I went through all five stages of grief in one conversation: Anger, Denial, Bargaining, Depression, and finally, Acceptance. I blew it. Okay, I had lost this ch

I went through all five stages of grief in one conversation: Anger, Denial, Bargaining, Depression, and finally, Acceptance. I blew it. Okay, I had lost this chance. But what could I learn for the next time? Why have we (as candidates) allowed ourself to become so brow-beaten over the years as to nearly always conclude that if an employer fails to read us, that it's automatically because of something we did to "blow it"? That we're the ones who need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves of, and wallow through a necessary period of mourning and self-reflection before promising ourselves to do better next time? Long, painful lesson learned: it's a two-way street. The interviewers', and the company's overall performance in the process is just as much open to evaluation -- and question -- as that of the candidate. And guess what -- they're just as likely to make mistakes as the candidate; perhaps even more so -- because they've internalized the idea that as the one on the hiring side, they're the ones with X-ray vision to what determines a "perfect fit"; so that if turns out the candidate doesn't hit all the markers they're looking for, then by definition, it's because something the candidate did to screw everything up. In this case, it looks like it may have been the company which "blew it" in passing on this guy. Or maybe not -- we have no way of telling from this distance, and it would be moot to speculate. But I would like to hope that we can get past this tendency to automatically beat ourselves As an aside -- aren't logic problems "over" now, for any but junior positions? Even for senior developers I'd consider them something of a red flag -- a sign that the company doesn't really know why it's doing what it's doing in the hiring process, and is cut-and-pasting from what it thinks other companies are doing. And at the VP level? Reason enough to look the interviewer in the eye, explain (nicely) that you don't think these questions are a good use of their time or yours -- then to thank them for the opportunity, and walk out the door.