to think that a sucessful applicant should hear within 24 hours?

[cigarsmokingwoman]

I had a final stage interview for a job that would double my salary. I was down to the final three and they were interviewing all three on Tuesday. I was the middle time slot. They said they wanted to appoint someone quickly. I felt I really clicked with the panellists, I nailed the presentation and interview and came away feeling pretty positive.
Its now Thursday and I haven't heard a thing yet. I did send a 'thank you' email today and got an out of office from one of the panellists although it only mentioned being out of office today, not yesterday.
AIBU to think if you were successful and they had no one else to interview, they'd tell you within a day? This is a well known national HR provider.

ETA: They asked my availability and if I were searching elsewhere. I said I dont have anything else lined up although I was honest and said I was actively job seeking. I also said this would be my first choice. I said I had no notice period as I had been made redundant (they asked about notice). I thought all of this would be fairly positive and make me an attractive candidate.

You could have asked, they should have told you.

After a week I'd be asking in a 'sorry, I should have asked about timescale for response' way.

No. I've never given thought to order of candidates. When shortlisting we just say yes or no. After that it's up to HR to sort out times. They don't know who our preferences are, if we have them.

I'll be honest and say the longer you're waiting the lower your chances. In my experience recruiting we make the decision as fast as we can and notify the successful candidate as fast as we can. Sometimes same day, often the next day. Twice when job hunting I've been told to expect to hear in a day or two then called and offered the job within an hour.

Unsuccessful candidates are usually waiting a little longer as we'll typically wait on a verbal acceptance from the candidate, and that's not always immediate. Sometimes there's a bit of negotiation e.g. around pay that takes time.

However there can be a myriad of reasons why it takes longer to notify the successful candidate. So certainly don't give up hope yet. I know it's agonising!

For my current role, it was an internal panel with 3 of us having made it to the interview stage. 2 of us were at risk of redundancy and applying from the same team. We had our interviews on the Tuesday or Wednesday (it was 12 years ago) and were told we’d hear the next day. None of us heard anything, we asked our manager the following day but they heard nothing. On the Friday at 3pm the hiring manager came and told us he wanted the weekend the think about it. We all finally heard on the Tuesday of the following week. Longest week of my life.

No-one was on leave, no external hoops to jump through etc, it was simply because the manager was struggling to decide between us. I’m very happy that I was successful as I love my role so, so much and I don’t think either of the others would have put as much into it as I have. Sometimes managers just need a bit longer to decide between candidates who are closely matched. Don’t give up hope yet - look at it like this, it’s not a definite no as you would hand heard that pretty quickly. It could be they’re trying to decide between you, they might have offered another person it but have decided if they say no they’ll offer it to you, it could be something in work has come up…

Good luck and apologies if you’ve heard back since as I just realised I didn’t click all to see if you’d posted more!

I always say I'm hoping to make a decision by Friday. I like to think about the interviews, and then go over pros and cons and make a decision

I don’t think a few days is a long time (I’ve done a lot of interviewing over the past 18 months) it can be as simple as needing sign off from someone and it’s their non-working day, for example. In my company and my experience, we’d always do our best to let candidates know before the weekend so they have that time to think about the offer. So, fingers crossed for tomorrow (and if not I don’t think it’s unreasonable to reach out on Monday and ask when you can expect to hear their decision)

In our company you could be waiting a while for all sorts of reasons!
One candidate - it was down to 2 and she was the favorite- had waited more than a week because we had to have a sr mgr look at the final offers and ok saying yes to her and that mgr was out of the country - send a REALLY shirty email about how unprofessional we were keeping her waiting, she had a life you know, and lots of other options…
Obvs the other candidate got it after that. So ask, but ask nicely…

Recommend you never apply to the civil service, OP. 24 weeks is more like it 😂

To be honest, I think in an ideal world, all the unsuccessful candidates should be informed ASAP, so their time is no longer being wasted through waiting and not applying for anything else...

They would normally contact their first choice candidate quite quickly, but then wait till offer is accepted etc before telling the others they didn’t get the job. That way if first choice candidate decides to go somewhere else, they can move on to their next preference.

I had my final interview almost 3 weeks ago now, with one candidates interview only being at the very beginning of this week due to being unable to make the original interview date.
It’s interesting to get different perspectives on it as I am pretty fed up! My thoughts are … it is points based, how hard is it to tally up and put us all out of our misery 😂

This is what I keep thinking as well … that they must have offered someone else before they are going to bring the bad news to me 😩

Good luck OP! Hope you hear soon 🙏 it is a painful wait

its additionally hard as I was made redundant and I'm disabled so not the most attractive candidate I fear. And companies keep telling me things like "we've had over 300/400, even 600 applicants..." I really don't need to know that!

I just want a job :(

Good luck OP, I really hope you get it xx

I'm really confused by all these answers saying it's normal to wait days. I have worked in HR and we always got approval for the role and budget before interviewing anybody. There would be nothing left to sort out! As soon as we finished the interviews we would decide our pick and then contact them the same day, or if the interviews went on late we would occasionally push it to first thing the following day.

I think it's likely that you're a strong second choice and they are waiting to see if their first pick drops out or not. They want to keep their options open. Good luck 🤞

Currently recruiting and it takes a good few days for us to get back in contact. This is simply because we’re so busy. If we weren’t flat out then we wouldn’t be bringing new people onboard. I wouldn’t take this as a ‘no’! Good luck!

Not all organisations have an HR team - they have to do recruiting on top of the day job. Great if you have a whole team set up to manage to process - much more difficult if you don't.

You’re working on a big assumption though that everyone is always interviewed at the same time etc.

i’ve been offered jobs the following week and also on the spot, or later the same day. It massively varies.

Not always possible. You need to be patient.

The final 3 candidates were all interviewed on Tuesday

I think you'll find out before the end of the week. Try to distract yourself between then and now as it's one of those 'watched pot' situations. Do something nice for yourself. It's pissing down with rain here, which is always a good excuse for a hot chocolate with squirty cream isn't it?

Yes i did read that in your op. But this doesn’t mean candidates should be informed in 24 hours as a general rule.

If its the nhs. Its weeks