ask a boss

'I Had a Great Chore Interview — Why Haven't I Heard Back?'

Photo-Analogy: by The Cutting; Photos: Getty Images

You had a corking job interview, seemed to connect with your interviewer, and left feeling good about your chances. The employer told you lot to await to hear something in a week … simply at present two weeks have gone past and you've heard nothing. Should you lot achieve back out? Is the silence a bad sign? And for the honey of god, why are they putting you through this?

If there'due south one feel about every job seeker has, it's this one. Even employers who provide candidates with a very precise timeline for when they plan to be in affect ("we volition attain out to all applicants no subsequently than the 15th") oft miss their promised deadlines — sometimes by a lot — without bothering to update you. And some employers never go back to candidates at all, instead just full-on ghosting them even after multiple rounds of interviews. This, of course, leaves candidates frantically checking their missed calls and wondering if they're still in consideration, or if no one bothered to tell them they've been rejected.

An awful lot of employers simply don't carp to contact candidates until they take something definite to say, even when they're well past the timeline they told you to expect. That's not a great practice, of course — ideally they'd write back to say, for example, "Things are taking longer than we expected but I should be in affect in another week or two." But realistically, hiring managers are decorated and often pulled in a agglomeration of directions, and hiring can stop upwardly lower on their list than work projects with pressing deadlines at present. (Since this is a common point of confusion: "hiring director" means the person who will be managing you lot once y'all're hired, not the person who's in accuse of all the organization's hiring. And so they often have other, college priorities.)

Plus, you never know what's going on behind-the-scenes. Maybe the hiring director is out sick, or unexpectedly had to get out of boondocks. Possibly a last-minute candidate emerged and they need fourth dimension to interview them. Possibly the CEO announced at the concluding minute that she wants to sign off on the final hire, and they're debating whether to bring people dorsum in for final interviews. Maybe a central person on the squad resigned and now they're thinking about reconfiguring the function. Maybe they've had a project explode spectacularly and that's all anyone over there is dealing with right at present. Who knows. Information technology's actually impossible to tell from the outside what might be going on that could massively mess with their hiring plans or hiring timeline.

For candidates, this means that no thing how well your interview went, you should always avoid the trap of thinking a job is a lock, because hiring is never a sure thing. Y'all can exist a stunningly perfect candidate for the job, and then some other candidate can come up forth who's even stronger. Or y'all can be perfect but they decide at the last minute that they really need to go with someone who speaks Flemish. Or an internal candidate expresses interest and they value a known quantity over an unknown quantity. That's just how this goes.

Information technology'south one thing to take a footling longer than planned to get dorsum to people, or to accept to turn down someone who idea they'd nearly clinched the task. But it's another affair to only never become back to people at all — and it'southward irritatingly common.

Employers who ghost candidates defend themselves past proverb that they don't have the time to get back to every applicant, simply that'due south pretty ludicrous in the days of electronic applicant management systems, which volition send rejections with the click of a few buttons. (It was also a pretty ludicrous claim before those systems.) It's incredibly rude and inconsiderate not to get back to people after interviews, particularly afterwards someone has taken fourth dimension off work, maybe bought a new accommodate or traveled a long distance, and invested time and free energy into preparing for the interview. Only information technology's really, really mutual, and then if yous haven't heard back for a long fourth dimension after your interview, it'due south always possible that's happening.

The frustrating thing is that you can't know for certain what's going on. Maybe y'all're existence ghosted and will never hear from this employer over again, or mayhap you're going to hear dorsum this calendar week, or maybe yous're going to hear back in ii months, long afterwards you've given upward hope. The most important affair to remember is that if they want to offering you a job, they'll exist in touch. If you're their top candidate, they're not going to forget about you lot over the next few weeks, or fifty-fifty over the next few months, just because yous don't proceed checking in. So you don't need to worry that y'all need to keep nudging them or find ways to stay on their radar. If at some point they desire to move forwards, they'll let you lot know.

It'south fine to cheque in once when yous're past the betoken when you would have expected to hear something. Wait about a week past their stated timeline and so send an email saying something similar, "I'thousand even so very interested and wondered if you had an update on your timeline for next steps that y'all could share with me."

But across that, there's not a lot of use in continually nudging them or finding ways to stay on their radar. If at some point they desire to move forward, they'll let you know.

Meanwhile, though, the all-time thing you can practice for your own peace of mind is to assume yous didn't get the task and move on. Otherwise you'll be stuck in this angst-filled limbo, wondering if you're going to hear from them today, or mayhap tomorrow, or what all this silence means, and did you offend someone in the interview, or maybe your skills aren't equally impressive as you thought they were, and agggghhhh. It's so much simpler to simply decide that you didn't get the job and put it out of your head. Then, if they practise contact you at some betoken, information technology can be a pleasant surprise, rather than the thing that y'all have been pinning all your anxious energies on.

Society Alison Green's volume, Ask a Director: Clueless Colleagues, Luncheon-Stealing Bosses, and the Rest of Your Life at Work, here. Got a question for her? Email askaboss@nymag.com. Her communication cavalcade appears here every Tuesday.

'I Had a Dandy Task Interview — Why Oasis't I Heard Dorsum?'