thanks, this is really helpful. over the course of my career i've become highly attuned to what are obvious hiccups in the interview process and i take them into consideration. but it's times when things are genuinely up in the air that i have more difficulty in assessing the situation (such is life i suppose). i see how the idea of establishing any sort of an agreed upon response interval, however casual or imprecise, can provide some anchoring for both parties.

in a past job, i realized my boss had not wanted to hire me and had effectively been overriden by someone further up the org chart -- it cast the interviews and phone calls i'd had in an entirely new light, and is part of what has prompted me to soberly evaluate every step of the interview/onboard process during job hops now.