I’ve gone through the final interview round. A week ago, my references were called. The position starts at the beginning of next year. I’m very anxious to know whether this is going to happen.
References were called exactly a week ago. Is it too soon for me to ask about the position? What do you think?
I’d say something along the lines of, I know they have a lot of thinking to do, and to please let me know what else I can do for them.
-KR
Damned if you do, damned if you dont. Some HR hirers think any follow up is being rude and pushy, other think that if you dont- you’re being rude.
Yes, there’s no answer to this. One week after the references were called is not a lot of time, but there’s still no way to know how they will react to inquiries.
Fry, I’d leave out the part about “I know they have a lot of thinking to do”. Make it a thank you note and do ask if they need any more info. But I still can’t tell you if there’s optimal time for doing this.
I’m just going to wait.
Speaking as someone who does a lot of hiring, I am favorably disposed towards people who follow up with a short thank-you note or email. It’s never gotten anyone a job with me all by itself, but it’s definitely been a tiebreaker more than once. Ideal wording:
**"Dear [Hiring Manager],
Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me yesterday. In light of our interview and what I was able to learn about [your company], I’m definitely interested in the position and more confident than ever that I would fit in well with your team. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions or need additional references.
Thanks again for your time and consideration!
Sincerely,
[Me]"**
I wrote a thank you note to the interviewer right after I met with her, and she later told me that it helped me get the job.
I always follow up with an apology letter.
It’s one of the last questions I always ask, “When do you hope to have a decision made/choose a candidate/whatever?”
Then I call close to that time. 
If your references are being called, that is a REALLY GOOD sign.
A thank you note is a good idea, but after that I would just wait. Personally I’m not a fan of job candidates calling for status updates and most of the bosses I’ve worked for feel the same way. If another week or two passes and you still haven’t heard anything, that’s different.
This is a great point. Calling references sucks. Employers hate doing it. Personally, I never do it unless I’m 95% sure I want to hire that person, and just making sure they aren’t crazy or lying about how they left a former job.
Agree. We don’t do it until an offer is in process, unless things are very close.
BTW, unless someone only interviewed HR, I’d send the note to the hiring manager. Our candidates don’t even talk to HR during interviews, but even in the old days when they did to get a rundown of benefits the hiring manager and his/her managers made the decision.
Generally you send a thank you note the same day. As far as a request to see how things are I would say a week.
[QUOTE=Poysyn]
If your references are being called, that is a REALLY GOOD sign.
[/QUOTE]
I agree. As OneCentStamp notes, reference checking is a painful, time-consuming task, requiring endless bouts of telephone tag. I never do it until it’s the last step required before the formal letter of offer goes out.
As for the thank you letter to the interviewer - that gets a big NO from me. I don’t need to be reminded who the candidates are, and it just comes off as smarmy.
I’m wondering if there are some cultural issues at play here. As a fellow Australian, there’s no way I would send a thank you letter, but it appear as if it is more usual/expected in the US. Mind you, having just been through the process for the first time in well over a decade, I was surprised at how quickly things progressed from contact to interviews to reference checks to offer. There was never a gap long enough for me to send a thank you letter even if I had wanted to.
HR rarely makes the actual hiring decision. It’s typically the hiring manager of the department you interviewed with. Also many people confuse the Recruiting department (who does hiring) with HR (who manages benefits).
As someone who has been on both side of the hiring desk, IMHO, most candidates are too concerned about following the minutiae of the formal process. Writing the perfect resume. Filling out the perfect online application. Following up too soon or too late or at all. So on and so forth. And then they wonder why they never get called back. It’s because every other candidate is doing the same thing and they just get lost in the noise.
Here is how the process actually works at nearly every company. Companies hire under three circumstances:
Routine hiring - typically seasonal or campus hiring for junior positions to backfill anticipated gaps left by attrition, promotion and planned expansion. usually managed at the corporate or business unit level by Recruiting / Campus Hiring.
Strategic hiring - A manager needs someone to fill a specific position.
Opportunistic hiring - The company wasn’t planning on hiring anyone, but you presented yourself (or was presented on behalf of someone else) as someone they could use. Typically requires that you be very specific about what exactly you can do for the company.
is different from 2) and 3) in that in Routine Hiring, a manager is often presented with a stack of screened resumes or candidates to interview. In strategic or opportunistic hiring, the manager has a need that has to make a case to HR for. This is important because in 1), the people you interview with might not really care about whether you get hired and are just going through a chore while not while in 2) and 3) the manager has a vested interest in finding and hiring the ideal candidate ASAP.
The other main difference is that in case 1), the company is hiring in batches. So they might interview 20 candidates and hire 4. In case 2) and 3), the company will continue interviewing until they find a candidate they like and then stop.
In pretty much every case, the person interviewing you has made their decision by the time the interview has ended. Or at the very latest, by the end of the day when all the other interviewers have met and discussed you. At that point, they will either give a Y or a N to Recruiting to have you go on to the next level.
So in a sense, “thank you” notes are pointless, because by the time you get home to write and send it out, the decisions been made anyway. Although they pretty much never hurt.
So why follow up after a week or so?
There are a couple of reasons:
Keep in mind, the interviewer has likely forgotten who you are as soon as he submitted his interview evaluation to the Recruiting team.
It’s not really a thank you letter, it’s prodding, which may or may not be useful. It could be considered etiquette, but I doubt many hirers care about that.
Just curious as to whether you sent a thank-you note?