My entire professional life, I’ve worked in non-profits. This year, I have been looking for a private sector job. Last week I got what I thought was a job offer. It was my first interview with this company and my interviewer pulled in 3 other co-workers to meet me. At the end of the interview, she said I’m the only person she wants to hire. Then she told me that I had to set up a meeting with HR.
Bursting with excitement, I was able to keep quiet for a day. Then, I gave my supervisor a head’s up. My supervisor was really awesome about it and even encouraged me to take time off between jobs! I had the HR meeting last Friday. It turns out I have to go through this entire process of a drug screen and background check. So, I don’t have a formal offer in writing.
I am curious if this is the normal hiring process for private sector jobs? Does this sound like the verbal offer was given by someone who didn’t have hiring power and now they have to do a lot of HR paperwork? Also, most importantly, would a company put a person through these steps if they weren’t serious about hiring them? I’m trying to be patient about this process but I LOATHE my current job and the longer I have to stay put, the more nervous I am.
It still does sound like they are serious about hiring you. HR doesn’t have any real power other than procedural at this point. I won’t say what I think about most HR departments but they usually just serve as the start and end points for getting hired. The start point is simply screening resumes in a rough way. The end point is checking references, drug testing, some salary calculations, and paperwork. They usually don’t have much say in who actually gets hired except for the initial screening and even that is not absolute.
I tend to bounce around a lot as an IT consultant. I have proabbly been to over 100 interviews in the last 8 years. You can’t ever tell what an individual company is going to do. Some pull all kinds of crazy stuff.
I wouldn’t worry all that much if I were you. If the hiring manager really wants to hire you that is what will happen barring a failed drug test or criminal conviction.
It’s very common to be told by an interviewer that they want to hire you or even that “you have the job”, only to have the offer be torpedoed by HR or a hiring freeze, or an obstreporous manager. It may also be the case that the interviewer was just being overly polite, didn’t have the social skills to reject you to your face, or didn’t, in fact, have the final say in hiring.
So, one of the most important things to remember about the job hunt is that you * don’t have an offer until they put it in writing. * Don’t burn any bridges until you get the official offer.
I don’t think this is odd. Usually you get the call where they verbally offer you the job, and paperwork follows later. Sometimes the job offer is contingent upon a drug screen (my current job didn’t have this, but my last job did) and/or a background check. Those are usually a formality, but if you fail those, they can pretty much pull the offer.
I think they probably just have to have HR go through the official paperwork process.
My guess is that it will all go through. The drug screening is common, but unless you are taking drugs, shouldn’t be a problem. Dunno about the background check. We don’t do one, unless it is just the general calling-the-references thing. I think though, that you are just going through the red tape will probably get an offer.
However, in the future, wait for the written offer…
Thanks for all the feedback! Since I had to pick a last day at my current job so they can work on finding my replacement, I’m hoping the hiring process is just paperwork/procedural! Lesson learned: keep your trap shut until you have something in writing.