Hi guys! I recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree and have been job hunting for a few months. About two weeks ago, I applied for several jobs for which I am well qualified, and I haven’t heard anything from them yet. I know that in this economy just being qualified in no way guarantees an interview, but I’m still hoping to hear from at least one of them.
For the interviews I landed so far (two at the same company) I was called to set up the first interview the day after applying, and was contacted for the second interview a few hours after the first. In light of this, not hearing from the jobs I applied to two weeks ago is making me nervous. I know that I should just continue with my job search and take it as a pleasant surprise if I get a call, but I spend too much time thinking about it and wishing that the phone would ring. I keep wondering, “am I out of the running, or is this a normal time frame to set up interviews?” I was hoping to get some input from dopers on how long it usually takes to be called for an interview. I suspect that the answer to this varies widely between different industries and companies, but any personal experiences or input you can give me would be greatly appreciated. In the meantime, I’ll try to stop obsessing over it so much!
There’s no way any of us can reassure you if you’re still in the running, but one thing I can say, as someone who has recruited many people over the years. People generally recruit when they are in need of extra staff. Which means they are super busy, trying to cope with not having enough people. Which means the day-to-day stuff gets in the way of sitting down, trawling through CVs and organising interviews, even when some companies have big HR departments.
So it can easily take 2-3 weeks to get back to people, or longer. Two weeks fly by when your work is busy.
It depends strongly on the process for the company. For us we get resumes of new college grads from HR. I’m supposed to respond if I’m interested within a week, and then HR contacts the candidate to set things up, so the whole thing can take several weeks.
If someone applies on-line the manager is supposed to grab the resumes and sort them. This might take a while.
Getting two interviews is pretty good. Most companies these days have had their HR departments slashed, and that, along with the flood of resumes from on-line applications, means that you are unlikely to hear at all if no one is interested.
My best advice - and this is scary - is to try to jump the line. If you find a company you want to work for, research them, and try to find the phone number or email address of someone at the company who might be close to the job you are interested in. If the job is not a standard type job, like an engineering job for instance, ask about what the people do. If there is a connection, mention the job opening and ask about it. Often the stuff on web sites is badly out of date, and sometimes there are jobs which haven’t been posted yet.
You might worry that the person you call is flooded by job seekers. Don’t. I’m pretty visible in my field, and no one does this. (The one person who did, who I worked with on a committee, got a job almost immediately thanks to calling me.)
And also see if any of your friends or relatives know someone at the company. They should not call - they can give you contact information and a reference. It is all about networking. Try some of your teachers also. It is about who you know, so know people than your competition.
The time varies with organizations. A small company might get back to you in a few days, a larger company might take weeks or months. We’ve had cases here where we did a job search, decided on a candidate, then had to reopen the search (using the original resumes) after the candidate declined. That probably took 3-4 months.
What you do is what you’d do if you were sending out manuscripts for a writer: Send off your resumes and forget about them until you hear something.
This is interesting. The jobs I’ve been applying to have all asked that candidates not contact the department unless they are scheduled for an interview, so I don’t want to come across as a nuisance or like I’m ignoring instructions. In the future though, I might be able to try this advice as a way to get information about the job before sending an application, and it’s reassuring to hear that someone who is on the receiving end of this kind of inquiry doesn’t find it annoying.
When I applied for teaching jobs, I usually heard back within two or three days after sending in my resume. I think that’s unusual, however. Since I generally applied at small, private schools, they were able to make the whole process short and sweet.
Exactly. They don’t want people who have sent in an application bugging them, which I can certainly see. The trick is to contact someone about the work not about the job, understand what they are doing, and then see about the job. What kind of job is it, if I may ask. I don’t think this strategy will work for data entry, but is good for a more specialized kind of job.
I’ve mostly been applying for paraprofessional positions in academic and public libraries, although the two interviews that I had were with a book distribution company that mainly serves libraries. I have experience working in a public library, and a bachelor’s degree in linguistics.
In the case of government jobs, it can take months or even (in the case of jobs requiring security clearances) years. A few weeks is normal, IME, as many companies have a required processing time for review, particularly if there are a lot of applicants.
That is definitely specialized enough. I don’t know that much about the internals of libraries, but I’d think that the marketing department of the distribution company would try to place stories into library journals, which would give you a name. I’d also guess that academic librarians, given their environment, would try to publish something.
If no one in a place you’d be interested in applying to has ever written anything, there is nothing to do, but if someone has it gives you at least some idea of what is important to them, and a name.
When candidates visit here, those who have Googled me and actually read some of my stuff get brownie points at least. (Current students are smarter - a lot do this.)