I was rejected for a job, but I see no signs the new hire has started yet

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

In April, I did a job interview at a small employer (less than 15 staff). I’ve often been told that I interview well, but this interview was probably the best interview I’ve ever done. The interviewers repeatedly told me how impressed they were with me, I built a great personal connection and rapport with the interviewers (who were laughing and smiling throughout the interview) and at the end, when I asked if they had any concerns about me, the only concern they raised was that I might get hired somewhere else.

But I guess they liked someone else just a tiny bit more. They told me that they hired someone else, but the decision was very difficult. They didn’t specifically say that I was second choice, but they strongly implied it. I replied to the rejection email to wish them well with their chosen candidate and to encourage them to contact me if anything changes. That was a little over three weeks ago.

Here’s the thing. They have a “Meet Our Team” page on their website with photos and little bios of their staff and there’s still no new employee listed. (I’ve also tried doing a Google search for “employer name job title LinkedIn” and nothing comes up, but I know not everyone updates their LinkedIn profile regularly.) I don’t want to get my hopes up, but if the new employee doesn’t show up on their website in the next few days, then I’m thinking it’s one of three possibilities: (1) they’re slow at updating their website (but they have a large communications team, so that seems unlikely), (2) something delayed the new employee’s start date (like an illness or a weird emergency), or (3) the new employee reneged or is considering quickly quitting or something like that.

So I’m not sure what my best course of action is. Should I just wait patiently and trust that they’ll contact me if they need me? Or, maybe at the four-week mark, should I try reaching out to them to re-express my interest in the position? If so, then what do I say without sounding like a creepy jerk who doesn’t respect their hiring decision? But if I don’t reach out and the first choice reneges, then will the employer feel too sheepish to reach out to a rejected candidate who they were worried might get hired elsewhere? This job would be a really great job for me, so I want to play my cards right. (Of course, all will be moot if the new employee’s picture shows up on the employer’s “Meet Our Team” page.)

You are reading too much into things.

It’s only been three weeks! It’s entirely possible that the new person isn’t starting for a month or even two (or potentially even longer — I’ve waited three months and longer for the right candidate in roles where getting the right person was more important than having them start quickly). Their start date might still be in the future. And once they do start, lots of organizations take a long time to update their online listings of employees.

If for some reason the new hire did fall apart, it’s very, very, very likely that the organization would reach back out to you if you were indeed their second choice.

Contacting them three weeks after they rejected you to say that you’re wondering if they want to hire you after all because you haven’t seen them update their website with the name of the new hire would come across pretty weirdly. Not “never consider this person again” weird, but a little off. If they want to get back in touch — and especially if they thought you were as strong a candidate as you believed — they will.

You’re overly invested at this point. I think that’s probably because you let yourself believe the interview went so well that a job offer was highly likely. But the things you describe that led to that belief — the compliments, the rapport, the laughing — those can all happen even when you don’t end up being a finalist for the job. Sometimes that’s because you’re one of the first people to be interviewed, and they don’t really know where you rate relative to the rest of their candidate pool until they’ve talked to more people. Sometimes it’s because they’re just nice people who genuinely connected with you, but that’s not the same thing as being exactly what they’re looking for (which can be extremely nuanced and difficult to assess as a candidate). Sometimes other people are just stronger. And yes, they told you their only concern was that someone else might hire you, but that can be a kind of throwaway remark in response to a question that put them on the spot (“do you have any concerns about me?”) and to which they weren’t prepared to provide a thoughtful answer off the cuff.

That can be a painful lesson to learn, but it can also be a liberating one because it can stop you from overly investing in jobs before you have them.

Or who knows, I could be wrong about all this in your case! The new hire could be stuck at a bottom of a well somewhere. But again, if the hire doesn’t materialize and you were the recent strong second choice, they’ll contact you.

The best thing you can do is believe the book is closed on this, as they told you it was, and let yourself mentally move on.