interview can score as well as a Thursday one. The Moon’s sign does more to separate one day from the next.
What is the best time of day to have a job interview?
Roughly, late morning and early afternoon, within office hours. Canopy sets an interview window aside when the Sun stands in the twelfth, eighth or sixth house, which takes out a stretch of the morning, the hours before sunset and the early evening, and when Mars or Saturn is in the rising sign.
Is Mercury retrograde bad for a job interview?
In Canopy it closes the search. Mercury is one of the interview’s three significators, and a retrograde significator undoes an election, so for the three weeks or so of each retrograde the interview search finds no window. The same holds while Jupiter is retrograde. If the date is yours to choose, widen the range past it.
Can astrology tell whether you will get the job?
Not in Canopy. That question belongs to horary astrology, the chart cast for the moment a question is asked, and Canopy does not cast horary charts. It times the beginning of the meeting, and its guide says a window’s score is not the chance of a good outcome.