Do you understand the hiring process at the company you are seeking to join? Many people seeking jobs don’t.
As companies differ so also is their hiring process. For some, the hiring process could take more than a month with maybe 3 levels of interviews, while others could just be two levels of interviews and in 2 weeks the entire process is done and you are hired.
From my experience as a recruiter, let me share a sample hiring process.
First, when the call for application is out, what you usually see is the job advert then you apply for the job either by filling a form or sending you resume to a dedicated email address. That’s where most people’s knowledge ends.
But recruitment process is more than that. An average recruiter would usually scan through hundreds and some times thousands of resumes to shortlist people who match closely with the job requirements. Then after a while, the application closes and interview process begins for most companies. For some companies, you will be required to either take a test or case study.
Now, you have applied, you were shortlisted and invited for an interview. Give yourself some kudos! Because the fact that you were shortlisted and invited for an interview is an indicator that you have something worthwhile from your resume. I can say you are 70% into success.
Interviews are platforms for you to prove what was written on your resume about your skills, competencies and achievements in relation to the role you are being interviewed for.
If you can ace the interview, you are then 90-95% into the company. But if you can’t, then you need to try again next time but please reflect and do better next time.
But how long should you wait before following up after an interview.
As a recruiter who is also highly involved and committed to young people’s career growth, this is usually one of the questions I receive from my tribe. There is usually that urgency or anxiety in the candidates to know how they performed at interviews and to know where their hope lies in joining the organization.
But, there are no generally accepted time frame across all organizations to give a feedback to candidates.
But let me share some ideas with you.
At the end of every interview, confirm the time frame to get a feedback. For example, if you interviewed with an organization for the role of an Accountant, at the end of the interview, you can simply ask what timeline should you expect a feedback from this interview panel. Usually, they should give you a timeframe and you are at liberty to follow up a day after if they missed the time frame given.
However, there are some organizations with not so excellent hiring process. I interviewed with such kind some time around 2020. The Hiring Manager promised I would get a feedback at the end of the month but I didn’t and so I followed up with a mail confirming where they were on the recruitment process. But the organization till date never responded to any of mails with a positive feedback or negative.
In this kind of scenario, please move on. Except you are joining the HR team to change this behavior, these are pointers and indicators of the kind of organization you are about to join.
Again, there are no general rules but my ideas:
- If a timeline is given, stick to the time line. Only request feedback when the timeline is due and you still didn’t get feedback.
- If no timeline was given after your interview, personally, I will wait for 10-20 working days. 10 working days if it’s a Small or Medium Enterprise and 20 working days if it’s a Multinational or larger size of companies. My reason is simple; the decision making process for hiring in most large organizations rests with more than one person or department and it is more likely they are meeting with many other people, so I allow for time to align and get back to me.
If after 10-20 working days I don’t get feedback, I send a mail requesting it.
A simple mail can be like this:
Hi [Interviewer Name], – save the recruiters name during your interview
Thank you so much for meeting with me. It was such a pleasure to learn more about the company and the position, and I’m very excited about the opportunity to join Kuvuki Limited (Name of company) and help attract and acquire talents that helps the business grow with your team.
I look forward to hearing from you about the next steps in the hiring process, and please do not hesitate to contact me if I can provide additional information.
Best regards,
Once you send that mail, you don’t need any more mails to get a response. it will tell if the organization has a good culture or not.
What other ideas have worked for you in getting response. Feel free to share in the comment section.
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