Regarding job offers, candidates wait with bated breath to get that email or phone call saying they have been selected. It is a wonderful feeling indeed.
However, whether the offer arrives over an email or you get a phone call from the hiring manager, you cannot just sit in front of your phone or computer the entire day. You have other tasks, primarily if you are still employed in your previous company.
Hence, having an idea about the time of the day and the day of the week when such offers are usually made is sure to work to your advantage. You can still expect the email to arrive in your inbox and respond to it sometime later.
However, suppose the recruiters make a call and want to inform you personally. In that case, you should be available to take the call. Knowing when they can call also helps reduce unnecessary anxiety, and you are better prepared with your response.
While it is true that employers can choose to make a call at any time of the day or week, depending on their work hours, it is not as random as it sounds. Once you know the dynamics, you do not have to wait for every second when you are awake for that phone call to happen. In this piece, we will tell you about what time of day are job offers usually made, and here is how it works.
Bonus Read: Letter to Recruiters and Hiring Managers.
Understanding What Time of the Day Job Offers Are Usually Made
The best time of the day when job offers are usually made is between noon and the end of the day. There is a particular reason behind this. The people in the HR team come to work in the morning at around 9 am. Then they start working and coordinating with the authorities regarding who finally made the cut and made it to the final list. Then there are procedures for onboarding the candidate when they agree. This can take a couple of hours or the first half of the day.
Mid-Morning
Once everything is in place, the recruiting team starts making the call, usually after noon. On the other hand, if your employer knows that you work the evening or night shift, they might want to catch you when you are awake but also not busy heading out to work. In that case, they would ideally call you mid-morning, around 11 am to 12 pm.
Lunch Hours
Suppose they already know that you are presently employed. In that case, they can also contact you around lunchtime, that is, between 1 pm to 2 pm. That is very professional of them as they do not want to disturb you during your existing job. Also, it gives the candidate enough time to prepare a written response and send it on the same day.
Late Evening
On the other hand, if they do not want to disturb you during your work hours, they might also call you later in the evening, between 6 pm to 7 pm. It is almost the end of the working day, and the chaos of the day has subsided. The candidates have time on their hands to ask any questions they might have before responding. It is not too late, yet the candidates can also take the night to think about the offer and reply the following day.
Bonus Read: 5 Professional Ways of Negotiating Start Day at Your New Job.
Understanding Which Days of the Week Are Best to Receive Offers
As mentioned earlier, recruiters can choose any day of the week to make a job offer. Still, statistics reveal that the new job offers are usually made between the Tuesday and Thursday of every week. More specifically, the offers are typically made on a Tuesday, which has emerged as the most popular day for completing offers, followed by Thursday. Here is why.
Tuesdays
When work starts on a busy Monday, the hiring managers have a lot to catch up with. They have to go through the work accumulated over the weekend, respond to applications and emails that had arrived in the last week, and coordinate with the authorities as they go through the final rounds of screenings.
The entire Monday is taken up with all these various tasks, and the larger the company, the longer the administration chain. Once the administrative tasks are taken care of, and the selected candidates’ final list has arrived, the recruiters start making calls from Tuesday onwards.
Thursdays
Thursday is a close second because the recruiters want to extend the offer before the weekend. Suppose they want to fill the position urgently, and the candidate has already informed them about their notice period. In that case, they can join as soon as the following Monday.
And it also gives the candidate the chance to think over the weekend about whether they want to accept or not, especially if the job offers entails a relocation or other significant decisions that the candidate has to make.
Hence, Tuesdays and Thursdays have become popular days for making offers. These two are the busiest days of the week, and the recruiters are busy putting the offer letter together. The middle of the week is devoted to answering questions from the candidates. If they choose to accept, the letter is usually signed and delivered by the end of the week.
Bonus Read: 14 Signs an Interview Went Badly.
How to Make the Most of Your Time while Waiting For the Offer Letter?
Waiting for your prospective employers to call you back can be stressful. Instead of simply wondering whether you have landed the job or not, here is what you can do to make the most of your time.
Follow Up
After appearing for your final rounds of interviews, you can wait for a couple of days to make the follow-up call. This will serve a two-fold purpose. Firstly, you can demonstrate that you are very interested in the position, and following up shows your professionalism.
Secondly, you can also enquire when you expect to get a call informing them about the recruiter’s decision. Recruiters can take a couple of days to a week to decide on the final list of candidates. So you would have an idea about when you can expect to hear from them, instead of spending the entire time in agony.
Bonus Read: Follow-up Email After Interview: Samples + Writing Tips.
Researching the Employer’s Business Hours
It would help if you researched the company and had a good idea about the employer’s business hours. This is especially important if you have applied for a remote position or if the call is expected to come through the headquarters located in a different time zone. In that case, you need to adjust your time accordingly, as the call may go through in the very early hours or late at night.
Clear Your Queries
Even if you have already decided whether to accept or reject the job offer, it is better to prepare an appropriate response. More so, if you have agreed to accept the offer. When the call comes through, you can sound confident and excited but humble and professional. Thank the person for accepting you into the organization. And then, you can clear any final queries you might have had.
After receiving the answer to those queries, you might tell them that you will call shortly with your final response. This is especially important if the recruiting procedure went very quickly and you have not had a chance to understand the clauses of the pay package or other benefits.
Check Your Phone Settings
This might seem like a trivial thing, but it is not. Often, we tend to keep our phone on silent mode or vibration when we are busy working or spending time with family, and then we fail to put it back on ringing. In that case, you might inadvertently miss the call and delay acceptance of your job offer.
If this happens too often, they might not even call again, thinking you are not interested anymore. So in the days leading up to getting the call, check your phone and set it to ring mode. You must also review and update your voicemail just in case you still missed the call. You can still take the message and get back to the recruiters as soon as possible.
Receiving Calls
A large workspace has many offices, and the call might come through any of them. You might not recognize all the numbers, so be sure to pick up every call you get in the days immediately after the interview.
Yes, you might also have to receive some spam calls, but it is only for a short while and completely worth it. Keep the phone near you at all times, avoiding handing it over to children who might inadvertently cancel the call.
Keep Searching
Lastly, even if you are confident that your interview went well and you have a high chance of landing the job, you must continue looking till you finally get the call of acceptance or offer letter. There is always a possibility that vacancies were few, and the company decided to move ahead with someone else.
Or, despite your high hopes and even landing the job, the company might put in a last-minute clause that might make it impossible for you to accept the offer. Hence, you will not waste precious time pinning all your hopes on this company only. Keep searching for other offers until you have signed on the dotted line with complete satisfaction.
Conclusion
Knowing about what time of day are job offers usually made will help you a lot. It is always good to be alert for a few days after the interview so you do not miss any calls. Try to be available, especially between Tuesday and Thursday. Your recruiters will try to contact you at least once, even after you have missed the first call for the offer, but it is still better to be vigilant. You should also keep a tab on your emails, even your spam folder, just in case. It would be the first step toward a glorious career ahead.
