My son had a second interview with a company in our nearest city

[qualitychat]

It is an hour away on the train. He thought it went well, especially as he was invited back for a second interview. It is for a marketing job, not high flying and fairly basic salary. It has been about 10 days since his interview and despite emailing hem he has heard nothing. Shouldn't he have heard by now? Also why do people invite you for interview and never contact you again, it is extremely rude in my opinion (not this job, previous occasions). Any thoughts would be helpful

What has the distance / train part got to do with it?!!

Hour...on the train mentioned ....Assuming wasn't cheap to get to
He could contact them ?

My DD had an interview and she never did hear! She contacted them to ask about a week after the interview and they said they would let applicants know one way or another. She never heard a thing. Finally phoned them after another week and they said they would correspond by email only so she checked they had her email correctly which they did. Still never heard.

I know someone who recently waited 5 weeks for a response but was offered the role. Excuse given was day after last interview manager for departed went on annual leave .

It was for a local government job

An hour on the train is a completely normal commute ? Unfortunately that’s life having to travel to interviews

You are too invested. The hardest part of being a parent is letting them go and work out stuff for themselves. No one can answer you as every interview is different and no one can read minds. But this is for your boy to learn from.

My DD1 went for an interview, didn’t hear back until 4 months later - the person they had picked initially quit so they offered DD the job.

2-3 weeks is the average wait time at our company.

Why is nearest city/1 hour away relevant?

An hour is a very usual commute. It is good manners to let someone know either way and I always do but most don’t. Is the vacancy still live? Does he have the details of who interviewed him? An email following up saying how excited he was when hearing about the role etc may refresh their memory of him.

"Shouldn't he have heard by now?"

It varies company by company. Some take hours, some takes months and some never let you know at all. The joys of job hunting. Sadly the commute etc is irrelevant to the company at interview stage.

Seems pretty normal. So many things, maybe the panel/hiring manager are away and haven’t followed up with HR, it could be they are waiting for the prefered candidate to formally accept. Not sure why the hour train is relevant.

My two most recent jobs I’ve been successful in I’ve had to wait 6 weeks+ for an answer. I sent a polite chaser ever couple weeks. I got made redundant in Feb and still getting rejections now from jobs I applied for then 😂

I used to do recruiting for a bank.I always made sure that I treated applicants well and wrote promptly to give awaited decisions on employment. I always thanked the unsuccessful candidates for their interest. So rude to keep people waiting or never communicate and we had all been in the reverse position at some time. Just basic good manners cost very little

I only mentioned the train journey because they have taken him up there twice, more or less went through the same things again - they said it was their policy to interview twice. I just thought he would have heard by now - he has emailed but had nothing back. We will see what happens.

He applied for the job there. He can hardly complain about them "having him up there" for interviews. 🙄

Well if he got the job they’d ‘want him up there’ 5 days a week 😂

Just move on, there are other jobs out there

My whole point is that a company takes you for two interviews for not a particularly high flying job and then don't tell you one way or the other. He would love to go to the job 5 days a week on the train!

I've had this. Went for an interview as a hotel receptionist and said I'd booked flights home for Christmas. Heard back about 6 weeks later and they offered me the job which I took. Turned out they'd appointed the first semi-ok candidate who said they'd work Christmas 🙄. It didn't go well. She was apparently awful and brought her aggressive husband to work to shout at management when they fired her.

Either

i) they haven’t completed all the interviews they have scheduled yet. How can they make a decision without giving all those who got the first one a chance?

ii) they prefer someone else and have made an offer to them, they won’t inform other candidates it’s a no until they have a positive response (i.e. contract signed) from their ideal candidate. If it doesn’t work out for some reason, they will make an offer to their 2nd preference and so on

Just hold on lol!

There are lots of different possibilities the below are all ones that could be reasons in my company:

1. it’s half term a lot of people take annual leave now (was half term for a lot of places last week instead)
2. if it’s marketing this could be their busy period so they’re swamped and haven’t had the time - I work in an industry where October is our most profitable month as people get ready for Christmas.
3. covid is rife at the moment people could be off sick
4. They’ve offered it to someone else and they’re waiting to hear back before declining other people. We’ve also had loads of people accept jobs and then decline to start at the last minute.

I've been for interviews and never heard back, I count it as a lucky escape as clearly company's who don't let candidates know are scum.

But 10 days isn't a particularly long time since interview.

They might be gathering references, or waiting for the 1st choice to accept/decline before offering to others.