Job Interview Advice Question

seeking help from my T2V friends once again --

The hubby was contacted by a recruiter for a pretty high -level position in a new company. It is definitely a job he wants and would be really good for us financially.

They had him do 2 phone interviews, 1 face to face with who would be his immediate manager...the drug test, background check and then one last face to face with the CEO. This has taken a course of over 2 weeks. The CEO interview was this past Monday evening. He hasn't heard anything back yet....should we be worried? He said that he thinks that went well, the guy was hard to figure out...over the phone he couldn't tell one way or the other if he was liked or not.

No worries on the drug/background checks...my husband is as clean as a dog's tongue... ahem... or whatever.

How long do you think he should go without saying something -- and if he doesn't hear by Friday, should he follow up with a call or email? He already sent a thank you note yesterday to the HR lady who had arranged all of these meetings.

Thoughts?

 

I don't ever think an e-mail thanking them again, and saying how interested in the position he is - hurts. It puts his name back on their mind.

 

Is it an external recruiter? If so I would have him/her contact the prospective employer and find out what's up? Did your husband get any feedback from the recruiter after the last interview?

 

Does the position require board approval for the hire? If so that may be the hold-up. The company may have other interviews lined up, or just keep the listing open for some prescribed period of time & won't contact him again until the process is complete.

Didn't they give him a time frame to expect a decision?

Good Luck!

 

Thank you Josie! IOM -- It was an external recruiter who originallly put him in contact with the HR director at the company who organized all the interviews. There hasn't been any feedback given since this last one....

 

I agree that you should reach out to the recruiter. Assuming the recruiter is external, they have a financial interest in seeing you husband get the job. They can do the heavy lifting and they have the relationship with the people in HR to get you the update. I work in the legal world and I got my last job through an external recruiter. The process took longer than expected but one has to realize that people are multi-tasking and there is inherent bureaucratic red tape in any hiring decision.

 

Give the employer time to think about it.

I think it is too soon to start worrying if your husband has the job.

There could have been another candidate for the job that was equally impressive. They may offer the job to their first choice but if their favorite
choice rejects the job then maybe they will call your husband.

Another reason could be that the employer needs some time to decide
when they want to offer your husband the job.

Their accountant could be looking over the budget to decide when is the
best time to hire someone.

Sometimes it takes weeks before a company makes a decision.
They may not be finished interviewing. They could be wanting to interview
someone from another state and they have to wait for that person.

If your husband was interviewed towards the end of the interviews.... he may be called soon.

 

I would think that those are questions that would have been appropriate when asked if there were any quesion(s) like: When would the position be available? How soon after the interview would the decision be made? Would he be contacted if he got the position or not? If given the position, would I be given sufficient time to leave my current position? Am not an expert on interviews so those are just my thoughts.

Since the interview took place in a span of two weeks, my thoughts are to wait until Monday (week later) and ask. Since he has the HR email address, I do not see any harm in asking them.

 

Job

HawJohn is right about those questions an applicant should ask when the
interviewer asks the person if they have any questions.

I always used to ask how soon will a decision be made.

I asked that question on one interview. The answer was that by Monday
they would know. I was the only one interviewing on a Friday. Which
meant that no more people were going to be interviewing on Monday.

But I had to wait one month before they offerred sp me the job.

One of the workers called me to tell me to just wait and I would be
called because I did get the job. I was the only applicant. "WHEW".
It was nice of that worker to tell me in advance. But most workers
will not risk giving that type of info. to a stranger because the company
can change their minds.

I have lost a job in my work life because the job was given to a friend of the
employer. I was better qualified but that happens to people all the time.

 

As someone who owns & runs a fairly substantial [100+ employees] consulting firm & does a lot of hiring, my two cents are:

If he made it through 4 rounds of interviews [2 phone, 2 in person - 1 w/ CEO] then he is definitely one of the candidates they are seriously considering.

Since the interview was Monday and he has already sent a thank you, I would wait until Monday of next week & then not just write/e-mail again, but call the recruiter - assuming the recruiter has been his primary contact throughout the process. However, if the recruiter only got him the first contact, but he has since had a primary contact with the company that he has dealt with, he might consider calling them as well.

Generally, if a company has sourced out to a recruiter, they prefer to make hiring notifications through the recruiter [they may even have to for contractual reasons] - but if once the recruiter got him in the door, someone at the company [either the HR person or person/department head he would either be working under or most closely with] has since handled most of the contact with him - scheduling the interviews, being present or facilitating those interviews, etc. - then it would seem the company is handling him directly enough that I would say definitely call that person as well.

But I'd wait until Monday at the earliest to call or write another thank you - Higher level positions usually take much longer for a decision to be made for several reasons - the interview process is more rigorous, the candidates and/or senior people doing the final rounds of interviews may have more crowded schedules that make getting all the candidates interviewed in a timely fashion more difficult, [as others have mentioned] there may also be a board or committee that needs to meet and come to a decision on the hire.

There's also likely a hierarchy of candidates - and the offer will go out one at a time, and if the first choice turns it down, it will go to the second choice, etc. which can also take time.

 

Did he send a thank you note to any of the people who interviewed him? That's what I've always done (in addition to the HR person...) The other factors that have been raised (type of business, size of business- potential red tape/timing delays in hiring in some fields & larger companies etc) all play a role, of course....

 

Thanks guys, sorry I was real busy today and couldn't get back to read your responses. Yes, he did thank everyone...now it's just a waiting game. In the past decisions seemed to have been made pretty quickly after the last interview but this company might be different. I'm telling my husband not to get depressed just yet. I'm not sure if he asked them when the decision would be made but I would assume he did.

Thank you for all the advice, it all is very helpful and makes sense. Right after he was laid off from a job about 3-4 years ago, he went through some vigorous interviewing with this one company. They even asked him to drive out 5 hours to Houston to meet with the franchise owner -- the last contact before the decision was made. The guy who would've been his boss said 'don't wrory, you have the job he just wants to meet you". Well, he did make the drive there and back in one day and then was told a few days later -- nah, sorry you didn't get the job...the franchise owner had someone else in mind. That just plain sucked.

 

Here's the update -- a week, 2 phone calls and an email later and still no response from these people. I think that's really crappy and unprofessional. If he didn't get the job then why not be honest and tell him. If they are still deciding then why not just call and say so??

 

Sounds like he may not get it, instead of getting bitter he needs to think about that interview, and try to figure out where he slipped up. Just a suggestion.

 

Wow, I don't know what field this is, but in my field- 2 weeks is NOTHING. Obviously, we try to notify people quickly if we can, but with travel schedules & interview schedules, it's a miracle if things happen in a month....

That said, I would hope they would have given him some sort of timeline......

 

I agree with Hoya - in the big scheme of things, a week or two is not a long time to wait for a decision, particularly for a high-level position.

As for them not calling back? Who? You mentioned a recruiter earlier iirc, so who is not calling back, the recruiter? Anyone from the company? Both? There could be some confusion over who is supposed to be the point of contact. Can you clarify better who he's called & e-mailed, & who exactly hasn't gotten back to him yet?

I wouldn't completely give up hope or do anything rash yet.

 

Two weeks is not really long at all

It seems long 'cause you are anxious. Just give it time.

I hope it works out.

 

I guess we are just being impatient. He called the recruiter, the gal who is in HR that sent him all his paperwork and set up all the interviews and also the guy he interviewed with face to face -- his would-be boss. No calls back, no emails back...nothing. You would think at least they would tell him they are still in the decision making process. No replies at all seems kind of unprofessional to me....I dunno....in my past and his, job offers have been made at least within a week of the final interview. Or, at least they tell him that it will be a while.

Thanks guys, you still give us a bit of hope!