Absolutely! You've got my sympathy here. Failing an interview can be a massive kick in the egoand self-esteem. Though, I don't know about the muscle pains, and

Absolutely! You've got my sympathy here. Failing an interview can be a massive kick in the egoand self-esteem. Though, I don't know about the muscle pains, and personally, my frustration is more with the hiring process that is so wildly biased towards false negatives. I'm fortunate that I'm not looking at the moment, but the interviews I have gone on in the last couple years have been draining and sometimes result in baffling feedback, or none at all. I feel like interviews have a bias towards people who have practice doing interviews. The section of the process where they say "code this now" is unnatural and you've got to be practiced at it. Consider that you'll have to do 5 of those onsites before you get the swing of things (and start getting offers). Don't feel bad, you're not wasting their time you're both trying to make a connection and the tools we have for making that connection are "blunt instruments "