Why does it sometimes take so long to hear back after an interview? How long is reasonable?
What can you do if you feel like you’re being ghosted by a potential employer?
In this episode of The Career Rx we’ll discuss:
- What the internal processes and approvals might slow things down
- When multiple candidates are under consideration
- The potential for hiring freezes or other corporate actions
Listening to this episode will help you understand why you might not hear back from a company right away after an interview, and provide you with practical advice on how to handle the situation. Some things are out of your control, but this episode will help you navigate ahead and make the most of what you can – and should – do after an interview.
In this Episode:
[2:00] Have you really been ghosted? And 5 other reasons you haven’t heard back.
[5:17] Internal red tape that can slow things down (and have nothing to do with you)
[8:20] When it’s not about you, but it IS about someone else
[14:00] So, what can you actually DO in this situation?
[22:20] Never give up!
Links and Resources:
Industry Insider – 12 hours of CME, learn exactly how to land a rewarding nonclinical career without a new degree, special connections, prior experience, or a pay cut
Episode 108 – What You Need to Know About Why You Didn’t Get the Job
Episode 127 – How to Get Helpful Feedback From a Job Interview
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TRANSCRIPT: Episode 129 – What to Do After the Interview (Are They Ghosting You?)
Hey, there. Welcome back. Today, we’re going to be talking about what to do when the interview is over, and especially what to do when you feel like you’re being ghosted. This happens a lot where people have what they think is a really great interview, and perhaps the interview process moved pretty quickly for you, and then there’s this feeling like you’re going to be hearing back soon, and days and sometimes weeks or longer goes by and you haven’t heard back. And this can be really unsettling for candidates, understandably so. And so what is going on in this episode.
I’m going to break down for you what some of the reasons are that it may take longer than you expect for you to hear back, not only that you potentially have been ghosted, but really, what are some of the other things that might be happening behind the scenes that have nothing to do with you or your competitiveness or your candidacy, or whether you’ll actually get the job?
Have nothing to do with that, but are dragging out the timeline, and I’ll also give you some tips on what to do in the meantime.
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Okay, back to the topic at hand, starting with the first half. You know what is happening? Have you been ghosted? Let’s get into that. There are a handful of things that could be going on that, as I’ve said, really have nothing to do with you. It can often take a lot longer than you expect, and frankly, a lot longer than they expect.
From the time that the company decides to fill a role, they always will say to themselves, you know, internally, they want to move quickly. They of course, want to find the right candidate, but if they already have a need for the role, they don’t want to let it linger. And as you know, it’s sort of industry standard to give about two weeks of notice.
So it could be that someone has moved on and they have a role, they don’t want to let that be open for a long time. So they always want
to move quickly, and it always seems like it just takes longer than one expects. So there are a handful of reasons for that. The first is that they’re dealing with other candidates, right? They’re trying to interview a certain slate of candidates.
Usually, what will happen is but the company will have the applications open for a certain period of time until they’ve identified a relatively small list of people that they want to put forth for an interview. Sometimes in the middle there are screening interviews or informal conversations, but at a certain point, they will choose a short list of candidates, and they’ll have that candidate interview, and usually it’s with a panel of people internally.
And depending upon the seniority, the panel may be quite busy themselves, right? They’re busy, and the candidates, of course, are also busy. All of these people are coming from other either pharmaceutical or clinical jobs, right where they really can’t just drop their schedule on a dime for an interview.
So keep in mind that the company is progressing a handful of people, and those people need to have their own schedules line up with an entire panel of people inside the company. So even though it’s great if they can condense that into a couple weeks time.
Sometimes it does take longer than that, and they do want to be sure that they’re giving, you know, the a fair and equal experience to all the candidates that they’re bringing in.
So sometimes it just takes a while. Maybe there’s a really key person on that panel who’s out of the office for some reason or another, and so this, it’s just purely logistics. They have to get through everybody on their candidate panel in order to land a decision in the first place.
So if you happen to come in at the beginning of that set of candidates, then it might be a couple of weeks, and that to you will feel like, how come they can’t make a decision?
They can’t make a decision because they haven’t had a chance to evaluate everyone else yet. So I think that that’s one thing keep in mind, it’s candidate and internal panel timelines that can stretch this out.
The second thing, related but slightly different, is competing priorities. Now for this. I’m talking about the people who are working at the company, and this will impact, I suppose, their schedule to be able to interview you, but also, you know, to make decisions and to move ahead with anything else.
These folks are busy. That’s why they had they have more work than they can get done. That’s why they’re hiring, right? And so because of that, they have, maybe priorities that are taking precedent over the hiring process there.
You know, they’re looking at the hiring as another project on their plate, but they have other things that they need to put their attention on for a given period of time.
And so sometimes that can be the thing that that kind of stretches out the timeline that the people who are actually trying to do the hiring are.
They have more than just that on their plate, and they’re trying to get that done, and then that does have the sort of rollover effect of impacting not only their availability timelines, but really just, you know, whether they’re going to even be thinking about it that day or that week.
The third reason it can take longer than expected is the internal processes and approvals that revolve around the hiring. So a lot of times this is understood in advance. You know, they know who needs to be at the table. They know, you know is there is their boss going to want to interview the candidate that they choose to hire.
So sometimes after what you think is the full process, and even after the hiring manager thinks they have completed the process. Sometimes there are additional steps. Almost always, there will be some kind of a debriefing where the whole panel will get together and discuss all of the candidates. So that’s something that has to get on the calendar.
But sometimes there will be higher level approvals, or other people across the business that that you want to meet the candidate before you make a final selection. So sometimes there’s just sort of another round that comes up that
wasn’t part of the original plan. And even if it’s not something like that, it’s just these, these internal processes, these internal approvals that just may take a little bit of time. You have to remember that again, there’s people involved every step of the way.
So the hiring manager, the panel that you’ve interviewed, with the person in HR who is taking the lead on this hiring, and any number of other folks are involved, and so just kind of getting everybody together to have a conversation and align on a decision can sometimes take a little bit of time, and it can take even more time if you have something going on at the corporate level.
So this is bringing me into a number four. If there is something within the company that is either a change in priority, a change in budget, maybe there’s a second look at the role and whether or not it is required.
This kind of thing happens more than you might think. Where they’ve decided, you know, say someone, for example, moves on to a new role, therefore their role is open.
Usually, people will move to fill that role right away, but in the period of time where that role is posted, people will start to think a little bit more critically about, you know, are there other things that we would do with this headcount, and that’s the way these companies work, right?
You have x number of boxes, for lack of a better word, that you can put a person in at a certain level, because that’s how many a head count you have, and that’s the budget that you have allocated to that part of the organization. And they might realize, you know, Hey, I wonder if actually, instead of refilling or refilling instead of backfilling the same role.
What if we put somebody in that had a slightly different role, and then if they start to have that conversation, you know, then they’re obviously not going to want to finalize the higher right? So they’re having deeper and sort of broader conversations.
This can also happen at a sort of organization wide level where, and this is not uncommon, towards the end of the fiscal year, well, there will be a hiring freeze, and the company as a whole, you know, again, at a very high level, is evaluating the staff that they have and the way in which they’re allocating their headcount across the organization, and what their budget is and what their future organizational plans are.
And so sometimes they’ll ask literally everybody to just stop in the middle of any and all recruiting and hiring that they do. And it doesn’t mean that they’re not going to turn it back on. And sometimes six weeks will go by, and then they’ll say, okay, great, go ahead like everyone’s plans, move ahead, just as previously planned.
But that does put a really artificial pause period in there, and there’s nothing that can be done about that. That’s also probably not something that would be communicated to you by HR, right, for a host of probably obvious reasons, but they’re probably not going to be able to tell you that directly.
So if you have interviewed and then suddenly there’s a hiring freeze, I would hope they will find some way of communicating with you about the timeline and the next steps, but they’re very unlikely to say, hey, you know, our organization is having some thoughts about this department or that. I mean, those are just usually not public pieces of information, so you’re unlikely to get that.
But what’s important to remember about this and the internal processes and the competing priorities, and you know this, and the other three things we’ve just talked about is none of them have anything to do with you.
And if you hear nothing else, hear that they have nothing to do with you. And yet, this is what happens, right? Candidates have what they felt like, it was a pretty good interview. They’re really excited. They’re eager for the job.
Either way, they kind of just want to know, you know, what’s the result. And so it can feel like torture when the timeline gets drawn out. And where most people go mentally is inward, right? Like, oh, there’s something about me. They’re not sure about me. They don’t want to hire me. Somebody else is better, and so forth.
And a lot of times, most of the time, the timeline has. Nothing to do with you at all, and definitely nothing to do with your competitiveness or your candidacy or whether they ultimately intend to offer you the job. Most of the time, that’s just not the case.
But the fifth example here that I’ll give you it could be the case. So here is another scenario in which the timeline is drawn out and it is about you, actually less about you, and more about somebody else. What oftentimes can happen is it’s really competitive, right? They have a lot of great candidates. You are among those really great candidates.
They’ve decided for some reason that a different candidate is their top choice. When they extend an offer to that person, that is probably not the time that they will tell the other candidates that they’re rejected. Why? Because they’re not actually rejected yet, right? You extend an offer to your top candidate, and then what happens?
Then there’s some type of negotiation that occurs, and that can sometimes, it can sometimes be quite short, a couple days, it sometimes can be a few weeks and then that person accepts the offer or doesn’t, and realize anyone who’s looking for a job, you know, they may decide to stay where they are.
They may choose a different job. They might take the job that they’ve interviewed for. So just because the company is ready to extend an offer, they know that doesn’t mean that offer is going to get accepted, and so they’re unlikely to want to part with their other great candidates that they also feel you know very favorably about, until that is sort of a done deal, right?
So it could be that they have chosen somebody else ahead of you, and that they’re in the process now of negotiating an offer that they hope to land.
So at some point in that time frame, obviously, you know, companies with integrity are going to let you know what’s going on, but it might be that you were their second choice. And you know, to be honest, I don’t think that’s anything to be upset about.
If the first person does fall through and they come back to you and they make you an offer, I think that’s great, right to me, that doesn’t make me want that job any less, just because they had entertained somebody else for it. So I would not take that personally.
I would do my absolute best to not be worried about that if the job offer comes back your way, You know they’re working through with right now, and the reason that they haven’t provided you with the rejection is actually because they really like you, they think very strongly about you, and they don’t want to let you go, because there might be some other opportunity for you, or that might be that they absolutely want you, if this other person does not work out, so that could be a reason for a prolonged period of time.
Then the final one, which I guess I’ll call number six, like, maybe they’re ghosting you. That’s really unfortunate when that happens. I would like to think you at least get, you know, an automated Robo rejection letter. It is awful to just be kind of left hanging there, and, you know, I don’t think that reflects well on a company.
It is certainly not a good experience as a candidate. I suppose it’s possible, right? That might be what’s going on. I hope that that is a really small number of cases. But this leads us to the second part of the episode, which is, well, great.
So what do you do in the meantime? Right? What can you do? Because you’re not going to know which of these things it is. You know, are they having
just timeline issues, competing priorities? Do they have another candidate? Are they ghosting you? There’s really no way to know in the moment which of those things is going on.
So what do you do? I’m going to give you three steps, or tips, or however you want to look at it, for what I think you ought to do after you’ve had an interview.
Some of these are more for your own mental health or your own state of mind, rather than really an action that’s going to change the outcome for you in terms of getting the job or not getting the job. But these are three things that you should definitely do.
They’re, they’re really worthwhile, and I think they’re, they’re actions that you can take that are really productive.
So the first is, don’t take it personally and be pleasantly persistent. You’ve heard me say it on the show before. It is always a good idea to send thank you letters, of course, to everybody that you interviewed with, even if they don’t get back to you.
So they may not always do that, and it is absolutely okay. And I. Fact, I think a good idea to follow up both with the HR person who is running the recruitment as well as the hiring manager, on some kind of cadence, right, to let them know that you are still interested. I’m assuming you’re still interested. If you are still interested, then you could follow up.
Now, don’t follow up every day, right? Keep in mind the things we just talked about, but maybe you follow up weekly, or maybe, you know, it’s every 10 days, or something like that, a reasonable period of time where you pop back into their inbox to just remind them that you remain enthusiastic and interested. And you can ask, you can ask if there’s any additional information that you could provide them.
You could ask if they have any information about the status of the of the role and the decisions. You can ask if they have any updates on next steps or timelines. I mean, there’s sort of a handful of ways that you could ask this question and that. So if you need to do it a few times, you know. Can you provide an update on timeline for next steps are, have there been any developments? That’s sort of vague, right?
But you’re basically just asking, you know, is there an update on the standing, for the hiring, anything like that? And just pleasantly persistent, and just stay in touch, right and never take any of it personally. Don’t let it accumulate.
If you’re reaching out for the third time, don’t make it, you know. Don’t give it a tone like you’re reaching out for the third time. Give it the same tone you would give if you were just following up the first time. Because, again, a lot of times things are going on that they really cannot talk to you about. So they’re in an awkward enough situation as it is, because they can’t explain really what’s happening.
So for you to just continue to show up, professionally, pleasantly persistent, I’m still interested, is perhaps the only thing that you can do to try to continue to get information, if you’re not getting it already, and to try to continue to make a good impression. Right? As someone that is interested.
Okay, the second thing that you can do, and I strongly recommend that you do this every time, is this is the time to reflect on the interview and prepare. Prepare for what you just had a job interview.
You probably will have more but think about the questions that you were asked. Think about the way in which you responded. Think about the things that came up during the interview, and are they reflected well on your resume or your cover letter, like there are actions that you can take.
While all of this is really fresh in your mind, did you answer a question the way that you thought to or did you have some big aha moment? You know, when you woke up the next morning and it was a little bit too late, this is a great time to capture all of that, because, if nothing else, the fact that you just had a great interview means you had some really good practice.
And so you can make that even more instructive for yourself by really thinking about how it went, writing down the notes about what you were asked and thinking about how you answered, whether or not you put your best self forward, whether you could have answered things in a different way, whether the things that were emphasized in the interview are on your resume. Well, right?
This so this is a really great time to take action. In the aftermath of the interview, while the interview itself is fresh, it will only help you to be better and better next time.
And then speaking of next time, this is the third thing that you should do after the interview, keep applying to other roles. If you are actively looking for a new role, if you applied to this just because this one thing interested you and that nothing else interests you, then maybe you don’t keep applying.
But if you are looking for a new job, you are actively trying to transition into a new field, get a new type of role, keep applying, and do not let the fact that you’ve had this interview and you’re waiting for an answer have any bearing whatsoever on what you do next. Do not let it be a factor at all. The reason for that is this timeline could drag on for a long time.
It could be that at the end of that long time you hear nothing and you have been ghosted. That’s really unfortunate. Or it could be at the end of that long time you do get rejected and you don’t have a job, so you do not let this sort of limbo status influence you at all in terms of, you know, slowing down or stopping your applications, or in terms of trying to make decisions about what you want to do with your current role or what you might do with a different offer.
Right? People get very, very tripped up in that, because they feel like they’re very, very close to an offer. But if you don’t have an offer in hand. You don’t have an offer in hand, and so you should continue to do whatever you would otherwise be doing for your career, you know, working hard in the role that you’re in, thinking and pursuing the role that you want to be in, regardless of the outcome of this role, because you have no idea how long it may take, or if you will ever.
I get sort of the closure of that now, again, I really hope that’s the minority of cases, and that it doesn’t usually feel that way for you, but don’t ever put yourself on hold while you’re waiting to hear back from a company that is just it’s not smart, it’s not a good use of your time.
It is perfectly all right for you to be interviewing with other companies at the time that you get an offer. And in fact, then you may end up in a situation where you have multiple offers in hand and you may have some you know, it’s a great problem to have, right?
You have a handful of things that you can consider, but don’t ever put it on hold just because you’re waiting to hear back, because you do not know how long that will take, especially in industry, things can be so unpredictable.
Sometimes you’ll hear back very, very quickly. Things move lightning speed, and sometimes they just drag out. They take forever.
So to recap, you know, have you been ghosted? There’s at least five other things that we talked about that could be going on. So I hope that those are helpful for you.
When you think about what’s taking so long, if something’s taking longer than expected, I do recommend, by the way that you, that you as when you’re you know, wrapping up your interviews with people that you ask what you know, what is the next step and what is their anticipated timeline.
They won’t always be correct about this, right? Some of the things we talked about can happen and throw a wrench in their plans also, but you may as well ask right? When you’re thanking them for their time and you’re about to hang up the phone or walk out of the office or whatever the case may be, there’s no reason that you shouldn’t ask that question.
And if they can provide you with some kind of a timeline range, then that’s fantastic. So always ask. But
in any case, there’s, there’s at least four or five reasons we’ve talked about that have nothing to do with you that could be the reason that the timeline is dragging out and it’s not ghosting you.
So I hope that helps, and then in the meantime, the things for you to do so that you can be active and take control over your career again, pleasantly persistent, reflecting and preparing based on what occurred, and do not let this feeling of limbo be a factor at all in any of your next actions continue to apply.
Continue to do what you would be doing if you had been outright rejected. That’s what you should do. And you’re mentally like, that’s what you should go ahead and do. I think also, if you are enjoying this podcast, you should be listening to Episode 108 in which we talk about the various reasons why you didn’t get the job.
So if you have had interviews and you haven’t been successful, listen to 108 and also check out Episode 127 on how to get helpful feedback from an interview, even when they aren’t telling you anything. Many of you have had this experience where you get a rejection letter and it doesn’t say anything helpful.
There’s no real feedback there, other than they chose to go with someone else. But in episode 127 I lay out for you how you can essentially glean feedback from the interview process itself, even when it’s not explicitly offered to you. So don’t miss that one. These will help you. And just keep in mind it almost always is not about you.
Never let the rejections get you down. That is just part of the process, and it happens to everyone. Happens to the best of everyone, it will happen to you, but also, if you are pleasantly persistent, and you stick with it, and you use the strategies in this podcast, you will find yourself having success. So just hang in there.
Put on that Teflon. Do not take any of it personally. Okay? I hope that helps you to know what to do after the interview and what to think about after the interview. That’s it for today’s episode. Bye for now you.
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