Follow-up or wait for non-responsive interviewer?

January 20, 2016 11:49 AM

Interviewer asked for availability for a phone meeting early this week, hasn't responded to my e-mail. Should I wait or follow-up?

So I am trying to get a new job at a company my friend currently works for (I currently have a job, if that matters). Last Monday, I sent her my resume and on Tuesday her boss e-mailed me to set up a meeting/interview.

Last Friday I had a two hour interview on Friday in which I met several members of the team I would be working with. I thought it went very well. The main director, who organized the interview, asked me to submit my resume online formally so I'm in their system and said he'd follow-up with me early next week.

I submitted my resume online and wrote a thank you/follow-up e-mail on Monday morning.
He responded immediately and asked if I had any time early this week to have a 20-30 minute call with another member of the team I didn't get to meet on Friday.
I offered some times on Tuesday and Wednesday and asked him to please let me know if any of those times work. That was 1pm on Monday, it is now 11:30am on Wednesday.
I haven't heard from him since.

My friend said I killed the interviews, everyone is thinks I'm well qualified and liked my personality, and she's pretty sure they're not interviewing any other candidates. I know that I can't totally count on this, but I don't think he's not contacting me because they're not interested in me. I reread my e-mail and made sure he definitely said this week and not next week.

My friend also mentioned that they're EXTREMELY busy right now and I shouldn't stress about it, but it is making me nervous, especially since he requested times early in the week and it's already Wednesday.

Am I freaking out?

Should I wait for him to respond or send a follow-up e-mail? I could maybe say I just wanted to check in and offer some alternative times for Thursday/Friday? Is this a good idea? If so, any suggestions on how to word this without being too pushy?

tl;dr: Interviewed on Friday. Monday morning, interviewer asked me for my availability for a phone meeting early in the week. I gave him times for Tuesday/Wednesday. Haven't heard back from him and it's now Wednesday at noon. Should I send follow-up e-mail?

Thanks!

posted by ad4pt to Work & Money (10 answers total)

Best answer: Don't freak out. Don't email him again.

If you're looking for a new gig, keep looking. If you're not, just put everything on the back burner and concentrate on your current job.

It might be that the other person doesn't want to interview you, or the scheduling person is swamped, or what have you.

If they need you, and they liked you, they won't forget to offer you the job.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 11:56 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Wait until tomorrow, then email him something friendly to follow-up--ask if another time would work better and if you can provide any more information. You want to develop a reputation of being interested, accountable, and detail-oriented right from the beginning, so model that here.
posted by verbyournouns at 12:22 PM on January 20, 2016 [11 favorites]

Came in to say what verbyournouns said, but I'll add: Can you ask your friend to maybe drop in on the director and say "Hey, my friend ad4pt was wondering about that interview..."?

(If your friend isn't sure whether she could get away with that, then drop it.)
posted by Etrigan at 12:26 PM on January 20, 2016

Nope. Companies take forever to hire, so just sit tight. Calling/emailing won't actually push the process forward, it will just get you (at best) an "I'm sorry, please hold tight."
posted by xingcat at 12:52 PM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

Don't ask your friend to get involved. I agree with verbyournouns
posted by shesbenevolent at 12:57 PM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Should I wait for him to respond or send a follow-up e-mail?

I would and I would be all "Just in case cyberspace ate my last email and you didn't get it."

But I suck at job hunting, so if you choose that tactic, it should be informed by other advice by people with job hunting skillz. Maybe wait until tomorrow and do that tomorrow, since other folks seem to think tomorrow is okay to email.

Sometimes things just do not get there and that can create weird situations where there is no good answer and both sides are assuming the other person DIDN'T REPLY. It happens.
posted by Michele in California at 1:06 PM on January 20, 2016

I might send a followup email tomorrow or Friday, something like "hey, just wanted to let you know I was still interested, let me know a few times that would be good for this brief phone convo" in the appropriate level of corporateSpeak. But I'd also keep this in mind as an indication of their business practices. You held up your part of the agreement, they dropped theirs. Times are busy, shit happens, and I've forgotten a few less critical things lately myself. But how they respond to this would be even more crucial to me than a lot of the other markers. Does the guy get back to you quickly and apologize, does he take a few days and reiterate his earlier message and then drop the ball again, or does he get irritated with you? Because that's the real company you'd be working for.
posted by disconnect at 1:37 PM on January 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

Best answer: A nearly identical situation happened to me a few months ago. In your situation, I did not contact the friend in question, but sent another email to the hiring coordinator saying that since the times I'd listed before didn't work (I mentioned that they were probably very busy, blah blah), I decided to email again with additional times to choose from so that they didn't have to ask again. I got a reply a couple days later confirming one of the times I'd mentioned, no big deal.

I would suggest the same in your situation. I would not say your email might have gotten lost - for many people, that's code for "I forgot to send this to you before" which is not what happened, and if they deleted your email accidentally or it really did get lost, it might create a poor impression. Just say that since the other times weren't good, here are some other options for coming days, and leave it at that.

I would not do this more than once, so in your next email (which I would send first thing tomorrow morning), give a good few days worth of possible times if you can.

Best of luck!
posted by Urban Winter at 2:46 PM on January 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

Urban Winter has the right answer, I think. In your follow-up, try to give four options, ideally late Thursday (same day) plus Friday plus two days early the next week. Good luck!

(And disconnect is right too. This probably means nothing, but it might be an indicator that they're a little messed up or disrespectful.)
posted by Susan PG at 3:29 PM on January 20, 2016

Response by poster: Thanks everyone. Turns out they had some internal issues and had to hold off on hiring someone. Argh.
posted by ad4pt at 9:24 AM on January 26, 2016