Waiting for a Job offer after Interview
Waiting to find out the results of an interview is one of the worst frustrations experienced by job seekers. Do not expect the ideal feedback loop after an interview.
Information hand-off regarding the status of your candidacy from client (to recruiter, if one is involved) to you may take days, weeks, or sometimes months. The bottleneck can be the company.
One reason an HR professional might not send a reject letterand end the misery could be that the search is continuing for the“perfect” candidate.
When none is found some months hence, the company’s head of recruiting wants the ability to reopen discussions with earlier candidates. That is no excuse. The company should send candidates a status letter regardless of the situation.
Recruiters can be your best friends when they promote your candidacy with a client; but they can avoid your repeated calls when you are not the preferred candidate.
Lack of feedback from a recruiter might be due to other candidates going back for multiple interviews and the recruiter does not wish to share the bad news.
She might be using you as backup if top candidates get eliminated and does not want you to lose interest in the client opportunity. Another reason for no feedback could be that you were submitted to a client by a recruiter who never learned the proper protocol of keeping candidates up-to-date.
Fear of rejection and the accompanying anxiety are common concerns after an interview. The best way to suppress those feelings is to take control and bring the waiting period to a conclusion as quickly as possible.
At the same time, increase the pace of networking, attend seminars, and perform other job search activities to divert your focus from waiting for a gatekeeper’s call.
At the end of each interview, you should ask the HR managerwhen feedback might be expected, and you should inform the recruiter so you can both be frustrated. If there is no recruiter, you will wait alone.
The day after the news is due, send an e-mail and/or callthe recruiter or company recruiting manager to ask for the status of your candidacy. If the recruiter ignores your repeated calls, then you should consider sending a nonintrusive e-mail to the human resources contact only if you established a rapport.
The e-mail message should indicate that you have not heard from the recruiter, assuming there is one, and you are still very interested in the opportunity. Add that you would appreciate an update on the timing of the next step in the interview process.
Another means to determine interview status is to e-mail a company interviewer with whom you established rapport, expressing your understanding that the person may not be in a position to give you an answer.
