Important Notice:
This site has moved to AskAManager.org, please update your bookmarks. If you were looking for a specific post, you can use the site search option, archives, or categories at the new domain to find it. Thank you!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

what does it mean that a job I interviewed for was re-listed?

A reader writes:

I applied for a job with an organization, passed the phone screen, and was given a second interview less than a week later. I interviewed with a panel of people and was told at the time there were several candidates interviewing for this position. In my opinion, the interview went well. After the interview, the recruiter also let me know that she heard really good things about me and that she would be traveling during the hiring process so there would be no activity while she was out.

After a couple of weeks passed, I emailed this recruiter to follow up with her and let her know that I was still interested in the position and wanted to know the status. She responded that she needed to reacquaint herself with any decisions made by the hiring manager in her absence and she would let me know the outcome as soon as possible. 

Feeling a bit discouraged, I decided to check their job board again because their parent org posts all of their jobs on the same site, and I wanted to see if they had any openings in other areas. Well, lo and behold, I saw the job that I interviewed for re-listed on the site! 

I have received no notice from this recruiter since our last contact mentioned about this job. I am assuming that neither I nor the other candidates were chosen for the position. Could we all have been that bad of a fit that none of us were suitable? Even if that is the case why not just let me know that I was not the right person for this job? Do you think they are trying to interview other candidates and keep us strung along? Should I email the recruiter and confront her that I saw the job posting re-listed?

Okay, let's take these questions one at a time:

Could all the candidates have been such a bad fit that none were suitable? Yes, possibly. But it's also possible that they simply keep jobs listed until they're filled, or that they adjusted some small detail in the listing and that made it appear to have been posted all over again, or some other explanation that doesn't indicate that they've decided to reject all their candidates. This is all like reading tea leaves -- you can drive yourself crazy trying to interpret what little things like this mean, and there's rarely a definitive way to know.

If they have rejected you, why not let you know that you were not chosen? Because employers increasingly don't bother getting back to candidates to tell them they're no longer under consideration, even in cases where candidates have invested significant amounts of time in the hiring process. It's rude, inconsiderate, and indefensible, but it's common.

Are they interviewing other candidates and keeping you strung along? Possibly. Again, we don't really know. They might be seeing who else is out there, or they might have definitively rejected you in their minds without bothering to tell you, or they might just be really, really slow. 

Should you confront the recruiter about the job being re-listed? "Confront" is too strong a word, but yes, you should follow up with her more assertively about your status (assuming more than a few days have passed since your last contact).

Email the recruiter, remind her that you haven't yet heard back from her after she promised to let you know about the job, and tell her that since it's now been ___ weeks since you interviewed and you haven't heard anything, you're going to assume that you're out of the running and will be turning your attention to other opportunities. Ask her to let you know if you're wrong. Be friendly and polite, but be clear and matter-of-fact.

There's also this: Sometimes I think that the best thing you can do after interviewing for a job is to put it out of your mind altogether (aside from doing appropriate follow-up, like thank-you notes and, if the process drags out, occasional check-ins). The alternative is that you drive yourself insane wondering and worrying and trying to read various signals, and ultimately that stuff serves no practical purpose. They're going to call you or not call you regardless of how much you stress and wonder and agonize. So for the sake of your quality of life, it might be better to mark some follow-up on your calendar and otherwise pretend it never happened. If a job offer comes in, fantastic -- and if it doesn't, well, you weren't counting on it or stressing about it anyway, and you've been out there aggressively pursuing other opportunities and not getting sidetracked by one that might or might not pan out.

I know that's frustrating. It's also the reality of the job market right now, and it might be the best approach.

12 comments:

Eric said...

I'd also add that some organizations have required number of candidates that they need to have at each stage. So it is possible that you are still in, but they need more people to be able to move forward with the search.

Anonymous said...

Very nicely answered, particularly about letting it be after the appropriate thank-yous and follow-ups. It can just sap all the energy out of you to imagine the whys and wherefores, and there are so many reasons that an org would re-list something that it's not worth worrying about. There is a fair bit of zen-like thinking that comes into play with job searching - relax into the knowledge that if it's right, it will happen and if it doesn't happen, then it wasn't right. Or something along those lines.

Good stuff!

Anonymous said...

I've been watching two positions at 2 different Fortune 500 companies get listed over. and over. and over. For the past year. I have spoken to the recruiter for both positions and for some reason, both jobs are listed for about half the pay that is currently the norm in the industry, even with the recession.

I know that sometimes you just want to call the actual manager of that department and say "hello, I'm your guy/girl, stop wasting money on all these recruiters and listings and endless interviews." A lot of companies just suck at hiring, even the big guys. Just move on.

Kale said...

Thanks so much for tackling my problem. I have definitely taken your advice and moved on. I have had several interviews since and am very hopeful that one of those will pan out.

You are right, it was seriously killing me trying to figure out what was going but I agree with the commenter that said if was meant to be it would happen.

Anonymous said...

I have to object to the advice that states that she should email the recruiter to let her know that she assumes she is out of the running and will be turning her attention to other opportunities. This really could be interpreted as taking herself out of the running, when there is no reason to do so. Simply follow-up professionally, letting them know you are still interested, and leave it at that.

Anonymous said...

While intellectually I completely agree with putting a job out of your mind after the appropriate follow ups to an interview, it is so difficult to do in practice. I don't know about others out there, but the interviews for me have been few and far between, and when you actually land one it's kind of all encompassing.

Anonymous said...

I interviewed for a position originally posted in June, reposted a day after my interview , posted again mid july and once again Aug 5/10 - and it wasn't a hard to fill job ( ie nuclear physicist, u.s. president etc) I understand that for peace of mind, the best thing to do is move on and not take it personally, but it is very hard to do, especially when you know you have the capabilities to get the work done. It would be interesting to know what the costs are for recruiting just one job? Do companies have endless resources when it comes to the hiring process?

Steve said...

Another option is that the job listing is for an internal candidate, and that they are tweaking the listing to guarantee that the internal candidate gets the job.

Nothing frustrates me more than job postings where the job has effectively already been filled before the posting.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Eric, especially if this is a job with a government agency. We are required to have a list of eligible candidates. The list must have at least five candidates. If there were not five eligible candidates in the initial screening, we are required to republish the position. In that case, and since she hasn't been told explicitly that she is out of the running, she is still in.

When they hired me, I made the first cut, but there were only two other eligible candidates (meeting education and experience requirements). They republished the job. Twice. It took six months for them to hire me and for me to start. (one month was waiting for the FBI to finish my background profile but still).

Hang in there. Do not send an email saying you know you are out of the running. You don't really know that.

Ask a Manager said...

To clarify, I'm not suggesting that you take yourself out of the running. I'm suggesting that you write something to the recruiter saying you're assuming the company no longer considering you, but to let you know if you're wrong. This will sometimes get a response from a recruiter, whereas she's had trouble getting one with just status check-ins.

When someone is directly asking to be told where she stands (as the OP was) and totally ignored, it's reasonable to say "ok, I'm going to assume you've moved on, but let me know if I'm incorrect."

Jamie said...

My job doesn't involve hiring per se, but I am asked to reach out to possible applicants for certain positions in my company.

I don't like the practice (in my last company) of doing this before there's a time line for filling the position - or even if it will be filled at all.

I'm not talking about calling people who have sent in unsolicited resumes - I'm talking about networking with the intent of finding out about availability when things are undefined.

I do follow up and let them know their resume has been passed on, and to whom, and politely let them know it's out of my hands. But when they don't hear back they keep contacting me because I will at least respond.

I just don't understand the thinking behind courting people without any definite plans/time lines in place, but I've seen it at more than one company.

Kale said...

Just for clarity's sake this is not a government job.