is being offered a job too quickly a red flag?

by Alison Green on October 13, 2022

A reader writes:

I work in an technical aspect of healthcare. In my city I have heard there is a shortage of people in my field. A lot of people left during Covid and my small city has experienced rapid growth.

I have recently decided to look for a new job. My independently owned clinic has been bought by a corporation. Talking with others in my industry has lead me to believe my salary is between 5 to 40% lower than it should be and I do not receive health insurance with this job ( ironic, isn’t it, that a medical professional wouldn’t have health benefits).

I have recently had two interviews. One was a series of three brief phone calls with a clinic. The whole process from sending resume to offer was four days. The purpose of call 3 was to answer questions and extend an offer. The interviewer asked limited questions of me, and the doctor who owns the clinic wasn’t part of the interview process at all. I agreed upon a salary and they sent me a formal package explaining benefits and let me ask questions. It seemed like little was asked of me regarding treatment philosophy, or any questions really.

Is the speed of this process a red flag? I asked for a working interview and they agreed to that so that’s something, I guess, but something just seemed off with the speed of the process until … it happened again. Sort of.

A professional contact referred me for a job and again I was basically offered the job on the spot. Similar process. Phone interview, explanation of job hours and benefits, at least this time with a plan to see the clinic and meet the doctor. I ended up with Covid and had to cancel the in-person meeting. During my Covid isolation period, I realized the hours of this clinic would be challenging so I explained and told them to move forward with other candidates. I did offer to come in one day as a contract worker to help out ( common in my industry). After three hours on site, I was asked to come work for the them — “The job is yours if you want it. We haven’t filled it.”

So wow! Is this just a sign of the current job market or is the speed and desperation a red flag? What if I’m not a good fit? What if I’m not actually great at my job? How would they know? Nobody has even asked for my references!

It’s the health care job market. Health care has a huge shortage of workers right now and they’re desperate to hire. They’re moving quickly because they have staffing shortages and they’re worried about losing you to other jobs if they take longer.

But that doesn’t mean that you need to move that quickly. Interviewing should always be a two-way street: just as the employer is assessing you, you should be assessing them right back. That means that if you’re offered a job but don’t feel that you have the information you need to decide if it’s right for you — to know whether you’re well-matched with the work, the team, and the manager, and whether you’d be good at it — you can say, “I don’t feel I have enough information about the job and the team yet. Is there a time I could meet with the hiring manager to talk more?”

As for whether their rush to hire is a bad sign about them as an employer … if it weren’t for the health care job market right now, I’d say yes. You want to work for an organization that takes hiring seriously — because you want to have good colleagues (and you certainly want whoever hired your manager to have taken their hiring seriously) and also because you want to be confident they’ve put real thought into whether you’ll be able to succeed in the role or not. Given the market they’re hiring in right now, though, I think you can cut more slack in that area that you normally might.

But just because they’re ready to make an offer doesn’t mean you need to be ready to accept it.

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{ 81 comments }

{ 81 comments… read them below }

  1. Pookie*

    I work in health care and at times we are pretty much willing to take anyone we think will show up consistently.

    1. Jazzy P*

      This, I don’t work in Healthcare anymore but my grandfather is in assisted living and it’s brutal. The nurses and MAs are doing their best but the company pays crap with zero to mediocre benefits. So they can’t retain anyone and it’s awful for the elderly patients and the staff. Grateful for them but I can’t fathom being so overworked and underpaid. Should also note my grandfather is at one of the pricier and “fancy” places. Bottom line, not people.

  2. Weekender*

    My company’s process is a little more thorough, but it is a sign of the times.
    We are literally losing people between last interview and offer, to other companies and we are quick.
    Also in healthcare.

    2. AnonPi*

      We had a similar issue. Heck we were loosing people between the time we scheduled their interview an when they were supposed to show up (usually a few days to a week later). This was for an administrative job, and heard similar issues with other administrative postings here. Still a lot of turnover too.

  3. anon24*

    In healthcare right now if you have the certifications and a pulse many places won’t ask any more questions.

      1. Bilateralrope*

        I’d probably skip checking the pulse if someone can walk. Finding someone without one would be inconvenient

    3. Ace Of Dragons*

      Veterinary Medicine here, and it’s the same for us. We’re still going through the steps of first interview, working interview, offer, but right now I think I agree with bilateralrope about not checking for a pulse in case you don’t find one. Heck, if a vampire has the skills and is willing to work in this field, I think we’d take him!

      Veterinary medicine in general, and our office in particular, is hemorrhaging people. Unfortunately, because of the working conditions (pay, treatment by clients, etc ), people just are no longer going into the field, and those in the field are leaving. That leaves everyone even more stressed and short-staffed, which means the burnout among those left is accelerating, leading to even more people leaving . It’s a catch-22.

      1. Pookie*

        And vets I’ve known have said that the field as a whole is kind of messed up. Vet school is very, very expensive and vet pay is not reflective of the education necessary to function as one. I think most vets do it because of their love for animals/passion for the work.

  4. Job Hunter*

    FWIW, I once interviewed with a local community organization (non-medical) for a part-time position. I was overqualified, but I needed work, so I applied. The interview went well, and I wasn’t sure if I’d be offered the job, but on my way to my car, one of the organization’s leaders followed me into the parking lot and offered me the job on the spot.

    It was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. I only stayed a little over a year, and was promoted in that time to a full-time position, but I had to take another job that would allow me to meet important family needs. I still volunteer with them occasionally, though.

  5. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

    This is very much how IS/IT worked in the mid 1980s – you’d interview, spend a half-day on-site.

    Managers would go and talk privately while you had a cup of coffee (“excuse, me, Anon-2, we have a brief internal issue to resolve. Have a cup of coffee, hang out in the lounge, we will be back”… if consensus is reached, you may get the offer before you leave.

    It’s a sign of the times. It’s also a good sign = this potential employer sure as shootin’ ain’t wishy-washy or indecisive. They’re going forward – onward – and hopefully, upward.

    1. Warrior Princess Xena*

      Or it’s a sign that they’re a complete hot mess that can’t retain people. It’s just that in the current hiring market it’s a little hard to tell the difference right now because even the good employers are being stretched super thin.

      1. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

        The personnel shortages are industry-wide. A lot of people are opening their financial books and realizing – yes, we’re in a “bear” market but the Dow is still hovering at 30,000.

        People in the “boomer” generation are learning that they CAN retire and not look back.

        So there are firms out there that may NOT be a “hot mess” but still don’t have staffing at a functional level. They not only have to be expedient in their hiring, but they have to pay a living wage.

  6. Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii*

    You can think of this as you have the power to interview them and get a much fuller picture since you already know you have the job if you want it. You call the shots, you want to meet the doctor, you can insist upon it without worrying if it hurts your chances.

    Think of it as a role reversal.

  7. ferrina*

    Sign of the times. My employer (non-healthcare) had a massive hiring need, and wasted no time in offering the job (a few days, not on-the-spot)
    Good news: They were decisive and had a clear vision and understanding of the company’s needs, and they were committed to staffing appropriately.
    Bad news: They were also short staffed and in a period of transition. They didn’t have the onboarding resources they needed, and almost everyone hired at the same time as me had an awful time onboarding. It took about 3-5x as long as it should have before we were up to speed. This is also an industry that has relies on a lot of soft skills, so the job isn’t clear cut.
    It was a hellish year, but they’ve really committed to improving their process. They’ve made great strides, and I’m glad that I’m here.

    1. sofar*

      My husband was hired for a job in June after two Zoom interviews, they didn’t even check references. I was like, “Are you SURE this is legit?” He just finished school in a field that’s hungry for workers, and the company clearly needed to fill roles.

      He’s been experiencing all the things you pointed out in the the bad news — bad onboarding, no guidance or direction, just thrown in and had to swim. It’s been a little under 4 months and he’s just starting to get his feet under him. But it’s a career-change job for him, and we’re kind of relieved that (assuming he can hold on to the job until the one-year mark) he found something pretty quickly.

    2. AnonForThisPost*

      I am quitting a similar job situation today.

      Whole process took one week from first interview to offer letter.

      The people are lovely but I have missed half of the onboarding items that I am now expected to do for a new person starting 11/1. No one can provide a list of job duties (I just keep receiving the job posting which doesn’t mention half of what I have been asked to do) or decide how much time is allotted to three different departments. Lots of talking behind backs about upper management and just general disorganization makes it untenable.

      Another co-worker who started two weeks before I did also quit at the six-week mark. Hopefully they will learn something from this but it is not my responsibility to fix it.

      It is the most I have ever been paid – and I really cannot afford to leave – but I refuse to take anti-anxiety meds every morning just to get through the workday.

      I am especially sad because it all tanked in one 24 hour period, right as I was mentally composing my Friday Good News story.

  8. Another health care worker*

    It’s true that health care hiring is desperate right now. The last 2 hires I have seen (at my current job and my last one) were disastrous, because the bar is on the floor. No offense to LW, of course! But this is all the more reason to take your time deciding whether you want a particular job. The effects of turnover, general chaos, and said bar being on the floor are all going to become your problem once you’re on staff.

    Also, make sure you ask for more, in terms of salary and benefits, than whatever they offer you. They need you much more than you need them, and your compensation should reflect that.

    1. LW*

      Lw here! Thanks for the suggestions. And no offense taken. I currently see the bar on the floor so to speak with my current employment post COVID so everything being said makes sense

    2. hbc*

      Yeah, I think the downside is a lot of potentially awful coworkers who won’t be fired as long as they’re not actively courting lawsuits. But you’d probably see that anywhere right now, and if it ends up being intolerable at one place, it’s not like all those openings are going to dry up before OP can escape.

  9. Mr. Shark*

    Maybe you could do a week of contract work for the second company, and that would answer most of your questions on culture and if you get along with everyone. You could then have a more formal interview at the end of the week to answer any specific, full-time employment questions.

  10. OyHiOh*

    Non health-care, earlier this year: It took a couple weeks to initially hear back about my resume (but within the time frame described in the job posting). But I went from first interview to second to references to a job offer in the span of 5 days, and those five days included a weekend. It was a dizzying pace for me, and even more so for my children who started summer with one plan and then had to adjust with me when our summer got completely upended. Good change, but still change.

  11. what's in a name*

    I’m in the hiring process for a government job right now, and in over two decades of government work I’ve never had a hiring process go this quickly. It’s still slower than the process OP describes, but steps that usually take weeks are happening in a day or two. I know someone who works in the department I’m interviewing with and they say that they’re so understaffed for the number of projects they have to cover that they’ve been given special permission to speed up the process because they really need more team members. I’m using that information to ask some thoughtful questions of the interviewers and potential colleagues to make sure I’d have enough time to get up to speed without feeling pressured or overworked, and so far I’m not finding any red flags. It feels so weird to be moving through the process so quickly, but I think that’s the reality of a lot of sectors right now.

    1. Drago Cucina*

      Agree. I began my new fed government position less than two months ago. I was shocked that my process was so fast. Also, surprising is that 80% of the people in my office began in June. My direct supervisor wasn’t even on one of the major email distribution lists until this week.

      Around here it was the great retirement the past two years.

  12. Lily*

    We’ll also sometimes hire someone not entirely qualified (Yet. We can get them up to speed eventually.) because we don’t want our other employees to burn out by constantly doing the work of 2-3 people with no end in sight.

    1. Mrs. Pommeroy*

      Which I think – as long as your company still has enough resources to make sure the onboarding process goes well – is just good managing, good planning, and good practice in general.

  13. Quality Girl*

    The healthcare system I work for has a goal now to get offers out to critical roles within 24 hours of interviewing. We have to move fast to help avoid losing people to traveling positions and other systems. I believe the whole HR department that handles hiring has been completely overhauled to achieve this so it’s more of a process change/singular focus and less about cutting corners/settling for less desirable hires (though I’m sure that still happens because… healthcare in 2022).

  14. Brian*

    I had an interview once with an ED of a small start-up nonprofit, and within 45 minutes of the interview start she made me an offer. Granted I am in fundraising, and good fundrasiers are tought to find, and I asked to meet with the board and ask about their insight re: what success looks like, what challenges there are, etc., which she facilitated for me. I accepted the job despite the red flag of the quick turnaround, which turned out to be a huge mistake – the organization was subject to her whims – the mission statement changed regularly, people were hirred and fired on a whim, lots of chaos. In that context, it was a huge issue.

    Currently I work in healthcare fundraising. We are so desperately short staffed on the clinical side that I wouldn’t consider it the red flag it was before – basically you will encounter this energy and urgency sector-wide.

    2. Wintermute*

      I love your post because I think this calls out a few good things.

      First, as many are saying it’s highly sector-dependent.

      But secondly, that it’s also about bureaucracy and inertia as well as how many decisionmakers have their hands in. In a start-up nonprofit speed is more likely to be a sign of dictatorial control and generally hasty decisionmaking. In a health care system, well there’s no such thing as a health care system without bureaucracy or oversight, so it’s more likely to be indicative of at minimum a real focus on not losing good candidates to faster-moving competitors, if not of outright desperation. The context of the type of business helps you decide if speed = poor impulse control overall.

      1. SlightlyLions*

        I work in healthcare, and I changed jobs a few months back. I had three interviews–one in person where they said they would be offering me a job, but formalities meant they couldn’t until the following day (which they then did), an in-person where they gave nothing away but offered the next day, and a phone interview that lasted 15minutes with a pick of job positions offered at the end. All within a week. I’m not kidding myself that I’m a mega catch, or that my resume is white hot, but I have the qualifications, and I interview well. Healthcare of any kind is wild and desperate for staff. Take your time, and if they are so desperate that if you don’t accept quickly enough they move on? There are many, many other companies out there that want you right now

  15. JBean*

    I just started as a project manager with a department of actuaries, and when they find someone they like they move FAST to try to get them on the team. The company is one of the top for employee satisfaction locally and I’ve had a good experience so far, but the hiring process could give someone whiplash.

  16. Diatryma*

    I have heard a joke, purportedly from pilots, that you want the navigator with glasses so you know what’s wrong with them (that is, why they’re not a pilot.) This is a time where you want to know why the hiring process is fast– and you do! I’d call it a caution flag, where you take time to evaluate what you know.

    1. Anomie*

      In healthcare it’s not a red flag right now. They needed to hire staff yesterday. Certain positions are flooded with offers.

      1. Warrior Princess Xena*

        Rapid hiring, no matter what for, can cause some problems in and of itself that some other posters up-thread have mentioned: a low bar for hiring which can lead to terrible coworkers, onboarding processes not designed for the rapidity and quantity of incoming people, general turnover-related disorganization, and an incoming workload that is higher than desirable because there is no other person to take it while the new folks get up to speed.

  17. sofar*

    My husband was hired for a job in June after two Zoom interviews, they didn’t even check references. I was like, “Are you SURE this is legit?” He just finished school in a field that’s hungry for workers, and the company clearly needed to fill roles.

    He’s been experiencing all the things you pointed out in the the bad news — bad onboarding, no guidance or direction, just thrown in and had to swim. It’s been a little under 4 months and he’s just starting to get his feet under him. But it’s a career-change job for him, and we’re kind of relieved that (assuming he can hold on to the job until the one-year mark) he found something pretty quickly.

  18. Old Med Tech*

    I am a retired Medical Technologist now called Medical Laboratory Scientist. I agree with the above comments. There is a healthcare shortage at this moment in time. Healthcare workers need to have graduated from an accredited school and have passed their boards. Many healthcare workers have retired. This leaves a small pool to hire from. LW you are a unicorn. Good luck.

    1. Another MLS*

      Another MLS here…just want to say hi since it’s rate to see one of us anywhere (also why my organization has made great strides to get offers out asap).

  19. Healthcare HR*

    If we have a very strong candidate and do not make an offer the same day as the interview, they will already have accepted an offer by the time they call them the next day. We contact all candidates for hard to fill positions within 24 business hours of applying. If it’s a good interview, we try and make an offer within a few days of the in-person interview. If it’s a phenomenal interview, we make an offer same day. Even with that model I’d say about half of our offers are declined because they already accepted another offer. And that half that accept typically have other offers on the table but accepted based on the job, culture, or benefits.

  20. Anomie*

    I practice medicine. Was offered a position during the first phone call. No face to face interview. We are like rare gems right now.

  21. Chilipepper Attitude*

    I live in south Florida. I just met a couple in my apartment building who work in health care and got very substantial bonuses for moving to south Florida.

    They said the area is desperate for workers.

    2. Paris Geller*

      Right. I don’t blame health care workers for leaving the field in droves the past few years but it is remarkably terrifying!

  23. DataGirl*

    Anyone in patient care has excellent opportunities right now. On the other side of healthcare in administration and support- not so much. We are in a hiring freeze and experiencing layoffs. Which really sucks because while obviously, doctors and nurses are critical to patient care, if the electronic medical records system goes down or the ORs don’t get cleaned or the supplies don’t get ordered and stocked because executive leadership thought those roles weren’t important, then you can’t treat patients either.

    1. knitted violin*

      This is such a bugbear of mine! I work in healthcare and it happens here as well, but they fail to realise that in this scenario clinicians end up spending more time doing administrative tasks and less time providing clinical care.
      Making sure that we have the right people doing the right tasks is absolutely critical to surviving the increase in demand.

    2. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

      Yes, this.

      I had to change psychiatrists a few months ago, because the excellent person I’d been seeing couldn’t handle full-time work as a doctor, split between two locations, plus another four hours or so a day handling all her own administrative work.

    3. Marion*

      I work in the bereavement industry, and medical administratives are VITAL to us getting our jobs done. After a person passes away in hospital it takes a LOT of paperwork to release them to us, and when hospitals are understaffed with admin it can take days, which is extremely frustrating on the family.

      During the first wave of COVID we kept hearing from hospitals that we needed to pick up bodies faster as their morgues were filling up – but low and behold they did not hire more administrators so that the paperwork could be finished faster to ALLOW us to pick them up. Good medical administrators keep the hospital running!

  24. Avery*

    It’s not just health care that’s hard up for workers, though they’re definitely an extreme end of things. In the paralegal field, I got one job offer after only a 30 minute phone interview and another job offer after a similar-length in-person interview. Took the phone interview one and everything’s been great so far (about a month in). Specialty fields really need people with the right certification and background right now, and they’re willing to move fast to get them.

  25. LW*

    Thanks for al the great advice everybody. It truly is amazing and alarming to see the demand in healthcare right now. It’s been 14 years since I have job searched and how things have changed.

    1. Gyne*

      It’s not clear to me if you are a physician or not, but also take into consideration that within each region, every specialty is a very small community. I know enough about almost all the doctors in my specialty in my city to be able to make hiring decisions on the spot based on their reputation alone. The few I don’t know, I know someone well enough who does to be one phone call away from getting ALLLLL the tea about how they treat their patients, staff, and their reliability as a partner. Just because you’re getting an offer on the spot doesn’t mean it’s a quick decision – you may be more of a known quantity than you realize.

  26. Quickbeam*

    Re health care benefits….the worst in my RN career were when I worked for hospitals. Worst retirement plans too. I hope they get better. I was flat out told by multiple HR people that “women don’t care about that”. Yeah shades of 1955.

    1. Frankie Bergstein*

      That makes me feel so awful! Everyone needs healthcare and retirement because human bodies age and get sick sometimes (at best!). So so sorry this happened to you and the LW and, clearly, so many other people tasked with taking care of the population as they age and get sick (or maintain/manage chronic conditions).

  27. Somehow_I_Manage*

    If the offers are coming this quick, make certain your salary demands aren’t too low!

    1. Curious*

      Wait just a minute — are you suggesting that employers might compete for employees on salary? Unheard of! Absurd! Next thing you know, you’ll be saying that supply and demand is a thing! What are you, some kind of communist?/s

      Seriously, if employers are really desperate to hire, then the capitalist solution is to … offer higher salary. How much? Whatever it takes.

  28. GlitterIsEverything*

    I work in ophthalmology.

    In my 25 years, I’ve never seen as many job opportunities as I have in the last year. My company currently has about 40 positions open, which is unheard of. And our hiring folks are getting ghosted constantly by applicants.

    Honestly, at this point, if you answer the phone and then actually show up for the interview, you’re better than 80% of the applicants.

    Yeah, the bar may as well be underground.

    1. Goldenrod*

      Yes, agreed!

      I could tell that my current boss wanted to hire me on the spot within literally the first few minutes of my first (phone) interview for the job. I was shocked…but so happy. She strongly implied in this conversation that not only did she want to hire me, but she told me the exact salary she would offer – and made sure it was 10% higher than I was currently making.

      It ended up taking about a month for her to make me the offer, but that was only because we’re part of a larger bureaucracy that is slow – and she had to fight to get me that 10% raise!

      After starting the job, I got friendly with the temp who had been in the role. She said that my resume was the ONLY qualified applicant they had gotten in 6 months. And one of only THREE applicants they’d gotten at all! The temp had actually agreed to stay longer than she wanted to, because they were so desperate.

      All this was a BIG change from the last time I’d been job hunting. And like Alison said, it’s totally because of the job market right now. My organization is desperate to find qualified applicants…or sometimes, any applicants.

      The job is amazing, all the people are great, it’s been a wonderful experience – so getting hired quickly was definitely not a red flag at all, in my experience.

  29. 15 Pieces of Flair*

    Definitely do your due diligence before accepting a hasty offer. In the before times I received two very hasty offers and also made a few hasty offers. In all cases there were serious challenges on the organizational level.

    The hasty offers I made as a hiring manager were for sales positions with a company that experienced high turnover in the role due to the compensation mix and high targets. In that specific case, most even minimally qualified candidates were preferable to having a vacancy.

    The first hasty offer I received was at the end of a second interview. The hiring manager demanded an answer on the spot. The organization turned out to be incredibly toxic in the “we’re a family” way and had over 50% turnover in the first year of employment. Over a decade later I still regret caving into the director’s pressure to accept that job.

    The second hasty offer was from a small SaaS startup that sped through 3 interviews in a couple days. At the time I attributed it entirely to the fact that I had another offer. After I started the job I quickly realized that my predecessor had quit without notice the day before my first interview. While that job wasn’t completely regrettable, the company was severely understaffed.

  30. Waving not Drowning*

    not Healthcare – back in 2019, my partner was self employed as an electrician, however, due to some pretty major life changes, we needed the stability of a regular income, rather than the ups and downs of self employment.

    He lodged an application for a job that interested him a few hours before it closed – I think he lodged it at 11am, and it was due to close at 5pm or something similar. It was for an office job, but, he had never worked in an office before. He had a phone call 30 minutes later scheduling him in for an interview the next day at 4pm. Interview lasted 1 hour. Partner came home and was really impressed with the workplace and said it was actually his dream job, but, he didn’t want to get his hopes up – this was his first job application in literally years, as the majority of his employment was via word of mouth/reputation. 40 minutes later, meaning 1 hour after the interview, he received a text message asking him to check his emails as they sent through a job offer. Job offer was absolutely amazing, he accepted with no negotiation, and started the following Monday.

    Its been smooth sailing – their Pandemic response was brilliant, they issue bonuses on top of their already generous pay, and after my partner had a family berevement they insisted he take a full week off paid – not from either his Annual leave or sick leave allocationS.

    Sometimes the stars align, and its a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

  31. DJ Abbott*

    So, I worked in a hospital before Covid. And what I noticed was there’s a lot more focus on personal things and feelings in that environment because emotional support and camaraderie is a lot more important in patient care, as you probably already know.
    So I would be leery of a practice that does not address this at all in interviewing, but one that does it in an abbreviated way, like the one that offered you a job after you worked there for a few hours, would probably be OK.

  32. Mal*

    Definitely agree that it’s where the healthcare industry is right now. my friend is a dental hygienist and her salary went up 50 percent compared to 2 years ago when she switched jobs. multiple offices were competing for her, offering her whatever hours and benefits she wanted. no one even asked for references.

  33. just me*

    I work in health care. We are so understaffed in every job category that my company is hiring super fast – they don’t want to lose out on hiring someone by waiting too long to make an offer.

    Hope you find a good job that pays you appropriately and offers good benefits and treats you well.

  34. jojo*

    Small city. So population of 50 to 60 thousand. People talk. They already know who you are. They know where you work under pays. Everyone is related to someone in smaller cities. They also know your bosses reputation. Go hang in the parking lot and catch a few people leaving and ask them how it is working there.

  35. Spooncake*

    Healthcare is so tough right now that even the medical-adjacent fields (like medical regulatory affairs, my own field) are trying to snap people up as quickly as possible. I was hired last year within about a week of sending in my application, and it’s gone pretty well. I think it is very dependent on the interview/hiring process and the information they give you though- my current employers were open with me from the start that they were hiring for multiple positions and that it was expansion rather than turnover. If they hadn’t been so trsnsparent about that, and their hiring process, I’m not sure I would have been as keen to accept their offer.

  36. Purely Allegorical*

    Just popping in on #2 to remind OP that people without families also have non-work lives and would find an all-day park expectation ridiculous. Having a family doesn’t make it any more or less outrageous of an ask.

    1. Curmudgeon in California*

      This. Pre-Covid, my spouse and I would attend the company picnic on a weekend, but that was a “whole family” event. If there was a “just us workers” event on the weekend that wasn’t paid hours? Nope. If you want me to show up unpaid on a weekend you had better be feeding me and my spouse. If anyone ever pushed back on my refusal they would get some home truths about pay and non-work responsibilities, and I’m a salaried professional.

      Yes, employers, if you want my attendance and 100% dedication during the week, don’t expect me to be happy with farting around with coworkers in a park on the weekend unpaid. I have chores and sleeping to do on the weekend. That’s my time, not yours.

  37. Xaraja*

    The company I work for (supply chain in the telecommunications industry, so it’s been very busy over the past couple years) has been having a lot of trouble with with people changing their minds after accepting an offer. I don’t know how quickly they make offers, but I thought that trend was interesting given all the comments above about making offers quickly because otherwise the candidate has gotten one from someone else.

  38. UrsulaD*

    Did the person who referred you also talk to them? I didn’t even submit a resume to my current job, because a previous employer (at the parent company) just told them to hire me (also healthcare) when I asked who I should talk to about a possible opening.

  39. Jake*

    My wife has been in healthcare for 10 years now, and it swings between 2 extremes with very little in between:

    1. We are fully staffed and absolutely no one is getting hired, regardless of how cheap or good they are.

    2. We are half staffed and absolutely anybody with the appropriate credentials will be hired immediately, regardless of how expensive or bad they are.

    It leads to these weird cycles where they burn through people like crazy for a while until they luck out and find somebody good who will stay, then there are long periods of stability.

    It is bizarre to me because my industry (construction) is almost always ready to hire the right person, regardless of how much staff we have. Our staffing is constantly in flux, never desperate to find people, but never in a spot where we can’t find a spot for a rock star, so we are always interviewing whereas my wife’s department will go literal years without interviewing, then interview non-stop.

  40. Leah*

    I was offered a job after a 30 minute phone interview once. I felt pretty cautious about it so I asked for an in-person interview, which was nearly a rerun of the first interview with the same people and same questions. They weren’t very good at hiring and they were making some aspirational hires – bringing in developers even though the contract wasn’t for development because that’s the way they wanted it to grow. I took the job and did find their hiring process was a problem – not bad people, just not the right fit for the work that needed doing, and that led to turnover and frustration for a lot of folks. It was a boon for me, because I was able to build a lot of skills I didn’t have and eventually took over as the team lead. I was on that team for 5 years and I’m really happy I took the job, but it could definitely have gone a different direction.

  41. CLC*

    Honestly I think this is the way hiring should be in most industries and fields. If a person has the qualifications and experience needed for a job, they seem like a reasonable person, and their references check out, why not? If a hiring process takes a long time I would wonder if they don’t know what they are looking for or they aren’t attracting the right candidates for whatever reasons. I think hiring has also become a bit absurd where you have to meet with 20 people who are basically assessing your personality or how you look in a suit.

  42. Angel M*

    Same thing in construction. If I do not offer a job after the interview, they will go work for our competitor. And I dont do background checks, since we would be out of candidates :)

    Turnover is higher now, because they will leave for the company that offer $1.00 more an hour.

  43. Flowers*

    My current job (90 days as of today!) – applied on Monday, scheduled to meet on Friday. I met w/ 1 partner, he liked me, told me he’ll talk to the others and let me know. By the following Tuesday I had a verbal offer and the written offer came either same day or next. And at the highest end of their salary. They didn’t waste any time which after years of being constantly ghosted, was just so shocking to me. I had just started my search and was totally honest in my interview – that I have this kind of experience, this is what’s important to me at work, and they were on the same page.

    So when I started, things were a bit of a challenge for me just because the environment is so very different and communication & processing things is something I really struggle with. But everyone has been genuinely nice, helpful and patient. Internally I’m constantly comparing this job to my previous ones and really feel like this one “wins” each time. So I’m slowly settling in.

  44. Marion*

    Bereavement sector is going through the same thing atm here in Ontario – the boomers are retiring, and since it is a fairly rigorous process to get a funeral director’s licence here (schooling, apprenticeship, board exam, and regular continuing education), we can’t fill the positions with qualified people at the rate the old guard are retiring. So if you have a license and are in good standing with the board – we’ll take you!

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