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I applied for a junior associate position at a big law firm (v50, satellite office, secondary market) back in early February. I went in-house right after law school and I've been working for about a year and a half. The associate role is a corporate transactional role and the focus is within the same industry as my current role.

I was contacted for an interview about 30 days later. The interview went pretty well for a remote interview, couple of technical difficulties that they said happen all the time, but a pretty solid interview regardless. Three partners and one associate on the first round. They couldn't give me a timeline for when they expected to have a decision, so I took that for what it was and figured I'd follow up in a couple weeks if I hadn't heard back.

Two weeks pass, I follow up, and no response. It has now been about 5 weeks, and still no word. The position is still posted and the practice group hasn't gained a member yet (I check more than I care to admit). As a worthwhile mention, the particular industry is pretty slammed right now.

The wait is killing me, and opportunities like this one do not pop up that often in my city. I suspect its a no-go, but have any of you had similar experiences with trying to lateral during the pandemic? I just think it is strange that I would be ghosted like this, unless they are just in that catch 22 where you need to hire someone but you're too busy to hire someone.

My situation is pretty similar, except that they were very quick in getting back to me to request 2nd interviews, and then went pretty ghost after the second round. One firm thanked me for my patience after a week and asked if I had any deadlines with other firms, but that was two weeks ago and I haven't heard anything since. I've given up hope and am just applying other places.

I'm in a similar position--I'm coming from government and am pretty new to the private sector so I'm not really sure what to expect. I've had multiple rounds of interviews with two separate boutique firms that I thought went well, and now I think I've been ghosted. With Firm A I had 3 rounds that all took place within a little over 2 weeks. I got responses very quickly after the first two interviews, and I felt optimistic about the last one because they were really trying to sell me on the firm at the end--but it's been 2 weeks since that last interview and nothing. With Firm B I had a screener and a callback, and I heard back after the screener a little over a week afterwards. It's been a little over a month since the callback.

I'm assuming that my candidacy at both firms are dead, but in general at what point after the last interview should you give up hope? I'm in NYC if that makes any difference.

I agree, it feels so weird to be ghosted after so many interviews. I feel like in previous positions they always let me know much sooner whether if it was an offer or a rejection.

These days, recruiting people are extremely rude and would rather ghost folks than explicitly reject them.

From my experience, hiring committees meet weekly to discuss the candidates in the pipeline. If you have not heard back from your interviews (including callbacks) in 8 days - 2 weeks, I'd consider them rejections and keep applying.

Applying for jobs is like dating. If they are interested in you, you'd get a prompt response. If they are not interested in you, you'd feel ghosted or be waiting for a long time for a response.

About how long until you first hear back from a firm to do an interview?

It took about a month for me each time