What Are the Signs that You Will Be Hired after an Interview?

Caroline Blog Articles 23 August 2022

Now that you’ve got past the excitement of being shortlisted for an interview and survived the interview hot seat, the agonizing process of waiting sets in. There’s a new habit of refreshing your email multiple times in a day just waiting for news – the good news of course!

For a moment, let’s say you decide to reflect back on the interview process. Did you feel quite confident that you had aced it or you came out feeling pretty nervous and drained? If you answered the questions with honest and relevant answers, you have no reason to beat yourself up. If you made use of information you researched from the hiring company’s website or LinkedIn page to survive the ‘hot seat’ questions, you deserve a high-five. In all of this, if you kept your cool and maintained a positive attitude, it means you came well composed and prepared.

Then again, we hate to break it to you. None of these actions will guarantee you got the job. It’s really a combination of factors. None goes without the other. If you want to really know if you’ve got the role, it would be best to start with the false signs first.

Here are 4 false signs you should take note of:

False Signs

1. Making The Shortlist

Yes, this is a great step but for many candidates, it’s not a guaranteed step. Don’t get carried away at this stage. This is a clear indication that the recruitment team found something interesting about you and what you have to offer during the interview stage. In some cases, there could be more than one interview.

The best thing to do would be to prepare for the next stage. It would be wise to reach out to previous or current employees at the hiring firm. LinkedIn is a great place to network and ask questions you think would prepare you for the next stage.

2. When Can You Start?

Some candidates misinterpret this to mean, ‘They are ready to move on to hiring me!’

This question doesn’t necessarily mean you got the spot. Actually, it’s more of a standard question that’s part of the recruitment consultant’s interview guide mainly for collecting information.

3. Follow-Up Questions

If you’re being asked additional questions which seem to be a way of finding out more about you and what values you have to offer, you might fall into the trap of thinking you’ve sparked fresh curiosity in the recruiter’s mind. This may be true in some cases but then again, in most companies, interviewers are instructed not to ask any additional questions.

What you’ll probably take notice of are the ‘clarifying’ questions. This could simply mean the candidate didn’t answer a previous question, the response was too brief, missed the essence of the last question, left out very important information, or what was said was not enough context for the interviewer to process.

4. References Request

When a member of the hiring panel asks you to provide references, it may sound like a moment of celebration in your mind, but we must warn you, that it’s premature to get super excited at this stage.

It’s not a sign that the interview was a success. It’s simply part of the procedure for the hiring manager to ask.

Getting the references at the interview helps to connect the dots and makes sure that your references can vouch for your ability to get the job done. So when the final decision is made about the successful candidate, it accelerates the hiring process because the hiring team wouldn’t have to reach out and ask for references again.

Now that we’ve covered the false signs, let’s take a look at what the positive signs could be:

Positive Signs

1. Asking The Recruiter Certain Relevant Questions

Show the hiring team you did your homework; that you’re genuinely interested in their work culture. The fact that you have some pertinent questions will keep the recruiters engaged. Some questions may even inspire solutions for the company right there during the interview.

When you ask a question and all the recruiters on the hiring team seem very eager to give out as much information as possible, it’s a great indication they want you as a new addition to the company.

This is in sharp contrast to when a candidate didn’t bother to take the time to research and prepare questions. One of the worst things you could do is to say you don’t have any questions. Don’t give the impression that you know so much already that you really don’t have any questions for the hiring team.

Also, if you’re not doing so well in the interview, it could reflect in the way the recruiters respond. In response to your question, there could be a general response but with less energy from the recruiter or the hiring team. If you’re not performing so well, it’s most likely you won’t see much engagement with your questions.

2. When The Recruiter Makes Optimistic Comments

Most recruiters have been instructed not to make comments about a candidate’s answer. So they avoid saying words like, ‘amazing’ ‘fantastic’ ‘perfect’ ‘excellent’ or ‘that’s a great answer!’ In the calmest way, they’d just say, ‘Thank you’ and then move on to the next question.

Some recruiters will still end up using those words and if you get to hear them, lucky you! Sometimes, out of quiet excitement, the words may slip through, especially if the recruiter genuinely likes the answer given by the candidate.

3. Let’s Talk About Suitable Working Conditions

If it’s a remote job, the recruiter will ask if you’ve got the required tools. He wants to know if the job would be convenient for you. Do you have the essential work-from-home setup? The tools the company uses as well as the software are just a few examples.

When the recruiter or the hiring team has decided that a candidate would be a great fit, they’d ask some questions in relation to working in person or opting for the hybrid approach to determine if an offer can be extended to you. If you as a potential candidate are successful, they’d probably be asking you if you’re happy with their work conditions.

You could be asked how much time you should be given to notify your current employer that you’d be changing jobs or you could be asked if you have any problem with commuting from your home to this company. If you leave far away, they want to know how you would solve this problem. They also want to know if it’s within their capacity to make daily transportation easy for you. It really depends on how much the company cares about its workers and the value they bring.

At Compaira - we want a world where everyone has the chance to progress; we will provide the connections to do this simply and without bias.

So make sure you check out the job search websites with companies that are big on employee retention. There are so many out there and you can check out our find jobs section to seek available positions and do a bit of research on these companies.

We hope you’ve found this article enlightening.

What Are the Signs that You Will Be Hired after an Interview?

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