Interviewer Said They Would Call But Didn’t

Job interviews can be a nerve-wracking experience, and it can feel like a huge weight is lifted off your shoulders when the interviewer tells you they’ll call you back. But what happens when they don’t? You’re left feeling anxious, confused, and uncertain about the outcome of the interview. Unfortunately, this situation is all too common in the job search process.

In this article, we’ll discuss:

Two Situations When an Interview Says They Will Call But Doesn’t,

The Reasons Why You May Not Have Received a Call, and

What to Do In Both Situations When an Interviewer Doesn’t Call You Back

Understanding these factors and knowing what to do when it happens to you will help you navigate your job search more effectively and with less stress. Let’s dive in.

Situation 1: The Interviewer Scheduled a Phone Interview and Didn’t Call You

Oftentimes getting a phone interview is the hardest part of job searching. When someone responds to our resume and schedules that first-step phone interview, we feel relieved. But what happens when the interviewer doesn’t call you at the scheduled time?

This situation can be frustrating and leave you questioning your chances of getting the job. Here’s what you should do in this situation.

Double Check the Meeting Details

Find the email from the recruiter or hiring manager and double-check your dates and times. Job searching is stressful and there are a lot of moving pieces. It’s not uncommon for a job seeker to mix up dates and times. Make sure you have the correct date and time.

Check Your Voicemails and Emails

When I was recruiting, my phone screens would sometimes go longer than anticipated. In this case, I would usually send out a quick email with a subject line titled “running late.” Check your voicemails and call logs to make sure you didn’t miss the phone call and check your email to make sure the interviewer didn’t send you a message. Don’t forget to check your junk or spam folders also.

Give the Interviewer Grace

Things happen to all of us. It is possible that the interviewer is running late and can’t send you a message. They could be in a critical meeting that ran late. There could have been an emergency at work or at home. There are so many possibilities. Don’t jump to conclusions and don’t assume the worst.

Send an Email

After about five minutes, send an email to the interviewer to make sure they didn’t forget and to let them know that you showed up on time. This email should be polite and professional. You could write something like this:

Hi, Cole

Thanks for scheduling a (phone call/zoom meeting/interview) with me today at (time). I wanted to confirm that we’re still meeting today and (instructions on how you were to be contacted, for example, that we were joining via the Zoom link you sent on Friday). I wanted to confirm whether we were still meeting today. I will (stay by my phone/remain in the Zoom meeting room) for another 15 minutes in case you are running behind. I’m available later today from (time), or if something came up and you need to reschedule, please let me know and we can coordinate our calendars.

I look forward to connecting with you

This email should be approachable and should make it easy for the other person to access you without fear. The last thing you want to do is take a defensive or accusatory tone. If the other person did make a mistake, giving them a way out with minimal embarrassment will be your most likely path forward to an interview.

Follow Up Again

If you send an email and 24 to 48 hours go by with no response, follow up again. You can send an email, make a phone call, or try both. Your follow-up email could look something like this:

Hi Cole,

I hope everything is ok. We had an interview scheduled on (date) at (time) and I never heard from you. I tried following up on (date). I wanted to make one last attempt to get in touch with you. I’m very interested in your (position) opening and when you’re able I’d like to reschedule our interview.

Move On

As much as you may want to let off the gas after receiving an interview or two, don’t. No matter how promising a job appears, until you have started it, nothing is for certain. This situation feels terrible, but in almost every situation, it is mostly out of your control. You win some, you lose some. Chalk this one up to a loss and keep moving forward with other jobs and applications.

Situation 2: The Interviewer Said They Would Call You After an Interview But Didn’t

You completed an interview or a couple of interviews and even asked them when they would call you with the next steps. The hiring manager or recruiter gives you a date and then they never call as promised. The waiting game can be agonizing, and not receiving the expected call can leave you feeling unsure of your standing in the hiring process.

Before discussing what to do in this situation, let’s take a minute and discuss why it could happen to you.

Reasons Why Interviewers Don’t Call When They Say They Will

We’ve all been there before. The interview goes well and the interviewer says I’ll call you back on Friday. And then crickets. Here are some common reasons why an interviewer may not call you back, even when they said they would.

Priorities

We all have to prioritize our tasks to survive. There is an opportunity cost to everything we do. It’s possible that hiring someone for this role isn’t the interviewer’s top priority. When a company is hiring, the hiring manager can often feel like they have two full-time jobs. Hiring often feels like a full-time job. Job searching does too. But the hiring manager also has their regular job duties to fulfill. Just because they have an opening, doesn’t mean they can stop everything else to fill that opening. Don’t assume hiring someone isn’t important to them, but it may be less important than addressing that $1.5 million dollar account that threatened to leave.

Many Qualified Candidates

Sometimes every candidate who interviews is a very qualified candidate and this makes the hiring decision even harder. You could be the top pick, but when there are many great candidates to choose from, it can delay the process. That delay may be the reason they didn’t call you.

Different Input or Waiting for Input

Unless you’re interviewing with a very small company, there are most likely multiple stakeholders involved in the hiring process. This means input has to be gathered from all of them before making a decision. It’s possible that not everyone agrees on one candidate and the discussion is taking longer than expected for the team to make a hiring decision. It’s also possible that the interviewer is waiting on input from other team members or managers. Life happens, people go on vacations, and kids get sick. Sometimes the reason the interviewer didn’t call you is that they are waiting on others.

You’re the Runner Up

Many times there is a number one and a number two candidate. The interviewer may not call you until they hear back from their first-choice candidate. If that person rejects the offer, then they will extend an offer to you. Until they know that outcome, they may delay communicating with you.

Hiring Freezes

Just as our lives change quickly sometimes, companies change too. Internal changes or restructuring within a company could cause a delay. Perhaps the job posting you interviewed for doesn’t exist anymore or a hiring freeze was just announced. Sometimes when these things come down from the top, the middle and the bottom aren’t in the loop until an announcement has been made. The person interviewing you had no idea this was going to happen and now they are embarrassed and want to avoid conflict.

Related Article: Ghosted After a Job Offer, What to Do Next

You Weren’t a Good Fit for the Job

It is possible that you weren’t a good fit for the job and although we think it is very unprofessional to ghost a candidate, it does happen often. Many people avoid conflict and some are plain selfish. Whatever the reason, they may not call you back because you aren’t moving forward in the hiring process. Although this is a possibility, don’t jump to this conclusion right away.

Technical Difficulties

I cannot tell you how many places I’ve worked where we lost our phones and internet at least once a month. It happens and sometimes the reason you didn’t receive a call back when promised is simply that they weren’t able to call you back.

Miscommunication

If we all communicated perfectly, there would be a lot less struggle in the world. But humans frequently misconnect when it comes to communication. Maybe they said they would call you back on Friday, but they really meant the following Tuesday. These things happen all the time. Someone says one thing or the other person hears something different. There’s a strong possibility that miscommunication is the culprit and there is no funny business going on at all.

Unforeseen Circumstances

Life has a way of throwing curve balls at us. It’s possible that the interviewer had to go pick up their child early from school. Perhaps they became ill and went home early. An emergency on the plant floor happened and they had to rush out the door leaving everything behind in the chaos. Some of you have had these things happen to you. Sometimes the delay is nothing more than life happening.

Waiting on References

If you gave the recruiter a list of references, they may be waiting to hear back from them. It’s very possible they want to offer you the job when they call, but they can’t yet because they haven’t cleared your references. While we think a recruiter should still call you and inform you about the delay, we also know that there are many times they won’t.

What You Should Do If the Interviewer Didn’t Call You When They Said They Would

Now that we’ve discussed some of the possible reasons, let’s talk about what you should do when this situation happens to you.

Don’t Assume the Worst

If you spend any time on social media, you’ll notice that most people assume the worst of others. The stance of “How dare you not call me” seems to be common in the cutthroat culture of LinkedIn and other media sites. But notice out of all the reasons we listed above, only one of them involved ghosting. Give the interviewer some grace and realize that there are many reasons why they may not have called. Very few of them have anything to do with you or your interview performance.

Follow Up

If you were expecting to hear from a recruiter or hiring manager and you didn’t hear from them, follow up with them on the following day. Keep your follow-up professional and polite. Every interaction with an employer shows them how you would act in the job and you as the cliche goes, actions speak louder than words. This is your opportunity to show how different and better you are compared to the other candidates. Your email could look like this:

Hi Cole,

I know you were anticipating calling me yesterday regarding our interview last (date). I’m sure you have a million things going on at the moment, so I thought I’d try and help take this off your plate by sending you a quick email.

Have you and the hiring team arrived at a decision? Please let me know if you need anything from me in the meantime and I look forward to (the next interview/working with you).

Notice how this email shows empathy and how helpful you are, “I’m sure you have a million things going on… so I thought I’d help take this off your plate.” It is also direct about asking what the next steps are. And finally, we assume that we are moving forward and take a positive stance.

Some advice blogs will tell you to wait a week to follow up. We think that is terrible advice. You have an opportunity, don’t miss it. Remember our reason about how there could be many qualified candidates and the hiring team is having a hard time deciding. In that situation, you don’t want to wait. You want to send a follow-up email soon. Less than half of your peers will send one. They will just wait. This opens the door for you to show them a well-crafted message that could push you over the finish line.

Don’t send your follow-up too early. But if the interviewer set a timeline and that timeline has lapsed, you can send an email. Once you send your initial email, wait at least two business days before sending another. If the recruiter or hiring manager doesn’t respond to your email within two days, send another one.

If you have the interviewer’s phone number, it’s also ok to call. You can even leave a voicemail message like this:

Hi Cole,

This is Tim Scott. I sent you an email earlier, but if your email box looks anything like mine, I thought I’d also try your number. I know you were anticipating calling me yesterday regarding our interview last (date). I’m calling to follow up on the next steps and make sure you don’t need anything else from me in the meantime. Please feel free to call me anytime this week. As of right now, I’m free most days except Wednesday. I have two final interviews on that day scheduled. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Notice how in this sample voicemail, I also included that I have a couple of other interviews coming up. Don’t ever lie about interviews you don’t have. But if you do have other interviews scheduled, be sure to let the recruiter or hiring manager know that you have other opportunities. This lets them know that they can’t take too long to make a decision if they want to hire you.

Keep Going

Don’t ever take this situation personally. Keep looking for job opportunities. I like to say plan for the worst, and hope for the best. Don’t give up on the opportunity right away if the interviewer didn’t call you, but don’t let them control your future either. Winners never quit. They win. You’re a winner. While it’s ok to take a beat and breathe, always keep applying for jobs until you start one.

Best Practice for Interviewers

Sometimes we overpromise and tell someone we’ll call them with feedback by a particular day. But the hiring process is unpredictable and changes as quickly as the direction of the wind sometimes. Hiring managers change their minds, team members have new input, and so much more can happen.

It’s also unprofessional to not keep a commitment and if we commit to calling a candidate with feedback, we need to at least send them a message on the day we commit. At least send a quick email letting them know that you’re waiting for input from another manager before making a decision. This way you keep your commitment to communicate with them, even if it is just an update that nothing has happened yet.

In Summary:

• Nothing is more important than professional communication in the hiring process.

• There are many reasons why someone may not call you when they said they would. Don’t assume the worst.

• Follow up with the interviewer in a polite and professional manner. Do not accuse them or burn bridges with poorly directed anger.

• Never stop job searching. If an interviewer says they will call you and doesn’t, keep moving forward with other jobs.

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