gap between classing dates and interview.

studentphil

There are three jobs I have applied for and the closing date was about the 12th of April for them all. It says in the information pack that the interviews will be in the week starting the 23rd of April. Therefore, given that I have not heard anything now, do I assume that I have not got an interview for any of them?

However, I do think 11 days between closing date and interview is a bit hopefully to expect to write to people about interview, so maybe the interview dates has moved back so I have nothing to worry about.

annie-c

It would be perfectly reasonable to ring the HR depts and ask if you have been shortlisted for interview. Then you won't need to worry or speculate.

Good luck!

jobbingmusician

I agree with Annie. However, you are also correct that interview dates do very often get put back.

In the mean time, keep applying for jobs! (and good luck with the hunt)

Savvy_Sue

studentphil wrote: »

However, I do think 11 days between closing date and interview is a bit hopefully to expect to write to people about interview, so maybe the interview dates has moved back so I have nothing to worry about.

Sorry to pour cold water on your theory, but anywhere I've had any involvement in recruitment, the gap between closing dates and interviews has often been a week. The timetable is set before the job is advertised, eg closing date 12 April - the panel will meet ON THAT DATE or the following day, rarely later, to consider the applications received and shortlist. The interview date has almost certainly already been agreed: in any organisation you may well not be able to coordinate the diaries of all those involved at less than a month's notice, so waiting until the applications are in is too late.

Those shortlisted will be phoned to check their availability, times will be set then (eg someone may express a preference for morning rather than afternoon) and the letter will only be a confirmation of what's already been agreed. And it will only go to people who've agreed to come.

After the interview the successful candidate will normally get a phone call the same day, or the next day, but no-one else will hear until the First Choice has verbally accepted the job. If they don't accept it then a Second Choice may be offered it - but only if it was a close-run thing.

As you will soon realise, not all employers send "thanks but no thanks" letters at ANY stage of the process, although it's more of a possibility post interview.

The main reason people are notified by phone is that you don't KNOW a letter's been received. Whereas you do know whether or not you've spoken to someone. You also know that the person is likely to turn up.

But another reason - and also for the tight timescale between closing dates and interviews - is that the longer you wait, the more likely it is that the best candidate will have been to other interviews and accepted a job elsewhere ...

However, don't let that put you off making other applications, and please don't waste your time telling us all how hard it is for you to get the job of your dreams. It's hard for ANYONE to get the job of their dreams. And until you've been trying for a while, you can't possibly know how the system generally works.

Good luck.

jobbingmusician

LOL Sue, your employers are obviously more organised than mine! Having a timetable for the shortlisting team to meet is how it's supposed to work, but my experience (both as an employer and as an applicant, ringing to check because I haven't heard anything) is that over 50% of recruitments get delayed!

(Just for clarification to others, this post is made in genuine amusement and is not a snipe!!! )

Totally agree about the comment about how hard it is to get the job of your dreams, though. Especially just after graduating, good idea to take whatever you get and build on it. If you can't do what you enjoy, enjoy what you do!

Savvy_Sue

jobbingmusician wrote: »

LOL Sue, your employers are obviously more organised than mine! Having a timetable for the shortlisting team to meet is how it's supposed to work, but my experience (both as an employer and as an applicant, ringing to check because I haven't heard anything) is that over 50% of recruitments get delayed!

I suspect my current employer is only this organised because I insist that they are! :rotfl:Having learned how the system worked at my previous job (which had a dedicated HR dept), I've just taken it on board and I won't place the ad until I've set the interview date. Once I've set the interview date, then I set the closing date a week or so beforehand. If that means we delay advertising, we delay advertising. Because if we can't interview for a month after our planned closing date, there's no point advertising too early - as I said before, the best candidates won't want to wait for us if they're offered a job elsewhere.

In my previous job we needed to have a manager, me and someone from HR who worked in a different office involved. In my current job we need to have at least one member of staff, at least one (volunteer) from our Management Team, and in some cases an ex-service user. Since most of the staff likely to be interviewing don't spend 5 days a week in the office, and the volunteers are all busy ladies too, this is not a trivial process! :rotfl:

jobbingmusician wrote: »

(Just for clarification to others, this post is made in genuine amusement and is not a snipe!!!

I knew that ... we generally seem to be on the same wavelength!

jobbingmusician wrote: »

If you can't do what you enjoy, enjoy what you do!

:T:T:T Excellent advice!

shameless-about-money

Since Phil hasn't posted for two days we can assume he hasn't heard anything?

Savvy_Sue

Sh, don't encourage him, he needs to keep his head down with applications and revision ...

BTW, nothing I said means you shouldn't phone up and check whether you've been shortlisted or not. If you're polite and friendly, the person dealing with this may remember you if you apply for another job in the same organisation - which if you continue to look at local universities is quite likely. If you go off on a rant about discrimination, they'll remember that too ... but not so favourably. Even though that person may play no formal part in the selection process, they've only got to make one comment in the hearing of someone who DOES play a formal part to slightly prejudice your chances ...

Just to give an example, we have lots of volunteers. I play no formal part in the recruitment of volunteers, but I often answer the phone. One lady had phoned a few times over the years, and her manner and what she said meant I always recognised her name. Then she applied to be a volunteer. I said to my colleague who deals with this "I can't put my finger on it, but we're going to have problems with this one."

Now, you might say I turned people against her, but I don't think I did, we really bent over backwards to keep her happy, but we just couldn't do it. She was just one of those awkward people who thought OUR systems should be changed to accommodate HER preferences - and that wasn't about to happen, even though she was sure she knew best because she'd been through some of the experiences of our present clients.

studentphil

I have not heard anything but if I am too rubbish for them and they don't want me their loss. In all fairness I had a look about the department on the quiet and I do not think I would have fitted in. It has a huge management structure anyway and I doubt I could shine or have any input or been any use in such a setting.

I am a person who likes to put my own stamp on things, show I have half a brain, but with such a large management I fear it would be too micro managed for me.

Savvy_Sue

studentphil wrote: »

I have not heard anything but if I am too rubbish for them and they don't want me their loss. In all fairness I had a look about the department on the quiet and I do not think I would have fitted in. It has a huge management structure anyway and I doubt I could shine or have any input or been any use in such a setting.

:mad: Will you stop taking it so personally! :mad: :mad: :mad:

In most recruitment processes, there is a range of applicants from the 'absolute rubbish, why did they bother applying?' through to 'outstanding'. However, most of them are somewhere in the middle, let's call them 'plausible'. The line has to be drawn somewhere. Inevitably some 'plausible' candidates will be just the wrong side of a line which is drawn after all the applications have been scanned to check they meet the requirements of the job description and the person spec. In my last job we had a little grid to tick off.

We would decide in advance how many people we were prepared to interview, never more than 6, and fewer than that if there weren't enough boxes ticked. So if we had 8 candidates where we'd ticked all the boxes, we'd look closer and see who had stronger evidence, more experience etc.

OK, so 2 candidates who met all our basic requirements wouldn't get an interview. Were they useless? Were they rubbish? No, they just didn't appear on paper to be as strong as the 6 we'd decided to interview.

studentphil wrote: »

I am a person who likes to put my own stamp on things, show I have half a brain, but with such a large management I fear it would be too micro managed for me.

You may have half a brain, but you demonstrate very little understanding of how the world of work works. There is no need to convince yourself that you wouldn't have fitted in - maybe you would, maybe you wouldn't. The fact is, you didn't get an interview for this job. You may not get an interview for the next one, or the one after that, or the one after that. You'll be in good company, with 000s of other imminent graduates, not to mention the rest of the job-seeking population. Deal with it ...

Daisies

All the jobs I've applied for within the last year have had an interview date a week after the closing date. They also gave the interview date (or possible range of dates) with the job description details they sent out - the implication being that you should make sure you would be available on that date, otherwise there was no point applying. Where there was a range of dates (think it said "week commencing..." there was a space to indicate unavailability.