When Will I get Interview Feedback

A candidate recently emailed a question to me that’s a pretty common experience for some interviewees.

You’ve probably been in the same position as well.

This individual an experienced CNC Programmer had attended an interview via another Recruitment Agency with a company that he was keen to work for.

The company are local too him (he could walk to work) and the work is interesting

The email follows:

Hi Sean

I’m still waiting to hear back from the second interview at XXXXX.

You seemed to know about this type of thing the last time I spoke with you, I was wondering if you had any idea why something like this would drag on for so long?

It’s been 3 weeks since the second interview and I waited 6 weeks after the first before hearing anything. I don’t want to get my hopes up about it just in case, but I believe if it was a ‘no’ I’d have heard by now.

Regards

XXXXX

My response to him was as follows

Hi XXXX

In my experience it’s not unusual for response from an interview to take anything between 5 minutes and 6 weeks.

Frustrating I know.

The bigger the company the more people need to be involved in the decision making process.

A good agent should be able to let you know where the company are in terms of making a decision by talking to their contact and reminding them that talented individuals like you don’t wait for very long

I’ve also experienced companies not making a decision because the answer is no, and either the interviewing manager hasn’t fed that back to the HR department, or the information has been passed on to the agent and they haven’t told you.

Some agencies and even hiring  managers I’m afraid either don’t like making a call like that or consider it a waste of time.

It may be that you’ll need to call the agent to find out – or they’ll let you know if you call in.

You could consider emailing the company (via the introducing agent) thanking them for their time and confirming your interest in the position or if it drags on too long emailing to let them know you’ll assume if you don’t hear back from them you’ll consider yourself unsuccessful and start looking again.

Hope this helps

Regards

Sean

The truth is anything could be happening, but the point is that the candidate would appreciate knowing where they are in the process with their application.

It’s a basic courtesy to feed this information back and with so many mediums available like

• Text message
• Email
• Direct message through social network
• Phone Call
• Letter

It’s hard to see a reason why information  like this isn’t passed on quicker.

Has this happened to you? Do you do this? Post a comment below.