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I recently had a phone interview with a big N company for an entry level technical position. I received an email today saying that they weren't sure about moving me to the next step so they wanted to do a follow up phone interview. They asked for 3 available dates and times so I quickly replied with 3 dates a month out without any explanations. I had already done this when the recruiter first contacted me to give myself time to prepare, so I soon realized that this might have been a mistake.

I found this post for a similar question, but the difference is I am currently employed with about 1.5 years of experience, so not a student anymore.

This recruiter usually replies pretty quickly but It's been more than a few hours since I sent my email. How worried should I be? Should I do something to amend the mistake?

bli00
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    The answer is the same whether you are a student or have work experience. If you schedule an interview 1 month out without explanation it usually means you're not interested. I once scheduled an onsite a month out, because I had long vacation planned already. The company was really understanding and scheduled my onsite a month out and told me they'll let me know if anything changes in the mean time (i.e. they give the job to someone else). – jcmack May 21 '20 at 01:17
  • Yes, I had a job interview which needed to wait 4 weeks before i was available. That raised an eyebrow, but having things like attending the world paragliding championships as the british teams manager, spending 4 days training at a training conference in prague, and getting married all within the next 3 weeks did persuade them that it wasn't an issue of priorities and scheduling... – Michael Shaw May 21 '20 at 02:20
  • Does this answer your question? How do I properly follow-up with a hiring manager, to check on the status of a position? – gnat May 21 '20 at 08:07

2 Answers2

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Don't stress. These things happen.

Just email them back apologising, saying that on reflection you misinterpreted what they said, and that you are, of course, willing to catch up earlier if that works for them.

If you're on the fringe, you do need to be as accommodating as possible. So be sure to be as permissible as possible, when you list new times.

The sooner you do this, the better.

Gregory Currie
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Most companies want to fit all the interviews within a small window of time. This allows them to fill the position without risking losing the best candidate if they are the first one interviewing. If they have to wait a month for the last candidate, they may decide to cancel that last interview if they believe they have a good match in the applicants already interviewed.

Now sometimes they can be flexible if the position is hard to fill, or if they know that students have to travel during school breaks to get to the interview. Travel is always an issue that can spread the interviews.

The concern about a four week wait is that they think your aren't serious about leaving your current job. They also might think that you are expecting an offer from somebody else and want to delay this interview and will only appear if the other offer falls through.

They don't want to hear you need a month to prepare.

You should contact them again and ask for an earlier date. It is possible they can schedule you earlier. It is also possible that they are only keeping your application active as insurance in case the people with interviews next week prove to be a bad fit and they want to do a few more interviews. If they find somebody good in the first group you will never be considered.

mhoran_psprep
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  • The general impression I got and something that was passively mentioned by the recruiter was that this is general hiring and it's continuously on-going. – bli00 May 22 '20 at 22:04