They Told Me I Did Well, But I Haven’t Heard Back From Them
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
Someone asked my opinion on what I thought was going on and I thought I would share it with you.
I Keep Sending Out Resumes, Following Up and Getting No Results
i, I’m Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. And I coach people and organizations to play big and got a message from someone who was asking me a question about a scenario they were involved with. And it goes kind of like this.
She thought she had a great interview, got good feedback live. Even after the interview, call from the recruiter, told her she did well. Hasn’t heard anything.
Two weeks. What does this mean? What’s going on here? And, you know, the long and the short of it is, as I’ve said to people for years, often what not hearing back after getting positive feedback means is that number one is they’re still interviewing. You know, they’re not ready to close the doors on their dream boat walking in the front door with the result being you’re left in limbo.
You’re sitting there going, Oh, when will they call? I hope I hear from him soon. And I know it’s frustrating. But if you sit there, waiting by the phone for the phone call to come from the employer, you’re making a strategic mistake.
What you always need to be doing is taking what they say at face value. And keep on interviewing. Keep on trying to market yourself.
Keep on trying to get opportunities to come up to you and just knock you over and really create competition for this situation. You see, most of the time, stuff that gets put on the quote back burner, while they look at other people, invariably falls off the stove, as the joke goes in the recruiting business. So you don’t want to be so dependent upon this one employer to be the one that you’re waiting by the phone for in unrequited love.
What you want to always be doing is to keep going out on dates, meaning interviews. Keep marketing yourself. Keep promoting yourself.
Keep networking. Keep on keeping on. Because, you know, until they’re ready to move, all that happens is you have a situation that’s tantalizing there, but nothing in reality.
They haven’t invited you back. They talked about how you did well, but so what? There could be five more people that they see after you that’s done well. Now, as things progress, you know, I’ve complained about this to employers all the time.
Sometimes they call a month, two months later and say, okay, we’re ready to go. And you shouldn’t be waiting for them because obviously, they were not in love sufficiently with you to drop down on one knee and propose marriage when they met. I mean, the two of you met.
So always be out there promoting. Always be out there selling yourself. Always be out there building your network online, in person.
So that’s the simplest thing about what’s going on. They’re not ready to move. And even though they told you you did well, it may not mean that you get a job or a job from them anyway.
So don’t fall for the seduction. I gotta say that again. Don’t fall for the seduction of the few words about you did well.
And that’s whether that’s coming from an employer directly, or from a third party recruiter. That third party recruiter may be your advocate, or they may have four other people in the loop with this firm. They don’t care which one of you gets the job.
They just want to collect the fee. So I’ll simply say, keep on keeping on. Don’t fall for the bull that’s being thrown at you.
They’re not ready to move on you. And you shouldn’t be ready to sit by the phone and commit to that. Hope you found this helpful.
Visit JobSearch.Community. There’s a ton there to help you. Have a great day. Take care
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@ 3:30 _”Don’t fall for the seduction.”_ LOL!!! Amen, Jeff. We shouldn’t be sitting by the phone like a 16 year old girl waiting for Tommy Jones to call and ask us to the prom. I learned that the hard way this week. Never again.
@ 3:30 _”Don’t fall for the seduction.”_ LOL!!! Amen, Jeff. We shouldn’t be sitting by the phone like a 16 year old girl waiting for Tommy Jones to call and ask us to the prom. I learned that the hard way this week. Never again.
You are no more than paper pushers, why do you exist?
I am a career coach who worked in recruiting for many years. You may think of it that way and that is your prerogative. You happen to be wrong. Thinking of recruiters is nothing more than paper pushers is a childish projection that does nothing to change facts. It is unfortunate That you believe that lobbing insults represents critical thinking. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. If you don’t like what recruiters do, take it up with corporations who are very willing to pay them for what they do. Good luck and I hope you land something very quickly.
I have never worked with you personally. I had the misfortune to rely on many other “recruiters” who each one of them passionately claimed they are “different”. They really are all just paper pushers. They do not really know the person they try to sell, they neither care nor able to understand what that person did and achieved; they just make everything more complicated.
Companies work with them because companies are made of pathetic, lazy @ssholes.
I don’t land anywhere. I am out of the corporate world for good.
I won’t argue with your experience. It is YOUR experience. It wasn’t the experience of people I represented and I am sure some people would have said the same thing about me because they were disappointed and blamed me for the fact the did not have the experience my client wanted. Many times, recruiters are collateral damage on both sides of the transaction–companies change their mind, change the description and recruiters are blamed for bad client behavior. Then,job applicants exaggerate their knowledge and experience and it is also the recruiters fault (And recruiters are not blameless either. Some lie).
My opinion is regardless of whether I was rejected or accepted to a specific position. You miss the point if you think that this is what determines whether you are a paper pusher or not.
When in the corporate world, either way my job application went, I always knew, that the “recruiter” had no understanding of me, my experience, my academic and professional achievements, my goals, the field I am at…. damn it, they could not even understand my first homework assignment in my first semester at the university. *They are really just paper pushers.* Sometimes what they throw sticks, many times it does not. The more advanced positions you apply to are, the softer interviews tend to be (although my field is very technical), what I call “the private club interview” – essentially it’s just a matter of chemistry of your voice with the jerk on the other end of the phone, they basically decide if they like you within the first 5 seconds. Forget about the 20 years of PhD studies and academic research you went through. If he does not like you on the phone he has 100 other CVs on his desk. People in this field tend to be males, so it would have been an advantage to be a woman candidate on the phone, however I am not.
For me, the question at some point became – do I want to waste my time on trying to be liked by some random dude, or just do something useful, productive, fascinating and fulfilling with my time, which does not require me to pass through those gatekeepers? I just happen to be in a very creative field, with many creative people being employed as drones just because they need the money, but could have done so much more amazing things.
The theme of my next book is about avoiding recruiters at all costs . . . both third party and corporate recruiters. So many are clueless.
My openion is if you dont get response after an interview it means they dont want you, period. It is better then to ignore them and search for other jobs in other organisations. Employers dont care bout any one not being selected so all what you advise are bullshit.
As my video says, it means they don’t want you . . . yet or at all. As I say in the video, the thing someone should keep doing is keep looking until someone is ready to propose marriage. “Don’t fall for the bull that’s being thrown at you.” Keep looking.
Jeff, I had two interviews in the last month and after the interviews (both) they told me we would call you but did not receive any call from the ! I sent an email to follow up with one of them but no response, means even they dont bother to tell you sorry you are not selected for the job ! I have been through same cases in many instances, therefore I have come to a conclusion that it is better to ignore them if you dont get any call, bcz it could damage your dignity specially if a candidate is fully qualified and holds Dr as in my case.
[…] Okay. But here’s the clever part. You ask it to prompt you back. […]