There are thousands of possible reasons and many of them won't have anything to do with you. There are fake job postings. There are many jobs where the hiring manager already has someone in mind for the job (but they have to check the required boxes and pretend to open the position to any candidate). Another candidate may have gone to the same school or been in a frat with the hiring manager. The list goes on and on.
this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2024
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This is a good list. Another, often overlooked is:
Sometimes we just get incredibly unlucky and interview at the same time as someone wildly unusually more qualified.
someone wildly unusually more qualified.
Or at least someone who lied big enough on their resume to pretend that they're wildly more qualified.
In my experience the people who do the hiring can't fucking tell the difference.
I really hate the whole "you need to inflate what you did on your resume" because it's just fucking lying.
You know what's a fucking really valuable thing in this world that gets shit on: Having a fucking sense of humility and of a keen knowledge of your own limitations. Having that being viewed as a negative is fuck stupid and how we get fuck stupid people running the show.
EDIT: I accidentally the whole word
I could list 'works with wildly dangerous substances in a public environment' or 'drug dealer' and both are technically accurate.
I work at a petrol station and between caffeinated drinks, the medical aisle and cigarettes, I sell a lot of drugs. Dangerous substances being the 100,000 litres of aggressively flammable fluid we stand on all day.
I've been on both sides of this and when you've spent the whole day talking to a dozen people who all seem competent enough to do the job, you go with the person that either has a little more (or more relevant) experience, or whoever you enjoyed talking to the most.
I'm a huge dork, so if you happened to mention something like D&D or Fallout during the interview, you're probably going to get it. (Assuming everyone is equally qualified.)
But at the same time, I'd never mention anything like that at an interview, because I wouldn't expect the interviewer to appreciate it.
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There are fake job postings.
IIRC, there was one very recent (mid-2024) study of job ads that strongly suggested that 60-75% of them were never meant to be filled. As in, the company posted them for entirely unrelated reasons.
It’s why these are called “ghost jobs”: they don’t exist.
I haven't seen the numbers. I have read that they do this for a few evil reasons.
- It makes their business look like it's thriving.
- They can gather intel on who's job hunting.
- They can use job application tasks to get free work out of candidates.
Great summary.
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There are many jobs where the hiring manager already has someone in mind for the job (but they have to check the required boxes and pretend to open the position to any candidate).
I had a manager who offered a promotion to our department and went through the whole process of interviewing and whatnot before giving it to someone outside of the department who had no idea what he was doing and had to be trained by us on how to be a manager. It was really cool to find out after I bailed that he had the job before we even knew about the possible promotion. Glad I bailed on that asshole, that was the same manager who was buddy buddy with the office diddler and tried to run interference for him around the office when he got a new set of bracelets.
There are a few benign-ish ways this happens, based on my experience from working on "the other side". They reflect shittily on the hiring manager, but not on you:
You got no immediate rejection because they did consider you valid for the position, just not first place. Then they got a match on the first place and stopped giving a shit about the applicant backlog.
They got too many applicants and threw half in the garbage.
Upper management put a freeze, or reduction, on hiring right as they put an ad out.
They have a person already picked for the position, but they will get in legal or corporate or PR trouble if they don't pretend to do a proper hiring process.
Their application process, human or computer, lost your CV.
I have never once been told I wasn't hired, let alone told why.
I've been to probably a thousand interviews.
No one has time for that.
Imagine as a manager, you interview 100 people. Now you expect them to write a rejection letter, pass it through HR and the lawyers, for 99 people?
Imagine the time that would take, and what does the company get for that time? Nothing but risk.
As a hiring manager for nearly 4 years straight, dealing with way way more than 100 applicants for some positions, I know it takes minutes at most.
All hiring systems have ways to send batch emails to rejected candidates.
If you don't have a hiring system for some reason, it's still just hitting reply/ctrl-v/send to each applicant you move out of the "possible candidate" inbox.
Giving a reason "why" tends to hit people badly if they didn't specifically ask, so a stock response is not only easy to give, but the best response. Whether and how to respond in more detail to people asking for "why", is a less easy decision but good if you are able to.
Not OP, but just a boiler plate response would be fine for me. "Sorry [insert name here]. You are no longer being considered for this position. (Optional) Good luck on other applications". Could even have it set up to sends those out automatically.
Giving you feedback opens them up to liability if you sue.
Not being dickheads when hiring people makes suing unnecessary
You’re assuming no candidates are dickheads.
Company has to watch out for
- maybe a candidate was a dickhead
- maybe one of the interviewers was a dickhead
- maybe something changed so it looks misrepresented
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You don’t get “rejected”, they just hire someone who isn’t you.
New stratagy.......apply to the same company 400 times. With 400 different aliases. With 400 different disguises.
Exaust them with competition all looking for the same job. Which drowns out the 20 or so candidates. And then you just need to start a new life under your new name. Easy peasy.
Except not easy at all. It's actually incredibly complicated keeping each character seperate, and remembering which accients to use, and then commiting to the bit for the next 60 years.
It really doesn't hurt to keep asking. Nobody that matters is going to be offended by it. Eventually someone will tell you, but just be aware that different people may have different reasons so don't assume feedback from one employer applies to all employers.
At the end of my interviews, before saying bye,I ask what I could have done better. Almost always received constructive criticism. I highly recommend it.
This is a seriously good idea! Employers want employees that are looking to improve themselves.
Either you fucked up and they'll tell you so you can improve next time, or they'll just be impressed at your desire to grow.
Whenever I've been on the hiring side of an interview, the people seated in the interview aren't given any special "Keep the company safe" training, but the HR person coordinating always have been. I suspect that's why it works much better to ask in the interview than after it.
I’d like to know how close I was and in what ways I can become a more interesting candidate, but nobody is going to give me a realistic answer.
I can tell you from the employer side there is nothing to gain by answering this question asked by a candidate, and everything to lose which is why you the candidate almost never hear a response.
There are some legally protected reasons you cannot be turned down for a job. Its all the stuff you'd think of: race, religion, marital status, sex, age, etc. The likelihood you were turned down because of one of these illegal reasons is usually very low in the USA. I'm proud to say for the hiring efforts I've been a part of, these have never been considered criteria for disqualifying a candidate. Its always been for things like lack of knowledge/education, criminal history (example multi-DUI for a job that requires driving or conviction of embezzling when put in charge of company finances ), etc.
However, any documented reason a prospective employer gives back to a candidate becomes a liability. Will that candidate sue the company claiming that they weren't hired because they think the position required some not married, which would be a crime of the employer?
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I make sure to always assume it was nepotism and my confidence remains sky high no matter how long I stay unemployed. It just works.
sometimes even if you had the best application in the world you’d get ignored. Lets say HR has limited resources, X work hours to find a suitable candidate. They post an add and get 400 replies. After reading 100 of those, they are running out of work hours, and have already shortlisted a bunch of good candidates. So they toss the 300 others in the bin.
This happens all the time sadly.
I used to work in sales and I did a lot of cold calls. The world-weary senior sales guy would always just shake his head at me when I got frustrated. "It's a numbers game," he would say. "It's just a numbers game." In the beginning I would waste a lot of time researching each individual call, but that didn't help me make sales. The truth was a certain percentage of people that I could call would have a need for the product I was offering. Of those people who had a need, a certain percentage would choose us over a competitor, because we were the best fit.
Looking for a job is the same as sales. Your product is your labor. It can feel personal, as though the product is you, yourself. But you're not selling yourself, you're selling your work product. A certain percentage of buyers (employers) will need the labor that you can provide. A certain percentage of those will choose you over a competitor because you are the best fit. It's a numbers game. It's not personal, it's just a numbers game.
Answering you is a liability to them. They have no incentive to do so and legal liability if they do.
Since the answer is unknowable, you might as well assume the best for yourself. Imagine that the job would have sucked anyway.
For example, I once interviewed for a job, was accepted, then showed up on my first day only to find out that the position had been given to someone else. Was I angry and disappointed? Of course. I made myself feel better by deciding I was better off not working for someone so untrustworthy.
I once interviewed for a job, was accepted, then showed up on my first day only to find out that the position had been given to someone else.
And with written proof of acceptance, any employment lawyer worth their degree could have gotten you a healthy amount of compensation even after their cut. Behaviour like this by any company is illegal in almost all jurisdictions, and should never be tolerated.
I didn’t have anything in writing. That’s what stopped me from taking it further. You’re completely right, though.
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Because employers are opaque and their evaluation of you isn't something that should be important to you. They're not giving you a clear response oftentimes because they want to avoid legal issues.
I straight up ask any job I apply and interview with why they didn't proceed. One time they were actually taken back and ended up hiring me (after some convo).
If a company cannot communicate to you why you didn't make the cut, they're a shitty company and not worth working for. I realize that's easier said than done to swallow, but it's true.
Some people fell better when they find fault in others. So blame them for being too stupid to see your worth and be thankful you don’t have to work somewhere with people like that. It’s their loss. You’re waiting a company worthy of your talents finds you.
So blame them for being too stupid to see your worth...You’re waiting a company worthy of your talents finds you.
Careful with this. If you legitimately feel you are entitled to be hired by a specific employer, you are almost certainly less likely to get the job. Nobody wants to deal with entitled people.
Yeah, during the interview, realistically you’re looking to see if it’s a good fit.
But after the fact, feel free to cheer yourself up by blaming their incompetence.
There's a balance though. Not a specific company, but with a company who sees my needs and value, and meets or exceeds that, with appreciation.
All there is to accept is the knowledge that the vast majority of employers, the wealth holding members of society, do not actually care about anyone that won't earn them more money.
And then also that not all, but most of society will also tell you that you must be doing something wrong, it must be your fault.
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I think your expectations are too high. They DO indeed care nothing for you, EVEN if they DO hire you.
You cope with this by understanding that and doing your best to make sure you NEVER need them more than they need you.
This is something that, as long as you ended up getting a job, you should really just not give a fuck about.
They probably had 1 position to fill, but got many times more applications than that, maybe 10, maybe 20, maybe 50, maybe 100. That means that they had to reject 9 or 19 or 49 or 99 people and they have better things to do with their time than to explain this to all these people, however many they may be.
My current company makes the effort to at least tell whether you’re still under consideration but I don’t think they’re allowed by legal to give any details.
At least in the US, it’s fine to not give a reason but if you do give a reason you’re liable for it. What company wants to risk that?
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Employment is like dating, there are frequently things that happen outside of the process that impact the process and there are often reasons to avoid direct rejection even if the reasons are different.
Jobs might be posted and then the position itself is made redundant during the interviews, so they are no longer hiring. Or they liked your interview, but want to offer you something else and have to do the HR circus to make that offer happen and the whole thing falls through. Or during the interviews they decide they want to change the position into something else. Orbthey are incompetent and HR forgot to follow up on the job offer. I have seen all of these happen!
Then there is the all too common scenario of finding out the candidate is a woman or a minority and sone jerk killing the process. Can't admit that so they ghost. They might have a valid reason not to hire, but don't want to be sued for giving a reason. They might also have posted the thing to meet a requirement although they know who they were going to hire from the start. I have seen all of those as well.
Or they don't want to tell a candidate they didn't meet the position for fear of violence. This is likely being over cautious and not specific to the applicant!
Or the applicant reminded an interviewer of someone they don't like.
These often line up with dating because they are all things that have no real specific explanation that can be given as what the csndidate can even do to change. Knowing they are possible won't really impact how the interview/dating should go in the future either, because they are all external to the interview or dating process.
So the best way is to come to terms with the fact that there is likely to be someone who is a better fit, or the position wasn't really stable, or you didn't want to work or date them anyway if they didn't follow up.
Shit man, you forgot someone else was just better suited for the job.
Even though you might be 97% perfect for the job, if they find 98% you’re done and it’s not your fault. Hell you were an excellent candidate for the job and just got unlucky enough to happen to be in the same pool as them.
The final decision on who to hire never comes down to who is the 'most qualified'. There will almost always be multiple people who are qualified and the tiebreaker is interpersonal stuff like a matching sense of humor, attractiveness, and not reminding the interviewer of someone they don't like.
Someone might be told it is based on the most qualified, but working well with others is part of a job and not in the written qualifications. It is also a subjective determination and varies wildly depending on the job and who is interviewing.
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You should send them one of those annoying feedback surveys.
1. On a scale from 1 to 10, how do you rate the overall quality of my application?
2. How well did my qualifications match the requirements for the position?
Very well matched
Somewhat matched
Not well matched
3. On a scale from 1 to 10, how would you rate the clarity of my resume/CV?
4. Was there any specific skill or experience you felt was missing from my application?
Yes (please specify)
No
5. On a scale from 1 to 10, how effectively did my cover letter convey my interest in the position?
6. Were there any areas in which my application could have been improved?
(e.g., resume formatting, better alignment with job requirements, etc.)
7. On a scale from 1 to 10, how well did I communicate my strengths during any interviews or communications?
8. Would you consider my application for future opportunities within your organization?
Yes
Maybe, depending on the role
No
9. On a scale from 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend me to another employer?
Don't take it personally, applying for a job is a game of chance as much as a game of merits. It's simply a numbers game and luck whether your resume even gets looked at in the first place, even if you're résumé how all their keywords. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of other resumes also hit their keywords.
If you're lucky enough to get through the first sifting and get an interview with the hiring person (not an HR screener who doesn't know anything about the job), then you can ask and maybe get a response on how you could have improved. (Don't ask why you weren't hired.)
Send out so many applications and keep busy, so that every response is a surprise. Only after a response can you set a reminder to reach out after a week. After a reminder, send a message and do not set a reminder. Keep applying to other jobs.
I just lose track of jobs I applied to in my head. If they aren't responding, they don't care and neither should you.
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