The r/aestheticnursing post asking for opinions on an interview is a small, very common story: a nurse interviewed at a newer med spa, has no med spa background but both nursing experience and prior salon work, was told the practice is willing to train, and then heard the sentence that unsettles almost every candidate — they may take a week or two to get back to her. Her gut read is that this means she did not get the job.
The instinct is understandable and it is often wrong. A week or two is not a rejection signal in this industry. What it is, is a signal about the employer's stage, and reading it correctly is worth more than reading it pessimistically.
Why a newer practice is slow, and why slow is not the same as no
The post specifies that the practice is new, and that detail does most of the work. In a small practice, hiring is rarely a dedicated process with a calendar and an owner who does nothing else. The delay comes from a short and predictable list.
The decision usually rests with one or two people who are also treating. A newer med spa may be filling rooms one at a time rather than hiring against a full schedule, which means the decision depends on how fast bookings are arriving. The training capacity is real but finite — the person who would train a new injector is the same person generating revenue, and adding a trainee costs her appointments. And there is often a prerequisite that has nothing to do with the candidate: the practice's supervision structure, its medical director arrangement, or its protocol coverage has to be in place before a new provider can work at all.
That last point is worth naming explicitly because it is invisible from the candidate's side. In many jurisdictions, what a nurse may do depends on supervision and delegation arrangements rather than on the nurse's own qualifications, and those arrangements take time to establish or confirm. A practice waiting on that is not hesitating about the candidate; it is waiting on the structure that would let her start.
What is genuinely a signal, and what is not
Rather than reading the timeline, read the specific things that were said.
"Willing to train" is the strongest positive in the post. A practice that will train someone with no med spa background, because it values her nursing background and her salon experience, is solving a real problem: people with clinical skill who understand client service are scarce, and most practices claim to want them while hiring only candidates who arrive pre-trained. Hiring willingness is expensive and it is a real commitment.
A range, stated up front, is more honest than a date. "A week or two" is what an owner says when she genuinely does not know whether the next decision depends on a schedule she cannot control. A candidate who gets a crisp date from a practice that then goes silent has less information, not more.
What would be a signal: a timeline that keeps moving without being updated, requests for more interviews with no new information, or a practice that will not name the person making the decision or say what it is waiting on. Those are worth acting on.
What to do during the two weeks
The mistake candidates make here is treating the waiting period as a passive interval. Three things are worth doing with it, and none of them involves pestering the practice.
Keep the search running. Not as a negotiating tactic or a threat, but because a search that stops while one practice deliberates gives that practice all the power in the negotiation. Having another conversation in progress is not disloyal; it is what every employer in this industry assumes a good candidate is doing.
Follow up once, with something that helps them decide. One short message, sent at the outer edge of the stated window, that does three things: confirms continued interest, adds one piece of information they do not have, and removes one friction they might be weighing. For this candidate, the friction is the background question — so the useful message includes what she has done about it: the specific training she has already completed or booked, the state requirements she has already read, and her willingness to complete whatever the practice's supervision structure requires before starting. That converts "no med spa background" from a risk into a plan.
Ask what the decision is waiting on. Framed as a question about the practice rather than about her prospects, this is entirely reasonable and will usually be answered: is the opening dependent on a supervision arrangement, on training capacity, or on scheduling volume. The answer tells her whether to wait and, if she waits, what she is waiting for.
What to examine before accepting, whenever the answer comes
If the answer is yes, the more consequential diligence starts, and the training promise in the post is the thing to convert into specifics. "We will train you" means very little until it is written down as a plan.
Four items are worth pinning down before signing. What the training actually consists of, and who provides it, including whether there is a defined period of working alongside an experienced provider rather than shadowing once. What the end state is: which treatments she will be signed off to perform independently, and who signs off, because the credential that matters on the next résumé is competence in named procedures rather than time served. What the compensation structure is during the ramp, since a treatment-based or commission-heavy structure pays very little while a book is empty, and that is precisely when a new provider needs a floor under her income. And what the supervision arrangement is, in writing, along with confirmation that the practice itself is clear on what she is permitted to do — a new provider who discovers a scope or supervision problem after starting is the one holding the risk.
One more item belongs on the list specifically because the practice is new: how the practice plans to fill her book. In a newer med spa, a provider's income depends on the practice's marketing and lead flow, not only on her own skill. Asking how new clients are allocated and what the practice is doing to generate them is not presumptuous; it is the question that determines whether the role pays what was implied in the interview.
Reading the whole situation instead of one sentence
The candidate in the post is weighing one ambiguous sentence against an otherwise strong interview, and the sentence is the weakest part of the evidence she has. A practice with a new location, a training commitment and an interest in her background is describing a business in the middle of getting organised, which is exactly the environment where a well-chosen first med spa role can be most valuable — because the person who joins early and works well usually ends up with responsibilities no established practice would hand over.
The two-week wait is a question about their scheduling. Whether she gets the job is a question about fit. Treating the first as if it answered the second is the only way to lose something that has not happened yet.