What Is The Longest You Have Waited For A Reply

A question about : What Is The Longest You Have Waited For A Reply

My husband received a email inviting him to an interview on the 5th of January this year. He is already in employment as a refrigeration engineer but put his CV on the internet several years ago to see what other opportunities were around. He was interviewed on the 7th of January then got a phone call the day after asking him to go in for a practical test a fortnight later. They interviewed 9 other people and wanted them all to take the test. Ob viously they would only consider people already in employment for the job so everyone would have to arrange a day off to take the test which lasted all day. Last Friday they phoned my hubby to say that another person is interested but is going abroad for two weeks today and will be doing the test when gets back off holiday so they will not be making a decision until the middle of march at the earliest. I (and he does too) think its unfair as they short listed 3 people then someone rings up then the process gets longer. No one is being paid to take the test and obviously all involved have had to arrange time off. I think if anyone else rang them asking for an interview just how long will it be before they make their minds up? it could be months. I think my hub should just forget about this job because its obvious they are just messing people about.

Best answers:

• I have waited for 3 months to hear back from a job. So yes perhaps they are slow, less professional or just want to make sure they recruit the right person.
  It doesn't necessarily mean he won't get it.
• I waited 6 weeks in order for the company to interviews others as I was the 1st person they saw and hadn't had time to look at other CV's
  I then had to chase twice before I got a reply.
• In my perm days some of them were fairly long. Think the longest was when I was offered an internal job and whilst the money was fine the job grade they were offering meant that it would have been over the top of the band so no above inflation pay raises possible where as if the job was in the next band up I wouldnt get anything else immediately but being at the lower end of the scale gave a lot of headroom for payrises.
  It took them well over a month to sort out as they tried to change the job description for HR to regrade it higher and it kept coming back at the same grade. Eventually they took the original job spec and changed it from "Senior Change and Product Manager" to "Senior Product and Change Manager" and HR came back saying it could be the grade I wanted or the next one up.
  Knew one case where there was about 3 months of trying to sort out someone's background checks as they'd spent 6 months backpacking around India and they wanted mountains of proof around that which she didnt have and HR were trying to write to hostels/ beach hut operators etc confirming the dates she'd stayed there 4 years earlier etc.
• One job took 4 months to get back to me, I had been to an assessment day, two interviews and had met the MD for a chat in a motorway service station.
  They rang six months later to ask if I could start the following monday.
  They seemed miffed that I hadn't waited for this fantastic opportunity and why couldn't I leave my current job with less than 4 days notice.