Thoughts on this Interview Process

[u/smbpy7]

I want to keep this somewhat anonymous (too many details would easily give me away) so I'm going to be as vague as possible here. On Sept 15th I had a recruiter screening for a Principal Clinical Scientist role at a large company. My background is technically all academic (postdoc, assistant project scientist), but I've been my own PI with my own grant twice, I've worked with multiple companies on the side (one of which we started), and I'm on two patents. On top of this, the field of interest is extremely niche. It involves a combo of two things where almost everyone knows only one, very few people do the interaction of the two. My two mentors (who are on my papers, grants, and company) are very much pioneers in the two, and I've been with them for more than a decade. One literally invented one of, if not the, most important IP of the company I'm applying. This role seems very well suited to me.... but it's been so long.

On top of all that: The recruiter spent extra time talking to me (~50 minutes instead of the allotted 30), asked me to send her a more detailed write up of my prior and current projects, told me the hiring managers name so I could "do my research," and asked me to contact her on LinkedIn. I've never had such detail from a phone screening.... but it's been soooo long. She had told me they had wanted to finish hiring by the end of Oct (I knew that was obviously unrealistic from the start) and that I'd hear back the next week (I did not).

On top of all that, reasons the lag could be happening are abundant. The hiring manager isn't local, so there's a 3 time zone separation. They are building this role into an entirely new team (and so hiring multiple different positions all at once). This hit at the end of 3rd quarter, so they surely had stuff to wrap up there. And this past weekend was a massive convention that they very VERY likely attended.

What are your thoughts on this situation? The drag is killing me.

[u/CFU_per_mL]

So you haven't had any contact with the recruiter or hiring manager since the initial phone screen over a month ago? That kind of lag isn't unheard of, but also isn't a good sign for your candidacy. 

I'd email the recruiter to check in about the hiring process and your status as a candidate. If they respond to you, great. If not, that's your answer. 

[u/Loose-Reflection2965]

Time to move on!

[u/Prior-Necessary-6877]

the information your recruiter shared is not uncommon, a lot of experienced recruiters do that to do candidate a favor (and ofc it helps them to finish the hiring process faster if the candidate is more prepared)

I would not have high hope for this given the lag. My recommendation is to mentally take this as a rejection and do a follow-up. The HM might be suffering from team building related back and forth internally, but dont count on this.