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If you have made it past an interview, it means you have finished the hard part already. However, soon after the interview, you become very critical of how the interview went. You start analysing things and sometimes beat yourself up if a certain part of the interview did not go as you hoped.
Engineering jobs are slightly different from other jobs; here are 5 things you can do after you do an engineering job interview:
1- Do nothing and play the waiting game
Being patient can be good. Most of what you do after the interview is waiting. You can not change what happened in the interview, which means you can not do much but wait for what the hiring manager says about your application.
2- Contact your references
If you have been asked to provide references after the interview, it usually means that your application has made it to the final stages in the last round of candidate selection. This is why you should contact the references you provided and brief them on your situation so they can be ready if they receive a call from the hiring manager. The sooner you contact your references after the interview, the better.
3- Follow up on the position
Here is the thing thank you emails are kinda unnecessary to send after the interview; it does not have value, and they will not make any difference to your application. If someone is better than you and has not sent a thank you email, they will still get the job because they are a better fit for the position.
However, thank you emails work best if you are following up on the progress of the position, usually 5-7 days after the interview. You can send the thank you email along with a follow-up on the application progress or ask if the interviewer requires additional information such as references or certificates if you have not provided them. This way, you show your interest in the position instead of thank you emails with no objective.
On the other hand, harassing the hiring manager on LinkedIn usually does not do well. You can try to connect with them, but you should not try to follow up on the job progress through LinkedIn; email is still the best way as it is more formal, especially at this stage.
4- Evaluate and analyse the interview and your performance
If you like the idea of working in the company you interviewed for, you will most likely be very critical of how the interview went; you analyse and evaluate yourself and sometimes be mad if you believe you have answered a question incorrectly. Feeling sad that you did not perform well is not good. What is good is to see if there are any areas of improvement you can work on for your next interview.
The best way to become better at interviews is to reflect on your answers during the interviews and find a better way to answer them. You can use three of our best resources to become better at engineering interviews:
- Top 50+ Engineering Interview Questions With Answers (To help you prepare better answers).
- 50 Questions To Ask Interviewers In Engineering Interviews (Find the best questions to ask).
- 5 Questions You Should NOT Ask In Engineering Interviews (Questions to avoid during interviews).
5- Keep applying for jobs
Engineering jobs are highly competitive, and the only way to increase the number of job offers you receive is to keep applying for new jobs. A bad way of doing this is to keep waiting until you get an answer from the interview you did last week while you miss out on job ads closing soon.
However, every time you apply for a job, you should aim to improve. Reviewing your resume and cover letter every time you apply for a job and making small incremental changes can help improve your application and increase the interview call-out. You should see our resources on how to write a successful resume and cover letter tailored to the job you are applying for: How To Get an Engineering Job? 6 Actionable Steps To Follow.
5 Things You Must NOT Do After An Engineering Job Interview
In addition to the above, the following are 5 things you should avoid doing after an engineering interview:
1- Obsessing about the position
If the job interview you had recently was your dream job, you think it is okay to obsess about the job and forget anything else. Daydreaming is very unhealthy, especially if you do not get the job, as it will shock you, so you should aim to take things casually and accept all outcomes.
2- Beat yourself for not doing well in the interview
If you feel that you made a few mistakes in the interview, that is okay; not everything is supposed to be perfect. However, punishing yourself for those small mistakes is not okay. Instead, you should learn from those lessons and use them to nail your next interview.
3- Harassing the hiring manager
There is a reason why hiring managers do not want to give you their email or contract number or accept your connection request on LinkedIn; it is not that they do not feel that you are a good fit for the position, but because of the high number of follow-ups they receive. Harassing the hiring manager by text or no LinkedIn can do you more harm than good. You should only follow up on position progress through email, and you can only do that one week after the interview.
4- Not improving your application
It is a wasted time if you are not using this time to improve your resume and cover letter. Even if you get the job, there were at least some comments you received about your resume during the interview that might be worth revisiting and changing. So not improving your application is a huge loss for you.
5- Not applying for jobs
Waiting aimlessly for a response from a hiring manager is not the best course of action. If you get the job, it is great, but if you do not, you have wasted a few days and might have missed a deadline for another great job.
5 Reasons you have not been contacted yet after the interview?
1- It has not been that long
If it has not been one week after the interview, it has not been that long. It takes most companies 2 weeks to interview all the candidates for the job, so if it has only been two weeks, it is perfectly okay to assume that interviews are still going. However, you can still send a follow-up email on the position.
2- There are other candidates to be interviewed
There are other candidates to be interviewed, and it is impossible to interview all of them on the same day or the same week; this is why it takes companies a while until they can round up all the interviewees to the best 2 or 3 candidates for a final interview.
3- It is a group decision
Sometimes the final decision is not up to one person; it is usually a group of managers deciding on the one person out of hundreds to join their company. This takes time, which is why most companies have a digital assessment before the interview, phone call or video interview, first interview and second interview to gather as much data about the candidates to make a decision.
4- You did not fit the criteria
Sometimes you might have done everything right and are almost the perfect person for the job. But there is someone who fits the criteria better. Your issue might be that you requested a higher salary (This is why you should avoid speaking about salary in the interview and save it to the job offer), you are underqualified for the job compared to the other candidate, or the other candidate gave better answers in the interview. In this situation, you will usually get contacted by the hiring manager on how close your application came to be.
5- You just did not get the job
Sometimes it might be difficult to accept, but you did not hold up well compared to the other candidates, which is why you did not get the job. When this happens, it is very hard to get feedback on why you did not get the job. However, the best thing you can do is keep improving your application and applying for new jobs.
FQA
How long do employers usually take to contact you after an interview?
On average, it takes 1-2 weeks for employers to make a decision and contact you for a job offer. Usually, the interview round can take anything between 1-3 weeks. This means there is a high chance that other candidates are yet to be interviewed if you had an interview a week ago.
When is the best time to follow up on a job after an interview?
Usually, following up on the job 5-7 days after the interview is a good practice. The only way you should follow up on job progress is through email.
Will I be contacted if I do not get the job after an interview?
Even if you did not get the job, you would most likely get a response from the hiring manager; if not, it might be a good time to follow up on the job after a week. However, if it has been over two weeks and you still haven’t heard anything back, it is most likely the position has been filled. Some companies do not contract their candidates if they do not get the job.
