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Three weeks ago I was verbally offered a job and I accepted. I filled out my background consent form and stated that I was honest and divulged that I was convicted of a misdemeanor. My background check came back 10 days later and it stated what I had divulged. The company has not rescinded the offer or provided any update or written offer. What should I do?? I emailed last week and the response that I've received is that they are waiting for an update from the decision maker. I'm in the state of California. Do I make a complaint?

Cloud
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Sam
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  • What sort of time span are we looking at? When did you accept, when did the background check come through, and when did you last hear from them? – David K Apr 22 '15 at 18:47
  • @ David, I verbally accepted April 3 and my background came back on April 13. I emailed them and they emailed me back on April 16 that they're waiting on an update. – Sam Apr 22 '15 at 18:54
  • Related, potentially a duplicate - How long should one wait to see if they got the job? – David K Apr 22 '15 at 19:05
  • @Sam who do you think you would make a complaint to? – RubberChickenLeader Apr 22 '15 at 19:26
  • @ WindRaven EEOC – Sam Apr 22 '15 at 19:31
  • @Sam unless you are a member of a protected class and claiming discrimination there is no basis for a complaint to EEOC. The company may also have hired some one else and never followed up figuring you would get the hint eventually. Follow up with the advice of an email or possibly a phone call asking the same questions David K brought up in his answer. – RubberChickenLeader Apr 22 '15 at 20:15
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    Actually the EEOC does protect misdemeanor and felony offenders in certain cases. Its not clear cut and IMHO not to be used unless as a last resort when employment is actually denied (it will be hard to prove). Here is an interesting read: http://www.diogenesllc.com/crimeinfowhenhiring.pdf – Jeff Meden Apr 22 '15 at 22:47
  • Similar situation here: After 1yr of job search I received a verbal offer from a Big Software CompA last week (after 1 month or so of interviewing). I negotiated which they accepted and got back to me in 2 days which Now I've accepted the verbal offer then. Now another CompB had 2 technical rounds back2back with me last week, may offer me a better compensation too, since they are interested. However, I've not heard from CompA ever since and it's Wed already. Should I follow up and about written offer with CompanyA while also try my shot at this other interview I am going through. Thoughts? – geekidharsh May 10 '17 at 18:44
  • @StephanBranczyk Hi not piggybacking I sure do differ in that context but for a general situation it matched I guess. I was typing my question but I was getting suggestions that it may be a duplicate, matching this thread and a few others. Trying to avoid redundancy I thought probably including a similar situation may be helpful to me and to other readers. I'll go ahead and delete my earlier comment if that helps. – geekidharsh May 17 '17 at 22:54

2 Answers2

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Send your contact another follow-up email and ask how soon you should expect to hear back. This does two things. 1) It reminds them that you're still waiting and hopefully nudges them along. 2) It gives you a sense of how normal this wait is. Maybe things move slowly in this company and a month's delay is nothing to worry about. You now have a concrete time-frame to know when it is appropriate to contact them a third time (though hopefully it doesn't come to that).

I agree that a complaint is definitely not the way to go since it is just going to make you look bad. I would also not email corporate HR as you suggested in a comment. If this is a big company, the corporate folks are likely not going to know anything about you and the job you're applying for. Additionally, stepping around your point-of-contact is essentially the same as complaining or going to their boss and is just going to annoy them as well. If you want to escalate things, I would wait at least one more missed contact. However, if you are getting to that point, I would be reconsidering whether I even want to work for that company anymore.

David K
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No no no. A complaint is not the right way to approach this, as you'll certainly annoy if not outright offend the people involved in hiring you. Larger companies can take a long time to push forward with a finalized offer. I think the worst I've seen was with a Canadian company that took 2.5 months and 4 interviews to finally provided a written offer to a colleague of mine.

A follow up e-mail is what you should be considering. If you want to be to the point, you can simply e-mail HR or the person you interviewed with and note something like "Good day. It's been just over a week since the background check has concluded and I would like to move forward with the offer provided verbally a couple weeks ago. What are the next steps?".

This shows you're still interested in the position, and reminds them about the outstanding verbal offer. You could always mention if you are in the later stages of negotiations with another company, and wanted to know if you are still a potential candidate for the position. This is a double-edged sword: it could light a fire under their toes and speed up the process, or it could backfire, and they would advise you go with the other company.

Waiting for final confirmation is never fun, but a week isn't too unreasonable in most industries, especially if it's a larger organization.

Good luck!

Cloud
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