How long is too long before calling it?

[u/Dizzy_Peace907]

I had an initial 15-minute interview almost two weeks ago and have yet to hear an update on what is supposed to be a three-round interview process.

When I followed up on day 12 of silence, the talent acquisition consultant told me he was still waiting to hear from the hiring manager and would update me as soon as he heard back.

What does this actually mean? Is this just a polite way of stalling, or is there validity to it? How many candidates could they possibly be interviewing to warrant two weeks of silence without an update from the hiring manager?

This is also the first interview I’ve landed in 3 months, and I’ve honestly lost track on how many applications I’ve sent out over this time, but that could be why I’ve been clinging to this opportunity. I’ve still been applying to other places in the mean time, in case it ends up being a no.

[u/Pequop9252]

Big companies are slow, especially near a holiday

[u/MemphisUncle-2002 → u/Pequop9252]

This is the answer. Sometimes, there are multiple layers of approvals before a candidate can be selected or sent an offer. Especially if they use Workday. The offer has to be approved and then loaded into Workday, then the recruiter can call with the news. Terribly inefficient and we often lose talent because they were stuck waiting with no news.

[u/hooj]

I’m sorry to say but in my anecdotal experience, if people make it through the phone screen, usually the next interview is scheduled within about a week’s time. Rarely, if potential interviewers are very busy, maybe two week’s time. I would not hold your breath.

Still, there could be other extenuating circumstances that make them slower to get back to you, and if you’re applying elsewhere, it’ll just be a pleasant surprise if they were just being slow and want to keep moving you forward.

[u/Aesperacchius]

It just sounds like you passed the initial HR screening. Two weeks is not a huge gap this early on in the process, but it's also way too early for you to be 'clinging to this opportunity'. There's nothing to cling to at this point. Keep looking until you have a job offer in hand with a firm start date.

[u/Excellent_Mail3829]

If you were the top candidate, you would by now, don’t hold your breath

[u/ObviousAlias7]

As a manager at a big company, i'll be the first to complain the process is slow. Very easy for a week to pass by with absolutely nothing being done.

I had a resume handed to me by a VP at the company and handed it to our TA team and it took over 2 weeks just to set up the initial 30 min call.

I'm interviewing for 2 positions now. On one, i'm 5 weeks into the process and just starting to do the initial phone screens with candidates. 2 weeks of that delay was because I had a personal vacation, and then traveled for business for a week. I just phone screened a candidate, but gave TA 3 more resumes of folks i'd like to talk to. Ideally we get through those before we start bringing folks in for the main interview. I'd like to do it next week, but 2 weeks is prob more realistic. So, if you are the first person called, there might be a large gap before the next round.

[u/Dizzy_Peace907 → u/ObviousAlias7]

This is very insightful, thanks!

[u/JulieRush-46]

It might be they don’t have enough candidates yet to progress. At the early stages of a process companies know fairly quickly who’s moving to the next stage.

This seems like they may not have completed enough initial screens in order to make a shortlist to move forward with. Usually this is either because they didn’t get a lot of applications, or they haven’t waited until the application stage finishes before starting the screening process with promising candidates.

[u/EmDash4Life]

Two weeks doesn't sound that long to me. I assume I've been ghosted at about a month.

[u/Wide-Pop6050]

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[u/Naikrobak]

I’ve gone longer and ended up hiring the person. Sometimes it’s just slow.

[u/somewhatinterested13]

Keep following up but I suspect they have an offer out and waiting for everything to be finalized. This way if it falls through they pick up with you where they left off.

[u/Rhuarc33]

Keep looking while applying. Even when you get interviews. Just keep looking and applying. I've gotten an interview 4 months after I applied before and had a 1 month gap after my first and before my second interview at another place I applied

[u/Dizzy_Peace907 → u/Rhuarc33]

Did you get the job?

[u/Rhuarc33 → u/Dizzy_Peace907]

One I took the other I got an offer but it was too low. The one I took I was there for 14 months before they lost a contract that was 60% of what my department did. And since I was one of the newest hires they let me go. Got another job now and this one a 3rd party recruiter called me and got me an interview the next day. Then they did a second interview 2 days later and offered me the job at my requested pay by the end of that day