6 Reasons You Didn’t Get the Job

So you got the call for the interview. Great! So you’re well on your way back to being gainfully employed. Right. Right?

Not so fast there, partner. Hate to pour cold water on your hopes, but simply getting an interview is no guarantee the job is yours. Thinking you have the job after an interview is like believing you won the lottery because you bought a ticket. Then you get the rejection email (or nothing at all), and you are crushed with disappointment. I'm always amused when asked on my weekly unemployment claim if I refused any work. More likely the reverse is true: companies refused to hire me.

Culled from my long and extensive history of job hunting (voluntary and involuntary), here are six reasons you probably didn’t get the job.

You sucked in the interview. You researched the company. You have your job history spiel down pat. You arrive five minutes early. Then, the interview starts and…you crumble in an uncontrollable torrent of nerves. Words tumble out of your mouth in an incoherent babble. Needless to say, it did not go well.

I don’t know of any job hunter who hasn’t endured the dreaded “job interview from hell.” The only thing you can take from such an unfortunate incident is to use it as a learning experience. Was there a question in particular that you stumbled with? Next time, have a better answer ready and waiting. Do better research, and try to stay calm. The more interviews you go on, the better you will be the next time. At the very least, you are gaining valuable rehearsals.

You weren’t a good fit for the job. No matter how much we try to match our skills to the skills outlined in the job ad, sometimes we are not exactly what the employer is looking for, for whatever reason.

Sometimes, the ad is deceptive. A recent example is a job I applied for a month ago. The ad clearly stated “editorial,” but when I went for the interview, it was obvious what they were looking for was an administrative assistant with some digital skills. I didn’t get the job, but the practice is always helpful.

You weren’t the lowest bidder. Yes, you read that correctly. I sometimes think employers are not looking for the best employee for a job, but simply the person they can pay the lowest salary. Why else would companies specify they’d only consider applicants that state their salary requirements?

There are other ways companies leak out their cheapness. Through the wonder that is Google, you can sometimes find out who the company hired instead of you. If they hired someone right out of college whose only experience is an internship or writing album reviews for alternative weeklies, it’s pretty obvious the company wants to pay the bare minimum in salaries.

To an experienced job seeker, I would advise not inflating your wage demands to such a degree that you price yourself out of the marketplace. Yet you are bringing a great deal of skills and experience to the job and should be paid for that. So pick a salary range that is fair and reasonable, but also an amount you can live on. And be real: After I was unemployed for 16 months, I took a job that paid me $17,000 a year less than what I was making before. In this job market, it’s probably unrealistic to expect you’ll net a major raise from your previous job, especially if you were laid off and have been unemployed for a lengthy period.

To employers, I would say this: You get what you pay for.

You weren’t the best candidate. Ouch! That hurt!

In our narcissistic society, nobody wants to hear or believe they are not the greatest thing since sliced bread or dark chocolate salted caramels. But the fact is, sometimes you are nudged out by the better person. Like in sports, sometimes the better team wins.

How do I know this? Again, through the wonder that is Google, I discovered who was hired instead of wonderful me. In some instances, I had to objectively say the person hired had the better skill sets, education and experience for the job than I did.

That doesn’t make you a bad person; it just means you weren’t the right person for that one particular job. There will be others. Also, think about the times you were hired when there were probably scores of other qualified candidates. It all evens out in the end.

You don’t walk on water. Have you read some of the job requirements for certain positions? They want someone with a law or “advanced” degree, a speaker of three languages, a technical wizard and, oh, yeah, about a decade of experience in the same type of job and within the same industry. Not even our Lord could pass muster with these elitist gatekeepers. (Dear Jesus, though your résumé was impressive, we have decided to go with another candidate.)

Frankly, it’s gotten to the point where I don’t even apply for jobs with such ridiculous requirements. I know some career coaches will tell you those requirements are more aspirational and to apply anyway, but I think companies are setting the standards so high so to as weed out mere worker serfs like the rest of. They only want the best of the best, and that typically means at the very minimum, an Ivy League college graduate. Companies are very picky nowadays.

I don’t have a degree from some fancy-schmancy college. I went to a community college for my first two years (a fact I was told by a colleague long ago to leave off on my résumé). I’m just someone who has two decades of hard-fought experience and can do the job without any ego or sense of entitlement. If that isn’t good enough for any employer, well, as my late Italian-American mother would say, They can go scratch.

You came thisclose. There are myriad reasons why you weren’t picked for the job that had nothing to do with your interview performance, experience, educational background or skills. Most of time, you’ll never know those reasons.

Perhaps the company decided to go with an in-house candidate, which makes sense since companies prefer to hire from within. Or the company reviewed staffing needs and for budgetary reasons decided not to fill that job. (Sound familiar?)

Sometimes, I know I’ve come thisclose to getting the job. I remember a rather nice (but ultimately deflating) rejection letter I once received. It was obviously not a standard form rejection missive, but one the lady took the time to personally write.

In it, she explained that I was an attractive candidate, but that they had opted to go with a former colleague. At the time, I remember being miffed. If they were going to hire a former co-worker all along, why string me along for two interviews and a test?

But looking back, I can take heart in knowing that I was qualified for the job, that I did well in the interviews and on the test. Sometimes, that’s the only positive you can take from a lost job interview (rather than thinking you're an unemployable loser). Almost doesn’t cut it when you are looking for a job, but at least it’s better than not even getting the call for an interview.

No one knows better than me how grueling, frustrating and sometimes degrading a job hunt can be. (There is a reason HR people are reviled.) Every time you go on an interview, you are not only putting your career and financial stability on the line, but your entire sense of self-worth. Add to that the anxiety of looking for a job after a devastating layoff and the situation is compounded tenfold.

But giving up is not an option. If you don’t try, you will never work again. And don’t let your ego lead. Don’t think, as some friends of mine have expressed, that you are too good for any job. With that attitude, you will surely never work again. You want a paycheck, right?

Keep trying. Every time you get that rejection email, think to yourself, “Well, that only means there’s a better job out there for me.”

I mean, I hope there is.