Do I follow up in person or simply forget about this job?

Q. I attended an interview three weeks ago. The hiring manager invited me for another interview the following week, in which the director would be present. He was to confirm the interview date, but I have not heard from him since and he doesn’t respond to my emails. Should I seek answers in person or forget about the job?

It is quite acceptable for you to follow up on the second interview considering feedback received at first encounter. It is however quite unprofessional of the hiring manager to ignore your enquiries after the promises made. You state that the manager has not responded to your emails; I hope you have not flooded his inbox with your emails as this would be unprofessional and would make you seem desperate.

Since you have already made contact, I advise against a visit to the recruiter’s office. It is possible that they may still be interested in a further interview, and are just exploring a suitable time to the interviewer, so keep cool for a while before you write the opportunity off.

Undergoing several interview stages is a common practice, especially for middle and senior level positions. A candidate may go through a series of interviews with different panels before they are selected

As you can imagine, such processes can be time consuming, therefore it is advisable to play along and wait until you are required to move to the next level. There are organisations where the final hiring authority, in most cases the director or vice-president, has to conduct a final assessment.

This process is quite common in leading companies and is driven by desire to ensure the most suitable candidate fully meets the profile of the job.

A professional hiring manager should, on the very first meeting, explain the interview process and expected stages, and give an estimate on when the process would be concluded, that way, candidates will not be anxious when feedback takes time.

In your case, where this process is not being followed, you might want to reflect whether you would be happy in a place where promises are not kept or emails responded to. Such opportunities are good pointers to bigger cultural issues that exist in organisations. It would be good to conduct some independent reference check and probe further when you get to that second interview.