It can seem like forever between the time you submit a government job application and when you receive any sort of word about the job. This happens because there are many steps in the government hiring process.
There is no set time that a government hiring process takes. The organization has competing motivations when it comes to the hiring timeline.
The organization has an incentive to speed up the process and get someone in the vacant position as soon as possible.
In some cases a warm body is better than nobody. The work must get done, and somebody has to do it.
That said, the organization also has an incentive to be thorough which can slow down the process. Picking just someone who merely meets the minimum qualifications can be dangerous. It is easy to hire the wrong person, but it can take a long time to get rid of that person, especially in government where organizations go out of their way to protect employees from unfair personnel actions. In an effort to protect everyone, human resources departments and legal departments can go overboard in making managers give employees multiple opportunities to correct poor performance.
If you are screened out of the selection process when the organization’s human resources department reviews all applications for the minimum requirements, it may only be a week or two after the closing date that you receive your rejection letter.
Lick your wounds, and move on. There are plenty of other job out there.
If you don’t hear back after a month, you can most likely forget about that job. Do not delete electronic copies of the application materials you sent because there is still a chance you’re in the running, but don’t hold your breath. The organization may be interviewing other candidates and will notify all applicants that they were not selected after they choose their new hire.
If you are selected as a finalist, you should hear back in about two or three weeks to set up an interview. After you interview, you should hear back on the final selection within a week or two. This timeline can get stretched out quite a bit if the organization offers the job to a candidate and that candidate winds up rejecting the offer after salary negotiations do not go as well as they'd like. If you get a job offer after waiting about a month or so after the interview, this is likely what happened.
All in all, the government hiring process can take a long time. But keep your chin up. Everyone else is going through the same waiting game.
