By Joe Redshaw
How long should you wait after a phone screen and/or an in-person interview to follow up with the company – 1 week, 2 weeks, before calling or emailing again?
No more than 24 hours!
If I get off the phone with a candidate after screening them and I don’t get at least a quick e-mail saying thank you, it is a Red Flag. And this is even more important with an interview. I would say no later than the following day.
But that is the easy part. What is a more difficult question is… “After I sent my thank you letter, how long should I wait to follow up?”. This one is trickier.
I would say that in the phone screen or interview, you should be asking about the hiring process. Depending on what they say should answer how long after the thank you letter you should follow up. The general rule is if you haven’t heard back after about 3-5 days I would follow up. This would be a time to write how interested you are and why you are such a fit. And ask if you could get an update regarding the process. You could call or e-mail. Or you can e-mail and say you will be following up with a call in the next day or so. You have to walk the fine line of being a pest and seeming like you don’t care, or don’t want the job.
But most importantly ask the hiring manager what the hiring process looks like, when they want to fill the job, how many candidates are they interviewing, and where you stand in the running are all great questions. Why should anyone leave an interview having no clue of what is next? Just ask while you are there.
How to do you deduce that a company has “Moved-on” from you?
In this type of economy, I would tell someone to go into the process not expecting any feedback from anyone. Therefore you won’t be upset throughout the process. Because when you are upset and aggravated, we can tell. It shows in the interviews and phone screens. Always try to maintain a positive attitude (very difficult, I know!).
If you do go through an interview process and you have not been able to get any response and have not heard anything for 2 weeks, I would say the company has passed. A phone screen, give it maybe 3 weeks. With phone screens, if you are the first one, they still may have another week or two of phone screens, then the manager needs to review resumes.
Again, by asking questions throughout the process you can often gauge how things are going and where you are at in the process.
Joe recommends the following article, 50 Worst of the Worst (and Most Common) Job Interview Mistakes, a great list of the things we may or may not be aware that we are doing!
About Joe Redshaw
Joe Redshaw is the Corporate Recruiter for Gomez, the Web Performance Division of Compuware. He has been a recruiter for almost 10 years and has experience on the agency and corporate side. Joe has screened thousands of candidates and has agreed to provide NEJS his perspective on HR/Recruiter practices.
NEJS encourages you to start a dialogue with Joe by submitting your questions via the comments section at the end of the blog article. Keep an eye out for more Q & A with Joe.
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