Why talented people still get declined for jobs.
The number one misunderstanding that I see from candidates is that people are interviewing you to decide if you can or cannot do the job.
Hiring is actually about picking the best puzzle piece fit across a variety of factors. It typically looks like this but usually with more than three people:
Pictured: A radar chart showing three candidate's skills compared to one another.
Which candidate will be selected here isn’t about one being more “talented” than another. It’s about which one will best fit the context of the business and job.
A company struggling without designers or who needs devs to fill that role will probably pick Omar. Another one whose devs are typically customer facing might pick Jane. If the team is likely to scale, that company could select Nadene.
Does that mean any of these three made up people would be unable to do the job or are not good professionals? No!
It means that from the company perspective, they’re going to pick who they think is the best puzzle piece from the slate of candidates.
Here are just a few of the many reasons why very talented people still get declined:
Business planning: what will the company look like in 18 months and does this person’s trajectory fit that?
Example: today the team is 5 people and we anticipate it growing to 30 people and for this role to soon lead both HR and Finance. Do we see enough signals that this person will be able to scale with the team to that point?
Team rounding: what’s missing from the current team that’s less about this job and more about the full team dynamic?
Example: the broader team is all highly tactical. We believe that someone with a high level of strategic vision could be very helpful.
Timing or goal misalignment: their goal is very different than yours.
Example: you want to build out a new product suite and become a Chief Product Officer. They want someone to remove a lot of their existing product suite and refocus on their core business as a long term Product Owner.
The role changed or went away entirely: change is the only constant and that’s never been more true. Frustrating but true.
Example: we wanted a head of sales to take our new product to market but now that we’re into the search, we’ve since heard loud and clear from our customers that this product is not at PMF the way we thought. So, now we don’t need a head of sales, we need to think about shoring up product leadership.
Someone else just crushed it: you were amazing but someone else brought something un-pass-upable (invented word) to this situation.
Example: you’re awesome and we know that. But we have one spot and someone who worked for us for years and we know well wants to come back. We’re going to move on what feels like a sure thing but it’s not that you’re not great.
Example: we’re building a GTM team and someone else has both 10 years of being the buyer then 5 years of incredible momentum in sales in our industry. It’s not about you being bad but that mix is super appealing to us for *this spot*.
They think you will be bored or outraged: they know their environment better than you do.
Example: they think you’re used to solving problems that are 10x more complicated than theirs. They are concerned you’ll take the job and leave in a few months.
Example: everything you’ve described as being unsatisfactory about your current environment or manager is an exact match to their environment or manager.
But why don’t more employers “give people a chance?”.
In this do more with less market, the hiring teams are also short staffed and burned out. They don’t see waiting for someone to get up to speed and/or the very real cost of training someone to be viable. They are nervous. And thus they don’t usually want to take risks.
They believe there are people available or recruitable who can have been there/done that. So, in comparison that just makes more sense to them.
They’ve been burned by this in the past. When people get a chance and fail, 99% of the time in my experience they hate you and hate the company and make that very clear. Sometimes that’s very valid frustration and sometimes it’s just misplaced grief about the whole situation.
It’s very easy (especially for teams with less hiring experience) to hire the best candidate over the best prospective employee. Is that ideal? No. And not for them either! But it does happen.
The reality of the situation is not “can someone learn this?” and employers are saying no. The truth is “As a company, we need a business problem solved. What’s our best solution to do that?”
Does that mean employers don’t think about potential?
Of course not!
Ways to showcase your potential in an interview process include:
Sharing an example of a time you solved a problem that no one was asking you to. It’s even better if you had to learn a new skill to do that. Example: I noticed we were spending a lot of time Y for reporting so I learned SQL and was able to build reports that showed Z and saved A.
Coming in excessively prepared for your interview. Do not ask any questions that can be easily answered by a company’s website. Reference recent news and your interviewers background (LinkedIn background, not credit score or home address level creeping).
When you don’t know the right answer to a technical question, lay out exactly how you would quickly find the answer if you were working on that problem in real life.
Yeah but… rejection is still awful.
I’m not here to say rejection isn’t terrible. It is. And this market is an especially hard one for professional/corporate type roles. Job seekers are very tired.
Am sharing this context in the hopes that with more context, more job seekers can see the decline as a redirection and not a personal indictment of their skills.
Talented people get rejected in every search. And then they find their way to the next adventure.
If you’re struggling with your job search journey, Newance can help:
