To not take this job?

[orangesandlemonssaythebellsofstclements]

Applied for a job in August. Didn't hear back so assumed I hadn't got it.

Six weeks later they pop up out of the blue to invite me to interview but don't tell me the date of the interview. I say yes and they take another two weeks to tell me the date, which they tell me two days before the interview and at this time also tell me they want to to complete a substantial task for them to show my skills and bring the complete task with me.

I complete the task, which takes me around six hours and meant I had to stay up really late to get it done, and I go to interview on 9th October.

I feel the interview goes well and they tell me at interview they will let me know "week of 21st October"

It's now 12pm on Friday of that week. Heard nothing.

I'm actually quite annoyed and feel like I don't really want to work with them any more as they are clearly quite chaotic and unorganised and I feel it's quite disrespectful to my time to give me a task and an interview to prepare for with two days notice, and then leave me hanging around waiting for over two weeks. So I'm feeling like if they do offer it to me, I might decline.

But I do really want to do this job and feel I would be really good at it.

Are these timescales unreasonable? I've never before had a job where they haven't given me interview feedback within 2-3 days.

Up to you whether you want to work for them or not, but I wouldn’t say the timescale for after interview is unreasonable.

We’re a huge department, interviews are held by senior staff/management like myself who all have their own day to day jobs. We divvy up interviews between us so we may do 3 or 4 each, over the course of maybe a week sometimes longer, then we have to find a date that works for everyone to all sit together and discuss all of the candidates we all saw and decide the best one/who gets the job.

If you were my first candidate interview then I could easily still be conducting interviews a week later, once everyone is finished we all then need to get together to discuss and compare all interviews and decide best candidate- that can easily take another week.

Can you look them up on glass door to see reviews? Hiring processes may be indicative of poor organisational practices but not always.

Sorry - I should have mentioned in the OP that they said at interview that they only had three other candidates and they were doing all the interviews in one day.

I don’t blame you. I once declined a job partly because they took 6 weeks from the interview to give me an offer! It was a really good job but I wasn’t sure if I wanted it and waiting 6 weeks gave me too much time to think myself out of it.

Run a mile.

They will be much worse than this to work for, I promise.

Would it look really unprofessional to send an email now asking if I am still being considered?

I would. I'd just say thanks for your time when might I expect to hear if I have been successful etc

I'd wait until after the end of today. They might get back to you any time before 5.30pm which would still technically be week of 21st Oct. A bit crap though, admittedly.

I do think it's a bit unreasonable of them to give such short notice on a task that took you so long to complete. It would make me wonder what is expected of you if you did decide to take the job.

I have had instances whereby they said they would contact by a certain date and didn't follow through which always puts me off as I think if there are delays, they should really let the candidates know. Sadly a lot of companies are not great at communicating when it comes to recruitment. It's drives me bonkers.

I hope you hear back soon.

4:13pm and still nothing. I actually think it's quite rude. I've been on tenterhooks for two weeks now and spent a lot of my time on this. A "no thank you" at the very least would have been appreciated.

Well, I sent a polite follow up yesterday morning about 10:30 and still nothing at 11:15 the next day.

Rude.

Could do the - can you let me know either way as I have another offer I need to reply to by this evening

Is this definitely a real job? It sounds like they've just given you 6 hours of work to do, you've completed it for free, and now they've just ghosted you!

It's 100% a real job and it's from an organisation that I am very shocked would act so unprofessionally. It's actually concerning.

Still nothing. If there's nothing by tomorrow evening I will withdraw my application (they've probably ruled me out anyway, but I want to make a point).

I recruit for the civil service, stuff like this often happens, but because if the people actually didn't the applications and interviewing, but because it's run by a regional/national recruitment team depending on the campaign, it's like pulling teeth! I got in trouble recently because I called back the successful candidate two weeks after they should've been told because they'd contacted me 3 times and I didn't want to lose them!
I'm senior enough that I can adopt the better to do and ask for forgiveness policy and nothing will happen.
It's infuriating

I was going to ask if it was the civil service!

Their recruitment process is dire!!!

Sorry, but why did they have to contact you three times?!
Could you not have messaged back after the first time and explained?
I won't be messaging three times. They will lose me if I don't hear back by tomorrow - a week after the latest date in their date range to contact me.
Just a "we are still going through the process and will let you know" would have been enough. Radio silence is plain rude.

I gave up on a second interview I wanted because they were so disorganised. First interview went amazingly well. Person A will phone you for the second interview, they didn’t. Then they did phone me, but thought I was someone else to discuss my interview at 10am (not me). Then emailed to say could I come in that day at 5pm?

I said I couldn’t make 5pm (working) and could I have an alternative - crickets.

I realised I was better off not working for such a company.