Did the interview go well?

One of the hardest things to do during a job search can be when you’re walking out of an interview and are trying to figure out if it went well. Often – most of the time in my experience – hiring managers don’t really give you any indication of how well you did so it’s usually hard to figure out.

In rare instances while working as a recruiter, I can recall times when a hiring manager called me following an interview with one of my candidates where the hiring manager all but said “I’m going to hire this person” but by the way they spoke about the person, I knew that’s exactly what was going to happen. Sometimes, you just click with a hiring manager and it becomes obvious to both parties that you want the job and they want to hire you.

I recall one case where the hiring manager called me right after the interview with my candidate to tell me that they’d made a job offer to the person right on the spot.

Most of the time though, it’s hard to figure things out and you have to wait until you either get the thumbs up or down from the hiring authority that you’re dealing with.

While it’s difficult to look for signs that 100% guarantee you are either getting the job or not, there are some things to look for that can help to give you an idea if you should keep moving ahead with your job search or if you might be receiving an offer soon:

Look for “buy signs” from the interviewer: Look for signs from the hiring authority or whoever is interviewing you that indicate interest in you. They are typically in the form of questions that help the interviewer gauge your interest in the job. Buy signs include asking you your salary requirements, the date you can start the job, what other companies you’re interviewing with, if you’re currently considering any other job offers and asking you for references. Strong buy signs could include showing you around the office or where you’d be sitting or when the interviewer unexpectedly brings in other people to interview you which might indicate they want a second opinion or that they want to save the time of having you come back for a second interview if they want to speed things up.

Consider the length of the interview: Certainly, if you’re in and out of an interview in less than 30 minutes, this often isn’t a good sign. Other times, it might not necessarily mean anything but more often than not, when I know a candidate is in for an interview at say 9:00am and my phone rings at 9:30am and the candidate’s name is showing up on the caller ID and they tell me they just finished the interview, I generally assume the interview didn’t go well and usually it didn’t. Conversely I’ve had candidates interview for upwards of 1.5 hours and then get invited back for a second interview of a similar length and then they don’t get the job either so sometimes it’s hard to tell.

Pay attention to how the interview ends: Do you leave the interview and suddenly realize there was no discussion as to what happens next or when you’ll hear from the hiring manager regarding your candidacy? This is often not a good sign but then again, I’ve attended interviews where there was no discussion of when I’ll get a response and then a week later, I got a job offer. If the hiring manager expects to have an answer in say 2 days and one week later you still haven’t heard anything typically something has happened behind the scenes. Perhaps they’re still interviewing other people, maybe they’ve found another person they like more and are trying to wrap things up with them, maybe an internal candidate arose that they are planning to hire.

Again, none of the things mentioned above guarantee anything but they can certainly help to indicate but they might help to give you hints as to which way the hiring manager is thinking with regards to whether or not they should hire you.

I specifically didn’t mention any signs that people often look for from hiring managers that they believe indicate something one way or the other. Having a hiring manager smile at you as you’re leaving the interview or feeling that you made a “connection” with the interviewer doesn’t really mean much to me because often it might be a case of the interviewer simply being polite or where you simply misinterpreted the signals being offered.

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