You Won’t Get an Offer in Three Days

It will take a week -- maybe two.

My job is to facilitate the recruiting and hiring processes at Viget. Last week I wrote about how I want you to get the job (and shared some thoughts on how to improve your chances). This post is about how, even when an applicant is strong, we don’t tend to hire in a hurry.

We recently heard from a promising applicant and, 3 days later, when I emailed to schedule an interview with him (after he’d completed a quiz and we’d evaluated it), he let me know that he had already accepted another offer. I don't know when he applied to that other company -- maybe it was weeks earlier. But, it made me wonder if we're too slow with our decisions. After some thought, I decided we're not.

Here's why you'll never land a job at Viget in 3 days*.

1. We don't believe the hype. You might have a really impressive education and maybe you've worked at great places. That's cool. We'd like to sit down and solve a few problems with you. In our experience, some people with impressive backgrounds are extremely talented problem-solvers -- and some aren't. So, we’re going to take some time to figure it out. 
2. We're busy. Unfortunately, we can't stop everything and bring you in for interviews the day after you apply to work with us. Don't be offended. Take it as a sign that we're busy, productive, and highly engaged with our primary mission: doing great work.
3. It takes two to tango. We're going to invest some time so that we can get to know you and you can get to know us. It's not uncommon for us -- in addition to having applicants complete quizzes, interviews, and presentations -- to meet a candidate out for a beer or coffee just so we can see if we really like each other. We think that in order to be the most successful company we can be, there has to be a certain level of camaraderie among the team.
4. We're going to ask around. We check references and do so with gusto.
5. We're not going to fire you in 6 weeks. The biggest reason that we're thorough with our evaluation process is that we want to be confident that when we do make a hire, we're bringing someone on who could potentially stay for years and years. And, if the road is bumpy early on, we want to feel like it's a person we know well enough to know that we're going to be game to try to make it work.

I wonder how job applicants feel when they get a rapid-response job offer? Can you learn enough about a company in 3 days to know if you’d want to work there? Maybe there’s a mutual “easy come, easy go” attitude when jobs are offered and accepted so quickly. That’s just not consistent with the company we’ve built.

I want us to be very responsive, particularly to exceptional applicants. I want us to be able to make fast decisions when the stakes are high and expediency is required. But as a rule of thumb, I think we'll stick with the tortoise's approach rather than the hare's. Instead of "slow and steady" I might describe our efforts as "thorough and confident." Find out for yourself: we're hiring!

*There are a few folks out there whom we’ve had the pleasure to get to know over the years and it’s possible that we would, in fact, hire you in under 3 days. You know who you are!