How long do job offer letters take?

[tzhu07]

So I got a verbal job offer, which I accepted, and then the recruiter said that they will officially mail me the offer in writing. It's been one week, and I haven't gotten anything yet. It's a large corporation with tens of thousands of people. My job site is located in Bellevue, WA, but they need approval from their headquarters in East Asia for all hires.

Is this typical at all? This will be the first time I'm an employee for a company with more than 10 people, lol.

 

[maflynn]

Since its been a week, it can't hurt to call and ask politely. Not to raise your concern but my wife had a verbal agreement once and waited for a job offer letter to come - it never did. The company decided not to hire her, so asking before waiting too long may not be a bad thing

 

[Shrink]

So I got a verbal job offer, which I accepted, and then the recruiter said that they will officially mail me the offer in writing. It's been one week, and I haven't gotten anything yet. It's a large corporation with tens of thousands of people. My job site is located in Bellevue, WA, but they need approval from their headquarters in East Asia for all hires.

Is this typical at all? This will be the first time I'm an employee for a company with more than 10 people, lol.

I fully agree with maflynn. A brief, polite, almost casual "I was just wondering how the process is going" phone call can't do any harm. No panic, just a polite inquiry.

 

[malman89]

A good recruiter would've given an update by now.

As you guessed, perhaps they just need budgetary approval from corporate overseas. Perhaps there's a catch in your offer. Maybe they're just trying to coordinate a start date.

Either way, your recruiter's commission is hanging in the balance, so they should be doing a more proactive job. Give them a call.

 

[tzhu07]

Yup, I already sent over an email to the recruiter asking about the job. I'll give her one full business day to respond. If she doesn't, then I'll give her a call.

BTW, the reason why I mentioned that it's a large corporation is that perhaps there's more "red tape" in those kinds of environments, which might cause a delay. The small businesses I worked for never took a week.

 

[tzhu07]

Well at least my theory about larger businesses could be true. According to a Monster.com:

 

[smithrh]

As a (former) hiring manager in a Fortune 100 company, yes, there's red tape, and on top of that, you can get people in staffing who aren't as motivated as they should be.

I used to have to badger some people in staffing to get offer letters out the door. Note, sometimes people in staffing are temporary help. Big titles, big offices, but two months from now they can be gone to another company after the current company's staffing needs decrease.

Was this an internal (e.g., they work for the company) or external recruiter?

 

[RITZFit]

It can't hurt to ask. I accepted the offer for my current job by phone and received a formal letter within 2 business days; they are a large international company.

 

[tzhu07]

Was this an internal (e.g., they work for the company) or external recruiter?

Internal recruiter, 1st party from the company itself.

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It can't hurt to ask. I accepted the offer for my current job by phone and received a formal letter within 2 business days; they are a large international company.

It's possible that they had already approved the hiring when giving you the offer via phone, thus the 2 business days for the letter was simply a matter of mailing it out.

With my situation, she said that new hires must be approved by HQ overseas, even though they had already made the offer and I had already accepted.

 

[tzhu07]

Just wanted to update this thread. I eventually did get the offer letter and signed it.

 

[MusicEnthusiast]

Cool, what's the job? (And hello from Seattle too!)