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I had an interview 10 days ago. At that time the employer told me that "you are confirmed". However, I am still waiting for the offer letter. In the meantime, I contacted the employer over the phone and they replied that "our boss is not in the office, but he will be back sometime soon". So my question is, is the reason for the delay genuine or is it a trap?

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    Does it matter? You go on searching for work until you have accepted a written offer. How long it takes someone to get back to you is irrelevant.
    – HLGEM
    Commented Mar 19, 2014 at 19:16
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    Absolutely: Continue searching until you accept. Also: Don't assume that a rejection letter means there will not be an offer. Some company HR departments automatically send out a rejection after a given amount of time if an offer has not been made... and their timeout may be shorter than the time it takes for a manager to decide to offer. (Yes, I know this from personal experience.)
    – keshlam
    Commented Mar 19, 2014 at 20:40

6 Answers 6

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In my experience I would certainly not wait around for it. Keep searching and keep going to interviews.

There are certainly legitimate reasons for them not getting back to you swiftly and then there are definitely reasons why they would hold off.

This question is not easily answerable because the only way to know for sure is if you knew their track record with previous hires and how long things took.

If you know someone on the inside that would also help obviously but those situations are few and far between.

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I had an interview before 10 days. At that time the employer told me that " you are confirmed". But still I am waiting for the offer letter. In the mean while i contacted the employer through phone and they replied that, " our boss is not in office he will back in near days". So my question is, Is this genuine reason by the employer or is it trap ?

I understand your position, When you are waiting on a job offer after a interview every time the phone rings you will looking at the caller id saying-"Is this the call? And then it turns out to be XYZ.

I would suggest as others pointed keep your job search open."Even if you're certain an offer is coming, do not stop job hunting," The longer they make you wait, the lower the chances of appointment.

There's nothing you can do but wait. Calling them (or emailing) repeatedly isn't going to speed things up. If key personnel are out of the office or whatever, calling won't change that. You don't have a start date until it is in writing, and if they continue to delay, they should also be pushing back the start date.

"Internal processes can take weeks – often much longer than the whole initial interview process."

All the best, do let us know here in this thread or chat-room once you get the offer letter.

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By and large, most companies that give you a verbal offer on the phone do not renege on it. So the question is what do they mean by "you are confirmed." Is that all they said, or was there other verbage involved? If they told you on the phone that they want to hire you and are ready to make an offer, then it's unlikely (but not impossible) that they will renege. Reasons they could fail to follow through are things like: unexpected budget cuts; resignation of hiring manager. So it really boils down to the verbage involved in the conversation and whether it was more along the lines of "they are interested in you" or "we would like to hire you but it needs to pass approval first" or "the hiring team made a decision to make you an offer."

In behooves you in these situations to clarify things to your satisfaction by asking questions: "is there anything to preclude an offer from being made?" ... "does an offer depend on anyone else in the company who has not provided their input yet?" Most reasonable companies are happy to answer questions like this.

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  • I agree the language "you are confirmed" seemed odd to me. Confirmed for what? another interview? If the manager is going through with hiring the OP then there should have been quite a bit to the conversation, including the salary bit etc. Commented Mar 20, 2014 at 1:57
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An actual letter of acceptance can take awhile to reach an employee. There are many reasons for this, including bureaucratic obstruction, people losing paperwork, or just bosses being slow.

A week is not anything to worry about.

What you should be doing, regardless of how long it takes, is continuing to interview and look for jobs. Just because you've been told by your interviewer that you 'have a job', doesn't mean things can't change between now and then.

Keep looking for work. Keep in mind while looking that you have a promising opportunity to be accepted to this position, but keep looking anyway because things can always go wrong.

Proceed tactfully, of course. There's no reason you have to mention any oddity to the employer. Just keep going about your business as you normally would.

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The hiring process can be full of red tape and delays. A week is nothing to be overly concerned about. Depending on the reputation, size, and general feeling you have about a place you can appropriately judge the amount of concern that you should have regarding this delay. You must be a mixture of firm and non-confrontational which is difficult. I would refrain from phoning too often. Send them an email asking when they expect the boss to return and the date they would have the official offer letter in your hand. Tell them you are thrilled to be working for them and look forward to working with them in the near future.

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  • this post is rather hard to read (wall of text). Would you mind editing it into a better shape?
    – gnat
    Commented Mar 20, 2014 at 6:53
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I received my offer letter SIX Weeks after the interviewer in the final round of interviews finally said to me, "Welcome to XXX".

Some organizations have many policies and procedures to follow, and there may be other issues at work, such as the company situation, or the client or work you may be taken for, might be cancelled. Sometimes offers can even be withdrawn, especially to freshmen.

To be practical, keep searching. I know it can be very very frustrating with this job interview business, to get all your hopes up, and then see them dashed on the ground. Wish you the best.

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