How do I follow up after an interview?

The one Swiss figure, and what it counts from

The federal employment agency SECO publishes an application brochure, «Wie bewerbe ich mich richtig?» — how do I apply properly. On pages 34 and 35 it prints a flow chart of the whole process, from reading an advert to the end of the Probezeit (the Swiss probation period at the start of a job).

Exactly one box in that chart describes chasing anyone. It is headed «Rückmeldung» — reply — and reads: «Falls keine Rückmeldung, nach ca. 10 Tagen nachfragen.» If there is no reply, follow up after about ten days. As far as we could check, that is the only interval a Swiss federal body publishes for this act.

The position matters more than the number. The box sits between «Bewerbung verschicken», sending the application, and «Vorbereitung auf das Vorstellungsgespräch», preparing for the interview. The ten days run from the moment your dossier goes out, not from the interview.

That is not our inference from a diagram. The Italian edition of the same brochure writes the anchor out: «Se non ottieni risposta dopo 10 giorni dall’invio della candidatura, contatta l’azienda» — ten days from sending the application. The French edition matches the German and leaves it implicit: «En l’absence de réponse dans les 10 jours env., renseignez-vous.»

After the interview, the same chart schedules a review — not a call

Follow the chart onwards and the sequence is: preparing for the interview, the interview itself, then a box called «Nachbearbeitung des Vorstellungsgesprächs» — working through the interview afterwards. Reviewing what was said, in other words, not contacting the company. The next box is «Vor dem ersten Arbeitstag», before the first day at work, and assumes you already have the job.

So between the interview and an offer, the federal plan contains no step at which you get in touch. That is not a warning against it. It is a gap, and it explains why this question is so hard to answer with a source: there is no official Swiss interval for this particular moment.

A second Swiss figure does exist, from a different body and addressed to teenagers looking for an apprenticeship. Where it comes from and how long a reply actually takes is a separate question in this section of the site. For following up after an interview, the position stands: the timing is left to you.

Practically, that is less unhelpful than it sounds. It means the date should come from the room you were in, not from a number written for a different step of the process.

Four national instructions, none of them the same

Because Switzerland publishes nothing for this moment, most advice online silently imports a foreign rule of thumb. It is worth seeing how far apart those are — especially if you are reading this from outside the country, or arrived recently and brought your habits with you.

Germany’s Bundesagentur für Arbeit, on its page about what happens after an interview: «Hab etwas Geduld, das Unternehmen wird sich melden, sobald die Entscheidung gefallen ist. Wenn nach vier Wochen noch keine Antwort da ist, ist es sinnvoll, mal nachzufragen.» Four weeks, explicitly counted from the interview.

France Travail advises «une dizaine de jours», about ten days, where no date was given. Where one was given and has passed: «Laissez passer encore 2 ou 3 jours, et envoyez-lui un courriel.» Two or three days of grace on a date you already have.

The UK National Careers Service names no interval at all. Its entire guidance on the point is: «You might want to follow up after the interview with an email or phone call unless you know when you’ll hear back.»

Four weeks, ten days, no number — for the same act. If you have been trying to find the correct interval, you are looking for something that does not exist. What all four do share is the caveat: where a date was named, the date governs. That is the only rule they agree on, and it happens to be the only one that applies to your actual case.

There is no English edition — and that is worth knowing

The English publications index of arbeit.swiss lists the application brochure — under its German title, because that is the only title it has there. A German, a French and an Italian edition exist. An English one does not.

This matters more than it looks. It means that when you search in English for how to follow up after an interview in Switzerland, essentially nothing you find is written for this market. The genre you will meet — a thank-you note within twenty-four hours, then a check-in after a week, then a second check-in — is an American convention. It is not wrong, but it has no Swiss backing, and the Swiss guidance that does exist is both later and quieter.

It also means the vocabulary in your message should come from the advert, not from your own market. In Switzerland the workload is a Pensum expressed as a percentage, pay is Lohn, holiday is Ferien, and the reference from a previous employer is an Arbeitszeugnis. If the interview ran in English but the advert was in German, the safest choice for a written follow-up is the language the process has been running in — usually the language of the interview.

One more small thing that gives people away: Swiss German has no ß. If you write in German, it is «Grüsse», not «Grüße».

Ask something that can be answered

Timing is the smaller half. The larger half is whether your message can be answered at all when nothing has been decided yet — which is the most likely state of affairs.

«Has a decision been made?» is a closed question. Answered with «not yet», the exchange is over and you know exactly what you knew before. «How are my chances?» is worse: it asks for a judgement nobody wants to put in writing before the process closes, so it often goes unanswered entirely.

Process questions can be answered. When do you expect to decide? Who will be in touch, and how? Is there another round? Are you taking references? Every one of these has an answer even when nobody has decided anything — and every one replaces a rule of thumb with a date.

The rest is craft. The job title, worded the way the advert worded it. The date of the interview. One sentence proving you mean this conversation and not a template. And anything you promised and still owe — an Arbeitszeugnis, a referee’s number, a note on the Pensum you could work. With that, the message has an occasion of its own rather than merely reminding them you exist.

What does not belong: new arguments. A follow-up that supplies what was missing in the interview turns a short question into a second application, and second applications get filed rather than answered.

Call or write — the Swiss brochure leaves it open, the neighbours do not

The SECO brochure has a chapter on applying by telephone. It treats the call as something you prepare like an appointment: pick a day when you feel good, because tone of voice, smile, energy and motivation are all audible; find a quiet place; have paper, a pen and your diary ready; work out your words in advance — how you open, what you want to ask, how you close; note the points you care about in keywords; and practise with friends who will give you honest feedback.

Those six steps are written for a cold application call, but they transfer without modification to a call about the status. It is the same call with a narrower purpose.

The end of that chapter is the more interesting part. It acknowledges that many people find it hard to sell themselves on the phone, and tells them plainly: in that case, choose the written form. The federal guidance makes the call an option with an exit, not a duty.

The neighbours are less neutral, and in opposite directions. The Bundesagentur für Arbeit puts the call first and scripts it — give your name, refer to the interview, then ask about the current status, calmly and politely — and treats email as the fallback if the phone gets you nowhere. France Travail says the reverse: prefer digital tools, email or a message on a professional network such as LinkedIn.

The soberest way to choose is by what you want to learn. In writing you give the other side time to give you a correct answer, and you keep a dated document. On the phone you get an answer today — but the answer that person happens to have, and if the switchboard picks up, you get it from someone with no part in the process.

How often, and what a second message needs

Once. Not out of politeness, but because of what the message is for: it exists to get you a date. If the date arrives, you have what you wanted. If it does not, repeating the same question adds nothing.

France Travail is the only one of the guides to name the downside explicitly: recruiters do not like feeling pressed by a candidate, and calling every day or coming across as insistent could irritate.

A second message is still defensible if it has a new occasion. A date you were given has passed — then the second message refers to that date rather than to your waiting. Or you have a competing offer with a deadline, which is a fact the other side needs, and which routinely speeds processes up because it changes their own timetable.

And if nothing comes back even then, that is information. In Switzerland nobody owes you a reason for a rejection, and whether you may ask for feedback after one is a separate question with its own rules, answered separately in this section.

The federal checklist has a column for the answer

Straight after the flow chart the same brochure prints a «Checkliste Bewerbungsorganisation» — a job-search organiser you fill in by hand. For each application there are columns: where I applied, where I saw the advert, how I applied, the date I applied. And then, as the last column: «Rückmeldung?» — reply?

In the networking table on the same checklist the column is spelled out in full: reply — date and content.

It is unglamorous and it is the most usable instruction in the brochure on this question. The official Swiss handling of a reply is a column you keep — with a date from which one row is conspicuously empty. Keep it and after two weeks you know not merely that you are waiting, but since when, on what, and from whom.

The brochure closes that section with a line people skip: keep the adverts and your covering letters, and if you are unemployed or have been given notice, keep the rejection letters too. Anyone registered with an RAV — the regional employment centre — has a second reason to keep that file.

Three neighbouring questions, answered separately

How long a reply usually takes in Switzerland, and where the widely repeated «two to three weeks» figure comes from: that has its own answer in this section.

What belongs in a short message sent immediately after the interview, when you want to make contact without asking for anything — also covered separately. That has its own answer too, and it reaches a clear conclusion: that message confirms interest and specifically does not ask about the decision.

And what is possible after a rejection — feedback, your documents back, access to what was held about you. This page covers only the stretch in which nothing has been decided and you want to know where you stand.