BETHLEHEM, PA—How long can a college student expect to wait for a job offer after an interview? And, after an offer is extended, how long will he or she have to accept or reject it?
NACE’s 2012 Recruiting Benchmarks Survey found that, on average, employers hiring new college graduates take 24.2 business days to extend an offer to a college student after an interview. Once an offer has been extended, employers then give the candidate an average of 14.1 business days to make a decision.
“The average interview-to-offer cycle time in the 2012 survey is consistent with that from previous years,” says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director. “These results show that there tends to be a relatively narrow timeframe during which the offer follows the interview.” (See Figure 1.)
There are significant differences in interview-to-offer cycle times across industries. Government agencies have one of the longer interview-to-offer cycles with a 38-day average. However, they are not alone as employers in other industries—such as recreation and hospitality (39.5 days), engineering services (30.3 days), and construction (30 days)—have similar timeframes.
By contrast, recruiters from computer and electronics manufacturers (16 days), accounting services (17 days), and miscellaneous business services (17.5 days) take an average of fewer than 18 days to deliver their offers.
Figure 1: Time from interview to offer in days (2008-12)
Source: 2012 Recruiting Benchmarks Survey, National Association of Colleges and Employers
About NACE’s Recruiting Benchmarks Survey
NACE’s 2012 Recruiting Benchmarks Survey was conducted June 15 through August 15, 2012; 242 employer-member organizations took part. An executive summary of the survey report is available at www.naceweb.org/Research/Recruiters/Recruiting_Benchmarks_Survey.aspx.
About NACE
Since 1956, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) has been the leading source of information about the employment of college graduates. For more information, visit www.naceweb.org. NACE maintains a virtual press room for the media at www.naceweb.org/pressreleases/ .
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