My wife applied for a job with a small Financial company in London. She did 3 interview stages and all went well, was asked to do a mini-project for the role which she did and was well received, the recruiter was saying she is the favourite for the role.

After a week or so of radio silence eventually the recruiter called to say the company thinks she would be great for the role and wanted to request references from her. Great! She provided references, a couple more weeks go by, apparently the reference checks took some time but we’re all received ok eventually. So at this stage there is another week or so of silence, with several calls to the recruiter which were not returned.

Finally my wife gets hold of the recruiter who forwards her an email from the company saying they want to make her an offer but “we just need to figure out the timeline”…whatever that means. Another week of silence goes by. After several attempted calls and no replies from the recruiter. My wife was starting to think they had a change of heart, or there was an issue with her references etc.

Another week, another email forwarded on by the recruiter from the company who say now they think they will definitely be able to confirm an offer next week, people have been on annual leave, training etc. the usual.

Yet another week with very little contact or update. On the Friday of last week, the recruiter sent an email to say that company apologised, the person working on her offer (presumably HR) didnt get to it last week but says it should definitely be next week.

tomorrow will be Friday of yet another week, with no offer letter or even confirmation of an offer. It has now been 2 months since my wife's first interview with the company. Apparently they originally wanted someone to start early August but that obviously cant happen now as she has to work a months notice at her current job. We dont really even know what is happening for it to take this long to get an offer, presuming the prospective employer actually wants to hire her. At this stage she is doubting that but I dont personally see why a company would keep her "hanging on" week after week if they didnt want her. Curious to know if anyone else has been kept waiting a long time to recieve an offer? its just strange as all the feedback seems so positive but we dont really know what is going on after all this time.

In my experience (and I work in a different field) if a company deicdes they want to hire you they usually push to get the contract etc signed asap, get an offer letter drawn up and start making the preparations for your start date..