Friday

I’m a senior in undergrad about to interview for my dream job. I’m interviewing the Friday of the week they’re making hiring decisions. To break it down, let’s say the interview process is happening over a span of 3 weeks. At the end of week 1 was my recruiter call. She said that I’d hear back in the middle of week 2, have my interview during week 2 or early week 3, because the hiring manager wanted to make a hiring decision by the end of week 3. The original hiring manager was going to be out during week 2, so someone was gonna step in for them. Cool. Well, I end up hearing back just a couple of hours after the call (still week 1), but the only interview times they give me are for mid-late week 3. I have to interview Friday because of my schedule, which basically means my interview will end 3:30pm their time at the end of week 3. I asked the HR person if they’ll still be making a hiring decision week 3 and she said yes. I know it doesn’t help to speculate, but is this a possibly good thing (they’re pretty sure they wanna hire me and will make a decision quickly), or a bad thing (they’re pretty sure they don’t wanna hire me but are interviewing me for some x reason)? Also, I graduate early May, and would like to start working in June if I can help it as i have a grad trip planned with my friends, but I’d rather start early and miss the trip if it means getting the job. If they ask me when I can start, would it hurt my chances to be say I’d prefer starting in June? Or should I stick to something like “as soon as needed after graduation”. The most important thing to me is getting the job, so I don’t mind having a lower than expected salary but would like to avoid being lowballed if I can help it. I have two other offers that are in the higher range of what’s being offered. I’ll give a fake range like $10k-30k, my other offers being closer to $30k. But what I want to know if it’ll hurt my chances saying that I want the $30k salary, provided I can back it up with my other offers? Again, for a multitude of reasons besides salary this is my dream job and most important thing is for me to get it. I just wanna know if it’ll hurt me to say I want the higher salary. TLDR; am I really gonna hear back 1.5 hours after my interview? Does it hurt to ask for a later start date and higher salary during an interview?