Compliance Job Interview Done. Then Silence. What’s Happening?

The Silence After the Final Interview: What Happens Inside the Company While You Wait and Why It Takes So Long?

Introduction

I think many of us have been in this situation: you apply for a compliance job, go through all round of interviews, and after the final round you feel like you are going to get the offer. You wait for a day, week, send a follow up, however, the company almost disappears from communication and nothing happens.

You start sending them nice weekly/biweekly chasers requesting an update but the responses you are receiving are mostly like “thanks for your patience, no update for now, but we will keep you posted”. Sometimes, it might be even worse – there is no response from the hiring manager at all. You wait for a month or more with zero knowledge of what is actually happening.

I have seen this situation (on what happens internally after the final round) from both sides – from the candidate and from the company side. I would say there are 4 most common scenarios of what might be actually happening:

Common Reasons Why You Did not Hear Back After the Compliance Job Interview

(1) They are still waiting for internal approvals.

As larger is the company as more likely there are so many internal levels approvals for hiring new personnel – HR, Hiring Manager, Chief Compliance Officer, Compensation (internal pay bands), Budget (finance) approval, Exception from Hiring Freeze, etc. At many companies this literally takes months after the interview process is finished.

My experience shows that if you are being hired during December – January cycle, then it is possible that the department’s budget is still under consideration (not to mention that in December it is common for many people to be on leave and so don’t be surprised on delays).

(2) You are candidate No. 2 or 3, but they will not tell you this.

What hiring manager usually will not tell you: they have shortlisted 2-3 candidates and have made an offer to another candidate. In the meantime, they are not fully sure that the selected candidate will accept the offer, will pass the background check and overall will join the company. And they also don’t want to tell you that you are not the best candidate.

So, in such scenario, some companies decide just to keep you waiting so that not to lose you. Which means you have 33%-50% chances of getting the offer or not.

(3) The hiring manager is just so heavily overwhelmed.

It is not uncommon for compliance teams to be really small in size while covering huge regions and businesses. In such situations, compliance teams might be so heavily overwhelmed with non-stop back-to-back calls and urgent projects that hiring becomes a slightly not the first priority. This might be especially critical on the quarter end.

(4) The Company is conducting additional interviews.

The company might want to ensure that you are indeed the best candidate on the market and for this reason they might want to seek and speak to some additional candidates. This can be for example when some external recruiters are approaching the company offering to share a few strong candidates resumes.

What to do:

(i) The first and most important thing is to prevent it from affecting your mental health. Waiting like this for a response from the company could significantly impact your mental state – huge level of constant stress, lack of sleep, checking emails every hour, etc. You need to deal with it properly. A few key principles to remember and follow:

• Whatever is yours will be yours. Have some belief.
• Keep your expectations low
• Remember – you are the top professional and person – if you have managed to go through a series of interviews and win a competition from >1,000 of other candidates – you are most likely a very strong professional. Meanwhile, you might completely think different (composter syndrome). Just remember if you managed to get it to final round here – you should not have problems.  
• Remember – there are things you can control and things you cannot control (Read Steven Kovy 7 Habits of Highly Effective People). Focus on what you can control.

(ii) Do charity and kind acts / volunteership. Among all obvious reasons, it will boost your confidence and self-feeling. If this job is something really great and beneficial for you – the circumstances will be in a way that you will get it. If not – then it is ok. I’ve been waiting and dreaming of joining one company after the final interview for more 2 months and then they rejected me. And then that company had one of the largest layoffs of employees.

(iii) Apply to other companies and don’t be too married to the idea of joining the above company. The circumstances might be in a way that you might find a way more better career opportunity. There are a lot of great companies to work for and sometimes you might feel way more happy by working at Tier-2 company rather than at FAANG.

(iv) Speak to your close friends and family – while doing active sports (go do golf, sailing course, skiing).

Hopefully this article was really helpful.

Last but not least, please feel free to subscribe and download our free guide on Building Career in Compliance – 5 reasons that might stop you. Also, please feel free to try our Compliance Career Quiz to understand where you are in your career now.