<p>D recently had a job interview with a local company. Actually, she had a phone interview and then an in-person interview. Then nothing. It seems to me in this age of quick-and-easy communications that they could at least zip out an email to the effect of “thanks but no thanks”. This sort of thing must be common, however, since it happened to me about 4 years ago, after I spent an ENTIRE DAY interviewing for a position and then heard back absolutely zip.</p>
<p>If you are in the position of interviewing and hiring personnel, why would you not even bother with notifying the rejects?</p>
<p>Sometimes that’s from rudeness and disorganization, and other times its like the people who don’t respond to your party invitations because they are waiting to see if something more desirable comes up. Don’t assume you’ve been rejected. </p>
<p>They may still be sorting through the prospects. It took months for my daughter to be hired as temporary staff after maybe 4 or 5 interviews, then a yr working as temp full time before she was hired permanently.</p>
<p>Lots of people looking for work.
Some fields may even have too many applicants to notify personally, has she checked her spam folder?</p>
<p>For this summer?
I can understand her consternation.
My kids always had their summer jobs wrapped up by end of January or maybe mid February. Its a pretty tight market when you are talking about just a few months.
Is she looking for jobs on her campus?</p>
<p>When I was a hiring manager for a major company, the manager was not allowed to communicate the decisions… HR had to do it. They were overwhelmed and it was the last thing on their plate. Not a good excuse, but I sometimes thought that they avoided telling anyone bad news so they could not get complaints. </p>
<p>The company I work for does not notify interveiwees if they are not being offered the job or if they have decided not to hire for the position after all. It is a terrible policy and my co-workers and I have made it clear we do not agree with this practice and are hesitant to recommend qualified applicants. It goes in one ear and out the other. Rude and unprofessional in my opinion. </p>
<p>I think one of the reasons is that absence of notifications is a safeguard against being sued if something in the rejection notification infuriates the person who did not get the job. Lousy reason, IMO. </p>
<p>She needs to call or email. You never know what might have happened. What if they sent her an email offering her the job or asking more questions, and she didn’t see it? She needs to politely contact them again, perhaps asking if they had filled the position or need more information, reminding them of how much she appreciated the interview and her continued interest. Don’t let it go.</p>
<p>Here’s one for you. I have worked in the same school system for 14 years and applied for a job as chair person of my department. All of the candidates were interviewed on the same day, mid July. Three weeks later, I had not heard a word. While I assumed, at that point, that I was not being offered the position, the whole hiring process was so disorganized that I didn’t want to assume anything. So I had to call the person who was the chair of the hiring committee! This is a small school system. Everyone knows everyone. I have worked in three of the six schools here. And they couldn’t pick up the phone to let me know they had gone with someone else? I wasn’t really upset about not getting the job. In fact somewhat relieved. But I was furious at the disrespect and thoughtlessness and I lost a lot of respect for the administrator who chaired the position.</p>
<p>There is no excuse for that. Not to mention that while candidates are waiting for an answer they may be passing up opportunities that will pass them by while they are in limbo.</p>
<p>Last year after interviewing for a job I received a generic rejection email from the interviewer. What annoyed me though was that it was mass mailed to everyone else applying with all the rejected applicants’ names included up on the top of the message…it was bad enough getting rejected without my notice being sent to everyone else in town telling them I was rejected! Too many companies are sloppy communicating with applicants and plain out and out disrespectful toward applicants. Paths can cross down the road…I’m keeping a list.</p>
<p>I notify by email if we interviewed you but when you receive a thousand resumes for one job there is no way I’m sending any notification for receiving resumes. People many times ask why they didn’t get the job or for feedback but I never answer because I assume it’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. </p>
<p>I have been a recruiter for 19 years. I have a quick “thanks but no thanks” signature that I can hit reply to in my email in literally 2 seconds. And I do this with every resume. I get many thank yous for responding. There is NO excuse to not notify someone if they interviewed! I suggest to candidates to ask the question at the end of the interview “when should I expect to hear back from you”. If you don’t hear by then -call or email. </p>
<p>Fortunately, D has found a nice part-time position elsewhere to go with her internship! </p>
<p>I just can’t see justifying not responding to those who have taken the time to come for interviews - you may have had thousands of applicants, but you didn’t interview thousands of people. In my case my interviews took 6 HOURS. Surely someone could have taken 1 MINUTE to respond to the effect that they had chosen someone else and “good luck with your search”. To leave people hanging is just not nice. It’s hard to just let go and assume you were not chosen before some time has elapsed. Better to have closure and move on. </p>
<p>In another case regarding myself, the school in question sent an email saying they had 75 qualified applicants and had chosen someone else. At least there was some sense that they respected my search efforts.</p>
<p>I once had a phone interview with somebody who was supposedly very interested (and this was a small company with only a handful of people) and she never got back to me. I eventually emailed her about the status of the job and she never replied to that either. Totally rude. Another time I sent a resume with a recommendation from a personal friend of the person and she also never replied - again I emailed and asked the status and the job had been filled.</p>