How long does it take to hear back from an employer after an interview?

Rockporkchop

talksr wrote: »

The email the director had setup was bouncing back all e-mails. This was the only form of contact he had provided. So the poor bloke had no other way, he had tried e-mailing many times, now tried calling. There are a good few applications coming in, I have spoken with the director and understand there are lots, but an attitude like that does not help. The job role is for an IT technician, however his skills would not be useful if every e-mail he is sending to the advertised e-mail address is just bouncing back.

Presumably the guy knows the name of the company though, and the name of the director from his email address? He could easily find out the address and post or hand deliver his CV if he was that keen. Or the guy could have asked you for your email address and sent the CV to you so you could have passed that to the director instead of the note you did hand him. There is always an alternative way to do something, and showing a bit of initiative would be good for his application.

loisa

I went for an interview last week and was told : "We want to move quickly with this... so we will let you know by the end of next week"
I wouldn't exactly call that quick! They are cutting it fine now as the end of the week is very nearly upon us...

Another interview I went to, had to travel to the other side of the city for a three hour interview including presentations about how great their company is, roleplays and a really tough competancy interview.

They let me know I was unsuccessful by standard letter, I was really annoyed about that, it seemed so impersonal. I thought the interview had gone well so I called for feedback and it took another week for someone to get back to me!

I appreciate how hard it must be to break bad news to someone by telephone so I have a lot of respect for employers who do this.

OP- I hope you do hear back and it's the news you are hoping for!

Savvy_Sue

loisa wrote: »

I went for an interview last week and was told : "We want to move quickly with this... so we will let you know by the end of next week"
I wouldn't exactly call that quick! They are cutting it fine now as the end of the week is very nearly upon us...

Sorry, but unless you know how many other people they are interviewing, and what their processes are, you don't know whether it's quick or not!

We had to space our latest interviews over a week apart, and the successful applicant has asked for time to think about it until Monday, so we can't let the others know until then, because we will offer it to our second choice if we're turned down.

You also don't know who else has to be consulted about this decision, or what's in the diaries for the interview panel for these couple of weeks. People are rarely JUST interviewing.

loisa wrote: »

Another interview I went to, had to travel to the other side of the city for a three hour interview including presentations about how great their company is, roleplays and a really tough competancy interview.

They let me know I was unsuccessful by standard letter, I was really annoyed about that, it seemed so impersonal. I thought the interview had gone well so I called for feedback and it took another week for someone to get back to me!

Again, this is quite normal. Where I work, I'm rarely involved in interviewing, but I do send out the standard letters. But it's only a small part of my job, and neither I nor the managers involved has time to craft a detailed letter explaining why you didn't get the job! You may have decided you weren't interested anyway, so we'll only give feedback if you ask for it. And it WILL take time for the message to be passed on and the person responsible to a) find your form and notes and b) find a suitable time to give feedback. Would you prefer a rushed and gabbled "very strong field, just not successful on the day" or something meaningful? If you want meaningful, it takes TIME!

loisa wrote: »

I appreciate how hard it must be to break bad news to someone by telephone so I have a lot of respect for employers who do this.

And so do I, but we can't all manage it.

loisa

Maybe I was being a bit impatient. I know that they were interviewing six people and then they had to inteview the successful candidates a second time. I can appreciate that this must be difficult to arrange etc. etc... In that case they need to be a bit more realistic with what they tell candidates. It's not much fun to be the person sat by the phone either.

When I ask for feedback I don't expect a detailed analysis, I just want to know the main reasons.
A recent example : "It was nice to meet you, you did really well in the interview but another candidate had more relevant experience." - Fair enough.

It is much easier to ask for this if someone calls you, it can be quite informal. I just like enough detail to put my own mind at ease and know what I can improve on next time, that's all. I was mainly worried about coming across as agressive when I had to call up for feedback, like someone who couldn't quite believe that they'd been rejected and obviously thought that they deserved the job...

minerva_windsong

If they haven't called you yet, I'd ring them. If the interview was at a store rather than a head office I'd get the phone number of the shop and then ask to speak to 'Jane Smith' (or whatever your interviewer's name was), or if you don't know her name then their head of Human Resources.

It is frustrating when you don't hear back from people though.