What do I do next? (Job application related)

[Nesquickly]

I applied for a government agency job last year. Closing date was December 10th. On December 11th I had an acknowledgement email from a hr department thanking me for my application and saying they would be in touch shortly wrt the outcome.

I have not heard a peep since! Allowing for the fact that they may have been closed for 2 weeks over Christmas, maybe on a go-slow a week either side of that I still would really have expected to hear from them by now. On Monday (January 13th) i emailed the hr dept asking had they filled the position and still nothing. It was a long application form (typical government agency one) rather than wheel out your cv so necessitated a bit of time spent on it.

Should I just forget about it or ring them? I'm really disappointed as I would have loved (and been good at) the job but I am also annoyed at their slack attitude: they said they would be in touch but they haven't.

Definitely call them. Nothing to lose.

It’s relatively common for no further information or response to be given if your application isn’t successful and it’s possible whoever wrote the automatic response meant to word it in such a way as to say so but has made it sound as though you will hear even if the outcome is negative.

You’ve nothing to lose by calling but don’t get your hopes up, if you haven’t been contacted regarding shortlisting or an interview by now then in all likelihood you haven’t been successful.

Some govt agencies are awful at recruitment. One I worked at, the application closing date was 31 August, I heard nothing until the beginning of October, inviting me to interview on the 11th - so only about a week's notice. With Christmas in between it doesn't surprise me at all you haven't heard. It is shit, but it doesn't mean the rest of the organisation is shit - just hang on in there OP... they'll get back to you eventually!