...to expect a response to job application within 3 or 4 days?

[justaftb]

Anu HR pros here?

I have applied for 3 jobs this week on Monday directly through the company jobs portals. They are all large international financial services companies in the City. I am in a niche profession and fit the job descriptions for the posts. I would hope to at least get a call about my applications as I don't think I'd be ruled out based on my CV.

When you are applying through a company's own site, does this tend to be a slower process? Is within 3 days too much of an expectation? Or is it because it's August and people are on holiday?

And if the role is in the process of being filled already, would the HR department contact me to say it's no longer open?

I find the anonymity of the portal application difficult as there is usually no contact point.

Being impatient because I currently hate my job and want out!

3 days is really quick. I wouldn’t expect to hear back for a good few days after the closing date at the earliest

From experience I would say 3 days is quite quick, aside from perhaps a placeholder eg 'thanks for your application' and a bit of blurb. One job I applied for took over a month to be sifted! I did get it though, no idea why it took so long. August and Christmas sometimes slow things down, hopefully you hear back soon.

I would think three days is too quick to expect a response. However my experience is within the NHS where team managers and appropriate clinical staff are involved in the shortlisting process and have to do this around their existing clinical duties - so it may be very different in other organisations.

Three to four days sounds very quick to me. I would probably assume I hadn't been shortlisted for interview if I hadn't heard anything two weeks after the closing date.

I wouldn't expect to hear until after the closing date. I worked in HR and we didn't send acknowledgement emails, but there was something on our site saying candidates would only hear back if shortlisted. Not ideal, but we just got too many applications for each post

If it's anything like my company (a large international finance company in the City!) your CV has gone to HR. They'll probably give it a week or so to get a decent number of applicants, then pre-filter for me. I'll get their reduced selection, then I'll decide who to interview - can easily take a couple of weeks to go through all those steps.

I wouldn't expect to hear until a week or so after the closing date

I wouldn’t expect to hear back until after the closing date.

Thanks for the replies. That's reassuring. Since I entered this profession, I've mostly worked with recruiters or through contacts in a company, so would at least hear pretty promptly if the hiring manager was away or something.

Frustratingly, none of the job posts had a closing date.

But, I should know from working in these kinds of companies that recruiting can be a long end-to-end process!

Just, you know when you really, really don't feel like going into your office...counting the days!

I imagine it depends on your field. I’m an academic (so my employers are universities), but I would say response time in my experience is usually 2-3 weeks. I have had (fairly high level) positions I’ve applied for though where I have never even received an acknowledgement of my application, no rejection, nothing. I accepted another position in the meantime, but it’s quite unprofessional (but possible!) to never hear anything. I think 3 days is quite unrealistic.

Welcome to the soul-destroying reality of job-hunting in modern day Britain. I'm still waiting to hear back from over a thousand applications made over the last six years, where I've not even had an acknowledgment. If I've not heard within a month of the closing date, I write it off mentally and move on.

One favourite was an application direct to Swissport (airline ground handling agent) via their own portal. Application went in, heard nothing for six months, then was asked to fill in a survey about my application experience. One of the questions was "how did you find out you were unsuccessful?"

Grrrrr.

My dh was recently unemployed for a little over a year and was applying for around 100 jobs a month (had to list them for claiming for benefits, so an accurate number). This was through portals, agencies, direct to workplaces etc. all different ways. It was rare to get anything other than a cursory automated "thanks for applying" e-mail within the first few days.

Some jobs you eventually get a thanks but no thanks, some jobs an invite to interview and many you never hear from the company at all. You are lucky with some places to get responses, so to expect one within 3 days would be very unusual.

YABU. Some places wont respond until after the closing date. Some won't respond at all unless you get an interview. Be patient.

I have only ever received a thanks but no thanks response once and that was because I was on the shortlist and wanted to keep my details on file incase they couldn't appoint. But I normally expect no response otherwise.

Just try not to think about it and carry on with the job hunt.

Yes, I figured I was being unreasonable. Just so impatient! Have mentally checked out of my current role, which is not a good thing to do. I know it's tough to find a job so I may be here for months to come. Should be concentrating on making life better more tolerable here than wasting time checking my phone for missed calls!

In our company HR would review the application first to make sure it ticked the basic requirements, then it would come to me to review to decide if I wanted to ask a candidate to interview. Particularly with the summer holidays meaning the person checking the CVs could be on leave, I will also be picking up additional work covering colleague's leave so may be slower than usual reviewing an application. I wouldn't worry for a week or so at least. Good luck with your job hunt!

Also an academic here and I hate the portals! No response to confirm it has been received and then don't hear about rejections either. Although I did receive an email two weeks ago from a university to say that my application had been rejected.... slightly bemused as I hadn't applied for post in over two years. I checked the portal and I submitted the application in September 2016 for a January 2017 start.... oh well!

I am recruiting for a financial services role at the moment. We have received 149 applications so it takes a week or so to even start shortlisting and then emailing out rejections etc.

I’ve just applied for 30+ jobs all of them bar 3, I was over qualified / experienced for and had good references and application form, excellent covering letter ( sorry tooting my own horn there a bit) only heard from the 3 that offered me and interview ( one I had to practically harass the H.R lady into giving me an interview !
It’s rude and disrespectful of these companies especially as one application form took me best part of a whole day to complete.
Best of luck- average wait for response was a 5 days-week