Three weeks of silence. Is that a no?
Rowan with two job apps openThe question
Eleven applications in one week, because volume is the advice everyone gives. Three weeks later: two automatic rejections and nine nothings.
I cannot tell whether to keep going, follow up, or read the quiet as the answer and spend the energy somewhere else.
What has worked for you at the three week mark? And how many follow ups is the limit before it starts reading badly?
The conversation
3 replies- Chris on the commuteRN, tele, 6 months off orientation
Quiet at three weeks is usually a requisition still sitting open, not a decision anybody made about you. The ones that closed on you already sent the automatic note.
What changed things for me was finding the unit manager on the hospital site and sending four sentences: who I am, which requisition, one line on why that unit specifically, and my start date. Two of those became interviews and neither of them came back through the portal.
- Devin in the ORRN, circulating in the OR, new grad program
One follow up per posting, about ten days after applying, and then you let it go. Twice is fine if something changed on your side, like a licence posting. Three times reads as anxious and it is remembered.
The thing worth more than any follow up is applying to fewer places properly. Eleven generic applications lost to two tailored ones for me. Not a lecture, since I sent the eleven first.
- Marisol on oncologyRN, oncology, 2 years
From the other side of it now that I sit on interview panels occasionally. The gap between applying and hearing is almost never about the applicant. It is a manager covering a vacancy while hiring for it, which is exactly when they have least time to hire.
Knowing that will not speed anything up. It might stop you rewriting your resume in week three, which is what most people do and it rarely helps.
What would you tell them?
Answer from what you have seen. It posts without your name.
