But the ability to keep a good
attitude while waiting (Joyce Meyer)
Remember that feeling: you nailed
the interview and there is perfect chemistry between you and the hiring
manager. Your hearts skips a beat when they call you to tell that you are the
preferred candidate and that an offer is being prepared…and then comes the
waiting part….
Day one goes by without a call, as
does day 2. By that time, you have checked whether your phone is actually on,
you have sent a test-mail to yourself to make sure that that is still working
as well…in a nutshell, you are stressing out!
A couple of candidates called me in
these last few days, suffering from waiting anxiety. Here is what I told them
on keeping your cool in nerve-racking times:
Time
moves slowly for you but it flies on the company side.
Preparing an offer involves
calculations, approvals… activities that often require other people to
intervene in the process. As important as the job offer is to you, for others
it is merely a task on their to-do list.
Follow up with purpose
If you call and get voicemail, no need to try again after 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes…. It looks pretty stalkerish on caller ID.
That does not mean that you cannot take any action. It’s ok to call or to send an e-mail when the timeline that they told you has passed but limit your follow up to once. If you are the strongest candidate, you don’t need to keep yourself in the forefront of the hiring manager’s mind, you are already there.
Keep
applying and interviewing for other jobs.
Appealing as it may be to cancel
all planned interviews when you hear that an offer will be prepared, don’t. You
never know what may happen. An internal candidate may pop up; a sudden hiring
freeze may be imposed.
Should this happen, you don’t want
to be in the position where you have blown up all other opportunities that you
were working on.
Bluffing
that you have another job offer won’t speed things up
If you are trying to use another
job offer to speed things up, be it fake or real, it may blow up in your face.
Employers typically like to think
that they are your number one pick. They also assume that you have thought
things through and are not accepting just any job. Waving with another job
offer may ruin that picture. There is no way back if an employer tells you to
accept the other offer.
And last but not least: Stop obsessing
If the hiring manager does not
accept your linked in invitation immediately, it does not mean that he has
changed his mind. If the job is reposted, it does not automatically mean that
they are looking for additional candidates. Difficult as it may be, try not to
read something in small details. It won’t change the outcome; it will only make
you miserable.
There is no one single right way to
spend the waiting time for an offer. These suggestions may help you to put it
in perspective but the golden rule remains: go do something else to get it out
of your system, something that takes your mind off the wait. And you’ll
see…when you least expect it…the phone will ring J.
I look forward to hearing from you,
Isabel
Through a personalized and
tailor-made approach, Ingenium Executive Search aspires to assist you in
attracting the right talent that matches the DNA of your company
Follow me on Twitter
@IngeniumSearch
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