6 ms·

One great piece of advice an informal mentor gave me long ago is that there is no information in a rejection. That is to say that you cannot draw any conclusio

by jp57 1y ago

One great piece of advice an informal mentor gave me long ago is that there is no information in a rejection. That is to say that you cannot draw any conclusions about yourself or your interviewing technique or your skills or anything from the single accept==0 bit that you typically get back. There are so many reasons that a candidate might get rejected that have nothing to do with one's individual performance in the interview or application process. Having been on the hiring side of the interview table now many more times than on the seeking side, I can say that this is totally true. One of the biggest misconceptions I see from job seekers, especially younger ones, is to equate a job interview to a test at school, assuming that there is some objective bar and if you pass it then you must be hired. It's simply not true. Frequently more than one good applicant applies for a single open role, and the hiring team has to choose among them. In that case, you could "pass" and still not get the job and the only reason is that the hiring team liked someone else better. I can only think of one instance where we had two great candidates for one role and management found a way to open another role so we could hire both. In a few other cases, we had people whom we liked but didn't choose and we forwarded their resumes to other teams who had open roles we thought would fit, but most of the time it's just, "sorry."

xenotux 1y ago
> One great piece of advice and informal mentor gave me long ago is that there is no information in a rejection. I mean, there might be, in two ways. Sometimes, you just mess up in some obvious way and can learn from that. But you also get a glimpse of the corporate culture. Maybe not for FAANG and the likes - the processes are homogenized and reviewed by a risk-averse employment lawyer - but for smaller organizations, it's fair game. But as with layoffs, there's nothing you can win by begging, groveling, or asking for a second chance. The decision has been made, these decisions are always stochastic and unfair on some level, but you move on. You'll be fine.
- jp57 1y ago
  I think the point, which I agree with, was that in the typical case of a stock rejection, you don't know if the errors you think you made had any bearing on the decision. Information you get from the process you would have gotten whether or not you got accepted, so it's not from the rejection. There are cases where the company gives you some indication of why they rejected you but they are rare in my experience (in the USA, mostly for legal reasons, IDK about other countries). Or they give you information in some other way. Some companies will stop and send you home part way through if it's not going well. That also gives more information.
almostgotcaught 1y ago
[flagged]
- dheera 1y ago
  It has none of the actionable information that people want in a good feedback message: - What did I do wrong during the interviews - What did I do that you weren't happy with - Why was I not liked enough to be accept==1 If there is even a bit of information on these things, there are actionable things that can be done for the next interview (with any company).
- Bootvis 1y ago
  The point is that bit of information doesn’t tell you anything about yourself and your own skills and intrinsic value. You could be there best hire to date but someone even better than you shows up, or the bosses nephew or funding went away, etc. All events outside of your control.
- kelnos 1y ago
  I don't love the boring, uselessly pedantic takes some people have on what is otherwise truly good advice. Give it a rest, please.
  - westmeal 1y ago
    Where do you think you are? 90% of the posts are exactly that.
- jp57 1y ago
  LOL. People who think "try-hard" is bad need not apply. Nobody owes you anything, least of all a job, man.
spectraldrift 1y ago
This is such an insightful take. As someone who has interviewed many candidates, I wholeheartedly agree. While it's important to reflect on how you can improve, it's also critical to maintain morale and become comfortable with rejection during the job hunt. One of the biggest obstacles I've seen; whether with friends, family, or candidates; is the tendency to internalize rejection as a sense of being inherently 'bad.' Of course, once you internalize this belief, any motivation to study is gone. It can be challenging to help people see that this negative self-talk has become the primary barrier to their success.
- Loughla 1y ago
  My recommendation to people is to apply for jobs you know you won't get while also applying for jobs you want. Exposure to rejection really does help take the sting out of the process.
- paulcole 1y ago
  > Of course, once you internalize this belief, any motivation to study is gone This is definitely not a universal truth. I know that if I had done better in every interview then I would’ve moved ahead and gotten the job. I guess that’s a different way of saying I was “bad” (not good enough). And it doesn’t affect my motivation in a negative way. I find that it actually helps me want to improve more.
  - spectraldrift 1y ago
    I agree with your sentiment, but what you're referring to is "I'm not good at this task yet" which is different from "I am inherently incapable/inferior". The first can motivate, the second does not- this is supported by a large body of pedagogical research. https://opentext.wsu.edu/theoreticalmodelsforteachingandresearch/chapter/mindset-theory/ https://opentext.wsu.edu/theoreticalmodelsforteachingandrese...
    - paulcole 1y ago
      > the tendency to internalize rejection as a sense of being inherently 'bad.‘ OK so just avoid this tendency.
qudat 1y ago
Agreed. I've been rejected from roles I've been genuinely excited about and felt totally defeated. This last application run I made a concerted effort to protect myself from feeling bad and it definitely helped. Some people can be excellent candidates but ultimately the wrong fit for the role or an equally better or exceptional candidate is also in the pipeline.
jimmar 1y ago
> there is no information in a rejection. The most helpful job interview I had was when the interviewer broke script and just leveled with me about how I wasn't presenting myself well. There was a shared connection (our alma mater) that must have convinced him to be straight with me instead of hiding how poorly I was doing behind a mask. The HR handbooks say that you should never let a candidate know why they were not selected, but that information can be extremely helpful. If you're not getting offers, I strongly recommend that you find somebody you trust to do a mock interview. Let them critique your resume, cover letter, posture, awkwardness, lame handshake, etc.
- WalterBright 1y ago
  The HR handbooks say that for good reason. Telling a candidate why they were rejected means they'll argue with you, or worse, file a lawsuit.
  - xattt 1y ago
    Yeah… the common connection thing is what’s at play here. This is why high-stakes introductions are done through people you know, to show that you can be trusted lest you be a social outcast.
  - mordechai9000 1y ago
    A couple years ago I was turned down for a position after an initial screening interview because they said my writing sample didn't meet certain criteria. I felt it arguably did, but I just said "thank you for your time and consideration", and moved on. I was just glad to get a clear "no" at an early stage. They've probably revised their policy by now, I suspect, but I appreciated that they made the effort.
    - WalterBright 1y ago
      Their policy will last until they're sued. All it takes is one to ruin it for everybody.
  - DangitBobby 1y ago
Bukhmanizer 1y ago
I would also guess that in at least >50% of cases your application is never given a fair shot for random reasons. I remember when a company that I was working at was doing intern interviews, they would almost always run out of time to do interviews (this was back when interviews were in person), so they would pick 2-3 schools that they had time to get to (proximity * prestige was the factor there) and everyone else got a blanket rejection. Maybe it’s because my school wasn't on that list, but I remember feeling like if I got rejected like that I would very much feel like I wasn’t good enough. But it was essentially random.
matusp 1y ago
Especially true in today's hiring environment. They probably have hundreds of qualified people lined up for that position. One company recently reached out to me asking me to submit a CV, considering me a good fit for their position. In the end, they rejected me, but they mentioned that they got 1400 applications. If you don't have a personal connection to get you in, it's basically a lottery.
- huhkerrf 1y ago
  Even sometimes if you do have a personal connection. I've had twice now where I've had a warm intro to the hiring manager, jobs where I had done the kind of work before, and the hiring manager didn't even reply to my emails. Won't lie, both of those hurt, but I also reasoned it that if that's who I would have been working for, I wouldn't have enjoyed the work anyway.
gwbas1c 1y ago
> there is no information in a rejection Building on that: There's a few reasons why a company won't explain why they reject a candidate. One of the reasons is that they don't want candidates to "game" the system, because it makes it hard to screen for the people they want to hire. Another reason is that often rejections are highly subjective, and telling a candidate that "we didn't hire you because of X" could be highly insulting. Finally, quite often candidates are rejected because the people hiring ultimately are looking for people they will get along with. It doesn't matter how smart someone is, if something about the working relationship causes friction, the team dynamic can quickly devolve. (And to be quite frank, in these situations the candidate will probably have a better job working elsewhere.) These kinds of rejections are highly subjective, so no one really wants to give a candidate feedback.
- constantly 1y ago
  I used to provide feedback but often got candidates who were argumentative about it rather that accepting that the decision was final. This turned me off on the whole concept.
  - 6LLvveMx2koXfwn 1y ago
    but confirmed why you rejected the candidate - which is sort of a win
- commandersaki 1y ago
  Another reason is that often rejections are highly subjective, and telling a candidate that "we didn't hire you because of X" could be highly insulting. If they've written down notes or a stance/defence in a talent management system, all they need to do is regurgitate that in my opinion. I wrote about it upthread but having done a data request under my country's privacy act, I was able to get a raw dump of all the data (PII redacted). Recommend that as best course of action if they're unwilling to provide feedback.
- Bjartr 1y ago
  These are all likely enough to contribute, but there's one big one. If you don't say anything at all, the applicant has nothing to go on for a lawsuit against you. If you say anything, and the applicant is a malicious litigant, you just became a potential paycheck via settlement. If you're hiring a dozen people a year, you can probably ignore this. If you're hiring hundreds or thousands, and thus many times that number of applicants, you're going to step on that landmine eventually. Better then to have a company-wide policy "no feedback ever"
eszed 1y ago
This. I've hired in a number of roles, in several industries, and what they've all had in common is that rejection is never personal. My first career was in theatre, which a) is (or at least was, back in the day?) much more competitive than tech - par was one callback (ie, second screening) per 100 auditions, and one casting per 10 callbacks; and b) is genuinely, deeply vulnerable - you have to bring your whole self into your work, in a way that you don't in any other field. It's still never personal, and actors who don't develop thick skins wash out quickly. I once auditioned three rounds for Romeo, at a company I really liked, and thought I'd killed it. I didn't get the role, and was pretty bummed (particularly since - actors are nothing but petty - I didn't much like the performance by the guy who did). Six months later the casting director button-holed me after seeing another show I was in, and told me I'd been their first choice, and he was sorry they'd not been able to cast me. The trouble was, he said, their only good choice for Juliette was at least a foot shorter than I am, and there was no way that wouldn't have looked awkward. It's never personal. Furthermore, that "failed" audition directly led to two later jobs, and I think indirectly to a third. Having a good interview, even in a situation where you don't achieve the immediate goal, can only be good for you - both by developing your own skills, and for creating a reputation for competence within your industry.
- wjrb 1y ago
  Hey, my first "career" was also in theater! Strong agreement. I can confirm for other readers that the day I realized this --- "Oh, rejection means nothing!" --- was a weird day. It takes a weight off. And it is true across every other field. There are way more factors external to the "you" of the decision, and they're given more weight than the "you" of the decision. This is one of those cases where you only need to experience the "other side of the table" once for it to click. Companies that are more humane in their hiring practices (even just actually send a rejection email vs. ghosting) deserve a bit of credit, because caring for the applicant is not a KPI.
  - eszed 1y ago
    Hey! Good to meet a fellow artist. I made it to 40 before I sold out. You? One thing outsiders don't understand is that, for actors, auditioning IS the job. Getting cast, and working on a show, is a joy (some more than others, of course!), but the rest of your life is nothing, nothing but looking for work. The were two things that made that "it's all cool" shift happen for me. The first is that once I'd been in the industry long enough I could pretty much guarantee that when I went in for an audition I'd see someone I knew, or at least with whom I had an immediate second-degree connection. Auditions stopped being a grind, or mainly about courting rejection - instead, they became an opportunity to hang out with some cool people for a while. I started looking forward to them! The second was realizing that choosing and performing my audition pieces was the only time that I was in complete control. No one was telling me what to do or how to do it: I could make my own choices, and take whatever creative risks I wanted. I think both of those approaches made me a much better auditionee than most. My batting average was a lot higher than most of my peers - even some that I thought were better actors. I don't know how well those insights generalize. I've never (thank god!) had to do leet-code, but I'd hope that (though maybe only in a second screening?) taking a creative approach - if you can talk about it sensibly, and pivot if it doesn't ultimately work - would impress fellow engineers. I strongly believe that adopting a "what can I learn from this experience, and these people?" mindset is a good way to reduce the pressure you'd otherwise put on yourself.
jama211 1y ago
Fantastically well said. I’ve also seen people literally flip a coin when unable to decide between some equally skilled candidates.
dasil003 1y ago
Yeah I think this is a great mental framework. Getting rejected hurts, it's natural to want to find a reason, and with some self-reflection it definitely can help one grow. But you gotta be very careful about over-indexing on any one interview where the reasons for rejection may or may not have anything to do with what you did and said during the interview (let alone your personhood). Frankly, if you want to get better at interviewing, it's better to do more general research on what hiring managers and companies want, and then do more interviews to practice communicating that you have the skills and temperament to deliver value. One specific piece of advice to the OA: this kind of post might feel cathartic, but it doesn't get you closer to your goal. Sure, it will resonate, people will commiserate, and you'll get some dopamine and internet points—but if your goal is to work at a top tier company like Anthropic then such a post can only hurt you. The reality in fast-growing, ambitious companies at the forefront of the AI bubble is that expectations are sky high, and getting things done to attempt to meet those expectations is incredibly difficult for a hundred different reasons. In this type of environment, whatever technical skills you have are not enough. To be successful you need a sustained and resourceful effort to solve whatever problems come your way. One of the most toxic traits is having a victim mentality. Unfortunately it's a common affliction due to the low agency that individuals have in big companies and late stage capitalism in general, but you've got to tamp it down and focus on what you can control (which in practice is often more than you might think). While this post doesn't directly demonstrate a victim mentality, it suggests internalizing the rejection ("My best wasn't good enough. I'm not good enough.") in a way that is adjacent and something that would give me significant pause if I was a hiring manager evaluating for a role in a chaotic company.
- xpe 1y ago
  > While this post doesn't directly demonstrate a victim mentality, it suggests internalizing the rejection ("My best wasn't good enough. I'm not good enough.")... Well said. While it might have only been the recognition of that feeling, I do think it might reflect a deeper internalization. Though I'm no psychologist; I only have an intuitive, common-sense understanding of the concept of "internalization". > ... in a way that is adjacent and something that would give me significant pause if I was a hiring manager evaluating for a role in a chaotic company. Yes, I can see why some people would have this take. But there are other takes, such as "this person cares and feels things deeply, and as long as they process these emotions, they'll probably come back stronger."
kelnos 1y ago
> you cannot draw any conclusions about yourself or your interviewing technique or your skills or anything from the single accept==0 bit And every role usually only gets one person accepted into it, or at most, a small number. Ideally they want the "best" person for the role (where "best" is highly subjective and context-dependent). Say 200 people applied for the role. Are you really going to feel bad about yourself because you weren't the absolute best person out of 200 applicants? Is it going to be a huge blow to your self-esteem that you might have been the 2nd or 3rd best out of that 200? (And that's assuming their interview process is perfect and accurately measures who the "best" person is, which is rarely the case.) Rejections are hard. I get it. I don't enjoy them either. But it's so important not to take them personally.
- forducks 1y ago
  Unsure about the author's financial situation but the calculus tends to change depending on it. I wasn't applying to Anthropic mind you but $50k-80k tech positions with 4 YoE in industry already. I had already burned through nearly all my savings before hitting another interview and rejection (for far less than what I used to make) and then realizing the job search had burnt me out and I was in danger of losing my lease and everything on top of that. I haven't gotten past a phone screen for half a year by now. When America prescribes that you only deserve health insurance and shelter if you have a good enough job, and you're at the end of your rope financially, it is in my experience very difficult not to take things personally. I was actually pretty good at this earlier on, when I still had savings! But contrary to what some people say, it became harder and harder to stay positive as time went on until it became all but impossible. The last straw was when 13/hr jobs started rejecting me for not having "moving things around in a warehouse" experience. I'm now having to work an eye-wateringly menial job with no experience requirement just to make ends meet, and even that still isn't enough for my poverty-level expenses. It's not the prestige of the job that bothers me but the fact that it isn't livable. It does feel sometimes that my life could have diverged significantly if I had just passed that interview all those months ago. So much was riding on that final interview and yet I didn't perform to some arbitrary unknowable standard to deserve a livable salary, and this is the end result of my rejection. I'm hoping that if I get an HVAC certification or something I can just... survive comfortably. I don't think I'd be happy changing careers and I wanted to work in tech until I died or retired, but seems like it's not going to happen at this rate.
rendall 1y ago
> ...the only reason is that the hiring team liked someone else better... Or they liked you just as much as the one they hired, but you lost the coin toss. Or, they hated you because they misunderstood something you said. Or...?
ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
I can say that in some of the rejections that I got, it was quite personal. I was old (55, at the time), and that seemed to actually upset the interviewers. I had all the right buzzwords, but as soon as they saw my grey coiffure, the process started going sideways. Somehow, they seemed to think that a 30-year-old could have 30 years of experience. I was treated pretty shabbily, a couple of times. It was clear that I was considered a waste of time. I only made it to a test a few times. I failed the BTree part of one test (of course), and they didn't seem to like what I returned in a take-home, once. I also once failed a Swift test (I had just started programming in Swift), when I applied for an ObjC job. Otherwise, I did passably (but probably not outstanding) on the tests.
- swat535 1y ago
  I don't know about you but the older I get, the less I take anything in life personal. I've come to realize that there are so many aspects of life that are not under one's control and shaking your fist gravity doesn't accomplish anything; even more so when it comes to business and professional relationships. One of my favorite quotes is from "Deuteronomy 18:13", or as the The Coen Brothers aptly put it: - "Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you"
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
    Not that I’m religious but I looked up that verse and don’t see how the Coen Brothers got that message from it.
    - benregenspan 1y ago
      It's the Coen Brothers quoting rabbinical commentary on the verse, not interpreting the verse themselves.
    - names_are_hard 1y ago
      I looked it up as well, because I had a guess at which famous verse it was but didn't know it by chapter/verse. The context of the verse, based on the surrounding verses, is that "simplicity with the Lord"[0] means accepting that what happens, or what will happen in the future, is from God and there's no need to try to figure out what will be out make sense of the uncertainty of life. I think I can relate that to the GP's quote. [0] translation to English my own, not sure what the language you saw was. Notably, the word used in the original Hebrew[1] can be translated as "simplicity" but also "wholeness" or "completeness". Maybe that works better? Also interestingly, in contemporary Hebrew, it means "naive"... [1] תמים
commandersaki 1y ago
That is to say that you cannot draw any conclusions about yourself or your interviewing technique or your skills or anything from the single accept==0 bit that you typically get back. There are so many reasons that a candidate might get rejected that have nothing to do with one's individual performance in the interview or application process. Best to ask for feedback but of course they won't give it to you. I thought I did really well after 6 interviews with a FAANG company. They let me down by saying that another candidate was preferred. I pressed for feedback a month or so later and was ghosted. So I submitted a privacy request to the privacy and legal team about all and any data pertaining to the hiring process and interview, and was given a massive dump of their talent management system, plaintext notes of the interviews, group chat messages discussing me, etc. It turns out I had a pretty bad read of the situation; there was some things that I had said that were misconstrued, some bad traits that I wasn't aware of, and then the key reason I was rejected (lack of domain exertise and relevant experience). Anyways glad I went down this route, I still need to process the data and translate it to improving myself, but as my buddy GI Joe says, knowing is half the battle.
- somanyphotons 1y ago
  > So I submitted a privacy request to the privacy and legal team about all and any data pertaining to the hiring process and interview I'm rather surprised this worked, is there any reason to not do this for every interview?
  - commandersaki 1y ago
    No, at least the privacy officer I spoke to says it doesn't negative impact how you are considered by the company, and that the requests are handled by the applicable data protection law. I wouldn't do it for a tiny company / startup where such a request can easily be exposed to recruiter and interviewers, but in those cases you're very likely to receive candid feedback by just asking anyway.
- PNewling 1y ago
  Tell me more about this privacy request you submitted. I wasn’t aware this was a thing.
analyte123 1y ago
I once interviewed a very good candidate - good skills, interest in the business, a few years of experience, could definitely do the job I thought I was interviewing him for - only to find out after the fact that we actually only wanted an industry veteran with very specific, particular domain knowledge, and neither the recruiters nor me and my immediate manager had really caught up to that requirement.
tdaltonc 1y ago
Same with fundraising.
stavros 1y ago
Hell, I've interviewed people who were perfect for the job and whom I wanted to hire, only to be told that the financials of the business changed and we can't hire for that position any more. I'd hope HR told the candidate that the position has been retracted, but maybe the HR system just sent an "unfortunately" email, I have no idea.
mgh2 1y ago
Hiring is all subjective (i.e. bs): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41049365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41049365
- xpe 1y ago
  This claim is exaggerated too far in the other direction. I try to spiral in towards the gravity well of truth rather than slingshot out of the solar system.
tayo42 1y ago
> One of the biggest misconceptions I see from job seekers, especially younger ones, is to equate a job interview to a test at school, assuming that there is some objective bar and if you pass it then you must be hired. It's simply not true. Frequently more than one good applicant applies for a single open role, and the hiring team has to choose among them. In that case, you could "pass" and still not get the job and the only reason is that the hiring team liked someone else better. This hasn't been true for the interviews I've given. For technical interviews I was given a question and rubrik of what they should say and a clear guide on how to grade them and give feed back about performance. Unless they did something truly bizarre there wasn't room for being subjective
- xpe 1y ago
  > Unless they did something truly bizarre there wasn't room for being subjective Without having been there, I have a sense of what you mean, but I do want to add: 1. Statistically speaking, there will misinterpretation and even outright errors on the part of interviewers. 2. As feedback gets passed up the chain, most processes I know about are not formulaic. People make judgment calls. They might be more or less consistent w.r.t. following some ideal, sure. A company might pride itself on consistency and that might be good. Another company might pride itself on adaptability -- changing a process to suit the current need, because maybe the old process wasn't that great. 3. There _will_ be differential treatment, as perceived by the interviewer, even if you behave _identically_!. Cultures are different, comfort levels are different, styles are different! Saying the same thing, with the same tone of voice, with the same timing might have different effects on different people.
pmarreck 1y ago
There's information there, though, you're just not privy to it (short of radical candor, which I would prefer), so what you're really saying is that there's no information in a rejection for you.
xpe 1y ago
I did a LOT of road bike racing a while back. Out of a large starting group (often 60+), one person wins.* Being prepared helps -- you want your fitness dialed and your equipment in good shape. But then Shih Tzu happens, even if you have the equanimity of Lao Tzu. If you conserve energy at the right times and expend energy at the right times -- and luck goes your way -- and the right combination of people work collaboratively -- then you might win. Or flat. Or crash. (Or die, but that's pretty rare.) In bike racing, winning feels really good, but I don't think people really do it for the winning, because if you dominate one category, _congratulations!_ now you get to compete against the next level, replete with additional helpings of pain, exertion, and whatever the opposite of mental acuity is. * In contrast to many sports where one of the two participants is guaranteed to win.
mac-mc 1y ago
There isn't, but you can also sometimes deduce things you didn't do as well if they were apparent. Like, if you couldn't answer a bunch of questions or finish the task on time, and all the other interviews were good, there is a good chance it was that thing, and you should brush up on it. Sometimes interviews are designed to be a hard grind that everyone fails and it's based on 'did you fail the least', but those are rare and once you've done a bunch of interviews, you can tell the difference. If your half way through a process, recruiters are often ok to tell you what you didn't do as well on and offer that as feedback and tips. At the end they tend to be quiet so you can't figure out the final reason for a rejection unless you somehow have a friend on the inside that can find out informally for you. If your lucky to get a rejection call, you can even get vague hints as to why it wasn't a go from the recruiter if you have the social skills and the right recruiter. I often play guessing games based on my deductions. But these are more obvious parts.
JamesCKane 1y ago
[flagged]
kristopolous 1y ago
I Always give reasons, to them, at the time, if I know them. There's a real reason. Maybe my perception is bad, maybe they misspoke, maybe they can explain something... I don't want to be a fool and let a his candidate go. I'm really picky but I'm also extremely forgiving and believe in improving the person and making it a beneficial experience regardless of the outcome. Other people don't do this because I dunno, my pet theory is most people forget to be adults
corimaith 1y ago
But you know, this kind of information burden is one of the factors radicalizing the youth right now. These people don't just dissappear into a void if they are unwilling to accept that, they're organizing and being drawn to more radical movements to crush you. So is this way of dealing with workers here really that sustainable?
- jp57 1y ago
  I wasn't advocating for any particular system, just stating the way things are, now, on the ground. That said, I have my doubts about the true extent of the radicalization of "the youth", at least in the USA, given that the DSA/Mamdani voter base is squarely bougie upper middle class college grads freaked out that elite overproduction has killed their job prospects. Whatever radical things they may do, the result won't be to create more jobs for college grads.
  - corimaith 1y ago
    >Whatever radical things they may do, the result won't be to create more jobs for college grads. They probably won't. But whatever damage is caused likely won't be good for us all anyways. Not everyone is going to have the luxury of being detached from crisis once radicals make sure they feel it too.
devoutsalsa 1y ago
The opposite can also be true. The worst job I ever had was where I was hired by a company, and placed on the team of, a hiring manager that had recommended I not be hired. He offered me no support at all. They just couldn't find many people willing to work at the company, and I was naive enough to just be excited that someone wanted me. I left after about 5 months.
InsideOutSanta 1y ago
"to equate a job interview to a test at school, assuming that there is some objective bar and if you pass it then you must be hired" This is excellent advice in general. When you're on Reddit long enough, you'll see posts from men about how they were kind and considerate to a woman, and she still didn't want to date them. But that's not how life works. It's not about putting kindness, skills, effort, and good intentions into the machine and receiving success in return. You should do these things because you want to. For yourself. Not because you will definitely get any reward in return. Aim to excel in a job interview because you are good at what you do. Aim for being kind to others because you're a good person. Aim to learn a new skill because you're curious and love learning. Help a friend because you value your relationships. And be happy because of what you do, because of who you are, because you can be proud of yourself.

by jp57 1y ago

xenotux 1y ago

> One great piece of advice and informal mentor gave me long ago is that there is no information in a rejection. I mean, there might be, in two ways. Sometimes, you just mess up in some obvious way and can learn from that. But you also get a glimpse of the corporate culture. Maybe not for FAANG and the likes - the processes are homogenized and reviewed by a risk-averse employment lawyer - but for smaller organizations, it's fair game. But as with layoffs, there's nothing you can win by begging, groveling, or asking for a second chance. The decision has been made, these decisions are always stochastic and unfair on some level, but you move on. You'll be fine.

jp57 1y ago
I think the point, which I agree with, was that in the typical case of a stock rejection, you don't know if the errors you think you made had any bearing on the decision. Information you get from the process you would have gotten whether or not you got accepted, so it's not from the rejection. There are cases where the company gives you some indication of why they rejected you but they are rare in my experience (in the USA, mostly for legal reasons, IDK about other countries). Or they give you information in some other way. Some companies will stop and send you home part way through if it's not going well. That also gives more information.

almostgotcaught 1y ago

[flagged]

dheera 1y ago
It has none of the actionable information that people want in a good feedback message: - What did I do wrong during the interviews - What did I do that you weren't happy with - Why was I not liked enough to be accept==1 If there is even a bit of information on these things, there are actionable things that can be done for the next interview (with any company).
Bootvis 1y ago
The point is that bit of information doesn’t tell you anything about yourself and your own skills and intrinsic value. You could be there best hire to date but someone even better than you shows up, or the bosses nephew or funding went away, etc. All events outside of your control.
kelnos 1y ago
I don't love the boring, uselessly pedantic takes some people have on what is otherwise truly good advice. Give it a rest, please.
- westmeal 1y ago
  Where do you think you are? 90% of the posts are exactly that.
jp57 1y ago
LOL. People who think "try-hard" is bad need not apply. Nobody owes you anything, least of all a job, man.

spectraldrift 1y ago

This is such an insightful take. As someone who has interviewed many candidates, I wholeheartedly agree. While it's important to reflect on how you can improve, it's also critical to maintain morale and become comfortable with rejection during the job hunt. One of the biggest obstacles I've seen; whether with friends, family, or candidates; is the tendency to internalize rejection as a sense of being inherently 'bad.' Of course, once you internalize this belief, any motivation to study is gone. It can be challenging to help people see that this negative self-talk has become the primary barrier to their success.

Loughla 1y ago
My recommendation to people is to apply for jobs you know you won't get while also applying for jobs you want. Exposure to rejection really does help take the sting out of the process.
paulcole 1y ago
> Of course, once you internalize this belief, any motivation to study is gone This is definitely not a universal truth. I know that if I had done better in every interview then I would’ve moved ahead and gotten the job. I guess that’s a different way of saying I was “bad” (not good enough). And it doesn’t affect my motivation in a negative way. I find that it actually helps me want to improve more.
- spectraldrift 1y ago
  I agree with your sentiment, but what you're referring to is "I'm not good at this task yet" which is different from "I am inherently incapable/inferior". The first can motivate, the second does not- this is supported by a large body of pedagogical research. https://opentext.wsu.edu/theoreticalmodelsforteachingandresearch/chapter/mindset-theory/ https://opentext.wsu.edu/theoreticalmodelsforteachingandrese...
  - paulcole 1y ago
    > the tendency to internalize rejection as a sense of being inherently 'bad.‘ OK so just avoid this tendency.

qudat 1y ago

Agreed. I've been rejected from roles I've been genuinely excited about and felt totally defeated. This last application run I made a concerted effort to protect myself from feeling bad and it definitely helped. Some people can be excellent candidates but ultimately the wrong fit for the role or an equally better or exceptional candidate is also in the pipeline.

jimmar 1y ago

> there is no information in a rejection. The most helpful job interview I had was when the interviewer broke script and just leveled with me about how I wasn't presenting myself well. There was a shared connection (our alma mater) that must have convinced him to be straight with me instead of hiding how poorly I was doing behind a mask. The HR handbooks say that you should never let a candidate know why they were not selected, but that information can be extremely helpful. If you're not getting offers, I strongly recommend that you find somebody you trust to do a mock interview. Let them critique your resume, cover letter, posture, awkwardness, lame handshake, etc.

WalterBright 1y ago
The HR handbooks say that for good reason. Telling a candidate why they were rejected means they'll argue with you, or worse, file a lawsuit.
- xattt 1y ago
  Yeah… the common connection thing is what’s at play here. This is why high-stakes introductions are done through people you know, to show that you can be trusted lest you be a social outcast.
- mordechai9000 1y ago
  A couple years ago I was turned down for a position after an initial screening interview because they said my writing sample didn't meet certain criteria. I felt it arguably did, but I just said "thank you for your time and consideration", and moved on. I was just glad to get a clear "no" at an early stage. They've probably revised their policy by now, I suspect, but I appreciated that they made the effort.
  - WalterBright 1y ago
    Their policy will last until they're sued. All it takes is one to ruin it for everybody.
- DangitBobby 1y ago

Bukhmanizer 1y ago

I would also guess that in at least >50% of cases your application is never given a fair shot for random reasons. I remember when a company that I was working at was doing intern interviews, they would almost always run out of time to do interviews (this was back when interviews were in person), so they would pick 2-3 schools that they had time to get to (proximity * prestige was the factor there) and everyone else got a blanket rejection. Maybe it’s because my school wasn't on that list, but I remember feeling like if I got rejected like that I would very much feel like I wasn’t good enough. But it was essentially random.

matusp 1y ago

Especially true in today's hiring environment. They probably have hundreds of qualified people lined up for that position. One company recently reached out to me asking me to submit a CV, considering me a good fit for their position. In the end, they rejected me, but they mentioned that they got 1400 applications. If you don't have a personal connection to get you in, it's basically a lottery.

huhkerrf 1y ago
Even sometimes if you do have a personal connection. I've had twice now where I've had a warm intro to the hiring manager, jobs where I had done the kind of work before, and the hiring manager didn't even reply to my emails. Won't lie, both of those hurt, but I also reasoned it that if that's who I would have been working for, I wouldn't have enjoyed the work anyway.

gwbas1c 1y ago

> there is no information in a rejection Building on that: There's a few reasons why a company won't explain why they reject a candidate. One of the reasons is that they don't want candidates to "game" the system, because it makes it hard to screen for the people they want to hire. Another reason is that often rejections are highly subjective, and telling a candidate that "we didn't hire you because of X" could be highly insulting. Finally, quite often candidates are rejected because the people hiring ultimately are looking for people they will get along with. It doesn't matter how smart someone is, if something about the working relationship causes friction, the team dynamic can quickly devolve. (And to be quite frank, in these situations the candidate will probably have a better job working elsewhere.) These kinds of rejections are highly subjective, so no one really wants to give a candidate feedback.

constantly 1y ago
I used to provide feedback but often got candidates who were argumentative about it rather that accepting that the decision was final. This turned me off on the whole concept.
- 6LLvveMx2koXfwn 1y ago
  but confirmed why you rejected the candidate - which is sort of a win
commandersaki 1y ago
Another reason is that often rejections are highly subjective, and telling a candidate that "we didn't hire you because of X" could be highly insulting. If they've written down notes or a stance/defence in a talent management system, all they need to do is regurgitate that in my opinion. I wrote about it upthread but having done a data request under my country's privacy act, I was able to get a raw dump of all the data (PII redacted). Recommend that as best course of action if they're unwilling to provide feedback.
Bjartr 1y ago
These are all likely enough to contribute, but there's one big one. If you don't say anything at all, the applicant has nothing to go on for a lawsuit against you. If you say anything, and the applicant is a malicious litigant, you just became a potential paycheck via settlement. If you're hiring a dozen people a year, you can probably ignore this. If you're hiring hundreds or thousands, and thus many times that number of applicants, you're going to step on that landmine eventually. Better then to have a company-wide policy "no feedback ever"

eszed 1y ago

This. I've hired in a number of roles, in several industries, and what they've all had in common is that rejection is never personal. My first career was in theatre, which a) is (or at least was, back in the day?) much more competitive than tech - par was one callback (ie, second screening) per 100 auditions, and one casting per 10 callbacks; and b) is genuinely, deeply vulnerable - you have to bring your whole self into your work, in a way that you don't in any other field. It's still never personal, and actors who don't develop thick skins wash out quickly. I once auditioned three rounds for Romeo, at a company I really liked, and thought I'd killed it. I didn't get the role, and was pretty bummed (particularly since - actors are nothing but petty - I didn't much like the performance by the guy who did). Six months later the casting director button-holed me after seeing another show I was in, and told me I'd been their first choice, and he was sorry they'd not been able to cast me. The trouble was, he said, their only good choice for Juliette was at least a foot shorter than I am, and there was no way that wouldn't have looked awkward. It's never personal. Furthermore, that "failed" audition directly led to two later jobs, and I think indirectly to a third. Having a good interview, even in a situation where you don't achieve the immediate goal, can only be good for you - both by developing your own skills, and for creating a reputation for competence within your industry.

wjrb 1y ago
Hey, my first "career" was also in theater! Strong agreement. I can confirm for other readers that the day I realized this --- "Oh, rejection means nothing!" --- was a weird day. It takes a weight off. And it is true across every other field. There are way more factors external to the "you" of the decision, and they're given more weight than the "you" of the decision. This is one of those cases where you only need to experience the "other side of the table" once for it to click. Companies that are more humane in their hiring practices (even just actually send a rejection email vs. ghosting) deserve a bit of credit, because caring for the applicant is not a KPI.
- eszed 1y ago
  Hey! Good to meet a fellow artist. I made it to 40 before I sold out. You? One thing outsiders don't understand is that, for actors, auditioning IS the job. Getting cast, and working on a show, is a joy (some more than others, of course!), but the rest of your life is nothing, nothing but looking for work. The were two things that made that "it's all cool" shift happen for me. The first is that once I'd been in the industry long enough I could pretty much guarantee that when I went in for an audition I'd see someone I knew, or at least with whom I had an immediate second-degree connection. Auditions stopped being a grind, or mainly about courting rejection - instead, they became an opportunity to hang out with some cool people for a while. I started looking forward to them! The second was realizing that choosing and performing my audition pieces was the only time that I was in complete control. No one was telling me what to do or how to do it: I could make my own choices, and take whatever creative risks I wanted. I think both of those approaches made me a much better auditionee than most. My batting average was a lot higher than most of my peers - even some that I thought were better actors. I don't know how well those insights generalize. I've never (thank god!) had to do leet-code, but I'd hope that (though maybe only in a second screening?) taking a creative approach - if you can talk about it sensibly, and pivot if it doesn't ultimately work - would impress fellow engineers. I strongly believe that adopting a "what can I learn from this experience, and these people?" mindset is a good way to reduce the pressure you'd otherwise put on yourself.

jama211 1y ago

Fantastically well said. I’ve also seen people literally flip a coin when unable to decide between some equally skilled candidates.

dasil003 1y ago

Yeah I think this is a great mental framework. Getting rejected hurts, it's natural to want to find a reason, and with some self-reflection it definitely can help one grow. But you gotta be very careful about over-indexing on any one interview where the reasons for rejection may or may not have anything to do with what you did and said during the interview (let alone your personhood). Frankly, if you want to get better at interviewing, it's better to do more general research on what hiring managers and companies want, and then do more interviews to practice communicating that you have the skills and temperament to deliver value. One specific piece of advice to the OA: this kind of post might feel cathartic, but it doesn't get you closer to your goal. Sure, it will resonate, people will commiserate, and you'll get some dopamine and internet points—but if your goal is to work at a top tier company like Anthropic then such a post can only hurt you. The reality in fast-growing, ambitious companies at the forefront of the AI bubble is that expectations are sky high, and getting things done to attempt to meet those expectations is incredibly difficult for a hundred different reasons. In this type of environment, whatever technical skills you have are not enough. To be successful you need a sustained and resourceful effort to solve whatever problems come your way. One of the most toxic traits is having a victim mentality. Unfortunately it's a common affliction due to the low agency that individuals have in big companies and late stage capitalism in general, but you've got to tamp it down and focus on what you can control (which in practice is often more than you might think). While this post doesn't directly demonstrate a victim mentality, it suggests internalizing the rejection ("My best wasn't good enough. I'm not good enough.") in a way that is adjacent and something that would give me significant pause if I was a hiring manager evaluating for a role in a chaotic company.

xpe 1y ago
> While this post doesn't directly demonstrate a victim mentality, it suggests internalizing the rejection ("My best wasn't good enough. I'm not good enough.")... Well said. While it might have only been the recognition of that feeling, I do think it might reflect a deeper internalization. Though I'm no psychologist; I only have an intuitive, common-sense understanding of the concept of "internalization". > ... in a way that is adjacent and something that would give me significant pause if I was a hiring manager evaluating for a role in a chaotic company. Yes, I can see why some people would have this take. But there are other takes, such as "this person cares and feels things deeply, and as long as they process these emotions, they'll probably come back stronger."

kelnos 1y ago

> you cannot draw any conclusions about yourself or your interviewing technique or your skills or anything from the single accept==0 bit And every role usually only gets one person accepted into it, or at most, a small number. Ideally they want the "best" person for the role (where "best" is highly subjective and context-dependent). Say 200 people applied for the role. Are you really going to feel bad about yourself because you weren't the absolute best person out of 200 applicants? Is it going to be a huge blow to your self-esteem that you might have been the 2nd or 3rd best out of that 200? (And that's assuming their interview process is perfect and accurately measures who the "best" person is, which is rarely the case.) Rejections are hard. I get it. I don't enjoy them either. But it's so important not to take them personally.

forducks 1y ago
Unsure about the author's financial situation but the calculus tends to change depending on it. I wasn't applying to Anthropic mind you but $50k-80k tech positions with 4 YoE in industry already. I had already burned through nearly all my savings before hitting another interview and rejection (for far less than what I used to make) and then realizing the job search had burnt me out and I was in danger of losing my lease and everything on top of that. I haven't gotten past a phone screen for half a year by now. When America prescribes that you only deserve health insurance and shelter if you have a good enough job, and you're at the end of your rope financially, it is in my experience very difficult not to take things personally. I was actually pretty good at this earlier on, when I still had savings! But contrary to what some people say, it became harder and harder to stay positive as time went on until it became all but impossible. The last straw was when 13/hr jobs started rejecting me for not having "moving things around in a warehouse" experience. I'm now having to work an eye-wateringly menial job with no experience requirement just to make ends meet, and even that still isn't enough for my poverty-level expenses. It's not the prestige of the job that bothers me but the fact that it isn't livable. It does feel sometimes that my life could have diverged significantly if I had just passed that interview all those months ago. So much was riding on that final interview and yet I didn't perform to some arbitrary unknowable standard to deserve a livable salary, and this is the end result of my rejection. I'm hoping that if I get an HVAC certification or something I can just... survive comfortably. I don't think I'd be happy changing careers and I wanted to work in tech until I died or retired, but seems like it's not going to happen at this rate.

rendall 1y ago

> ...the only reason is that the hiring team liked someone else better... Or they liked you just as much as the one they hired, but you lost the coin toss. Or, they hated you because they misunderstood something you said. Or...?

ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago

I can say that in some of the rejections that I got, it was quite personal. I was old (55, at the time), and that seemed to actually upset the interviewers. I had all the right buzzwords, but as soon as they saw my grey coiffure, the process started going sideways. Somehow, they seemed to think that a 30-year-old could have 30 years of experience. I was treated pretty shabbily, a couple of times. It was clear that I was considered a waste of time. I only made it to a test a few times. I failed the BTree part of one test (of course), and they didn't seem to like what I returned in a take-home, once. I also once failed a Swift test (I had just started programming in Swift), when I applied for an ObjC job. Otherwise, I did passably (but probably not outstanding) on the tests.

swat535 1y ago
I don't know about you but the older I get, the less I take anything in life personal. I've come to realize that there are so many aspects of life that are not under one's control and shaking your fist gravity doesn't accomplish anything; even more so when it comes to business and professional relationships. One of my favorite quotes is from "Deuteronomy 18:13", or as the The Coen Brothers aptly put it: - "Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you"
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  Not that I’m religious but I looked up that verse and don’t see how the Coen Brothers got that message from it.
  - benregenspan 1y ago
    It's the Coen Brothers quoting rabbinical commentary on the verse, not interpreting the verse themselves.
  - names_are_hard 1y ago
    I looked it up as well, because I had a guess at which famous verse it was but didn't know it by chapter/verse. The context of the verse, based on the surrounding verses, is that "simplicity with the Lord"[0] means accepting that what happens, or what will happen in the future, is from God and there's no need to try to figure out what will be out make sense of the uncertainty of life. I think I can relate that to the GP's quote. [0] translation to English my own, not sure what the language you saw was. Notably, the word used in the original Hebrew[1] can be translated as "simplicity" but also "wholeness" or "completeness". Maybe that works better? Also interestingly, in contemporary Hebrew, it means "naive"... [1] תמים

commandersaki 1y ago

That is to say that you cannot draw any conclusions about yourself or your interviewing technique or your skills or anything from the single accept==0 bit that you typically get back. There are so many reasons that a candidate might get rejected that have nothing to do with one's individual performance in the interview or application process. Best to ask for feedback but of course they won't give it to you. I thought I did really well after 6 interviews with a FAANG company. They let me down by saying that another candidate was preferred. I pressed for feedback a month or so later and was ghosted. So I submitted a privacy request to the privacy and legal team about all and any data pertaining to the hiring process and interview, and was given a massive dump of their talent management system, plaintext notes of the interviews, group chat messages discussing me, etc. It turns out I had a pretty bad read of the situation; there was some things that I had said that were misconstrued, some bad traits that I wasn't aware of, and then the key reason I was rejected (lack of domain exertise and relevant experience). Anyways glad I went down this route, I still need to process the data and translate it to improving myself, but as my buddy GI Joe says, knowing is half the battle.

somanyphotons 1y ago
> So I submitted a privacy request to the privacy and legal team about all and any data pertaining to the hiring process and interview I'm rather surprised this worked, is there any reason to not do this for every interview?
- commandersaki 1y ago
  No, at least the privacy officer I spoke to says it doesn't negative impact how you are considered by the company, and that the requests are handled by the applicable data protection law. I wouldn't do it for a tiny company / startup where such a request can easily be exposed to recruiter and interviewers, but in those cases you're very likely to receive candid feedback by just asking anyway.
PNewling 1y ago
Tell me more about this privacy request you submitted. I wasn’t aware this was a thing.

analyte123 1y ago

I once interviewed a very good candidate - good skills, interest in the business, a few years of experience, could definitely do the job I thought I was interviewing him for - only to find out after the fact that we actually only wanted an industry veteran with very specific, particular domain knowledge, and neither the recruiters nor me and my immediate manager had really caught up to that requirement.

tdaltonc 1y ago

Same with fundraising.

stavros 1y ago

Hell, I've interviewed people who were perfect for the job and whom I wanted to hire, only to be told that the financials of the business changed and we can't hire for that position any more. I'd hope HR told the candidate that the position has been retracted, but maybe the HR system just sent an "unfortunately" email, I have no idea.

mgh2 1y ago

Hiring is all subjective (i.e. bs): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41049365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41049365

xpe 1y ago
This claim is exaggerated too far in the other direction. I try to spiral in towards the gravity well of truth rather than slingshot out of the solar system.

tayo42 1y ago

> One of the biggest misconceptions I see from job seekers, especially younger ones, is to equate a job interview to a test at school, assuming that there is some objective bar and if you pass it then you must be hired. It's simply not true. Frequently more than one good applicant applies for a single open role, and the hiring team has to choose among them. In that case, you could "pass" and still not get the job and the only reason is that the hiring team liked someone else better. This hasn't been true for the interviews I've given. For technical interviews I was given a question and rubrik of what they should say and a clear guide on how to grade them and give feed back about performance. Unless they did something truly bizarre there wasn't room for being subjective

xpe 1y ago
> Unless they did something truly bizarre there wasn't room for being subjective Without having been there, I have a sense of what you mean, but I do want to add: 1. Statistically speaking, there will misinterpretation and even outright errors on the part of interviewers. 2. As feedback gets passed up the chain, most processes I know about are not formulaic. People make judgment calls. They might be more or less consistent w.r.t. following some ideal, sure. A company might pride itself on consistency and that might be good. Another company might pride itself on adaptability -- changing a process to suit the current need, because maybe the old process wasn't that great. 3. There _will_ be differential treatment, as perceived by the interviewer, even if you behave _identically_!. Cultures are different, comfort levels are different, styles are different! Saying the same thing, with the same tone of voice, with the same timing might have different effects on different people.

pmarreck 1y ago

There's information there, though, you're just not privy to it (short of radical candor, which I would prefer), so what you're really saying is that there's no information in a rejection for you.

xpe 1y ago

I did a LOT of road bike racing a while back. Out of a large starting group (often 60+), one person wins.* Being prepared helps -- you want your fitness dialed and your equipment in good shape. But then Shih Tzu happens, even if you have the equanimity of Lao Tzu. If you conserve energy at the right times and expend energy at the right times -- and luck goes your way -- and the right combination of people work collaboratively -- then you might win. Or flat. Or crash. (Or die, but that's pretty rare.) In bike racing, winning feels really good, but I don't think people really do it for the winning, because if you dominate one category, _congratulations!_ now you get to compete against the next level, replete with additional helpings of pain, exertion, and whatever the opposite of mental acuity is. * In contrast to many sports where one of the two participants is guaranteed to win.

mac-mc 1y ago

There isn't, but you can also sometimes deduce things you didn't do as well if they were apparent. Like, if you couldn't answer a bunch of questions or finish the task on time, and all the other interviews were good, there is a good chance it was that thing, and you should brush up on it. Sometimes interviews are designed to be a hard grind that everyone fails and it's based on 'did you fail the least', but those are rare and once you've done a bunch of interviews, you can tell the difference. If your half way through a process, recruiters are often ok to tell you what you didn't do as well on and offer that as feedback and tips. At the end they tend to be quiet so you can't figure out the final reason for a rejection unless you somehow have a friend on the inside that can find out informally for you. If your lucky to get a rejection call, you can even get vague hints as to why it wasn't a go from the recruiter if you have the social skills and the right recruiter. I often play guessing games based on my deductions. But these are more obvious parts.

JamesCKane 1y ago

[flagged]

kristopolous 1y ago

I Always give reasons, to them, at the time, if I know them. There's a real reason. Maybe my perception is bad, maybe they misspoke, maybe they can explain something... I don't want to be a fool and let a his candidate go. I'm really picky but I'm also extremely forgiving and believe in improving the person and making it a beneficial experience regardless of the outcome. Other people don't do this because I dunno, my pet theory is most people forget to be adults

corimaith 1y ago

But you know, this kind of information burden is one of the factors radicalizing the youth right now. These people don't just dissappear into a void if they are unwilling to accept that, they're organizing and being drawn to more radical movements to crush you. So is this way of dealing with workers here really that sustainable?

jp57 1y ago
I wasn't advocating for any particular system, just stating the way things are, now, on the ground. That said, I have my doubts about the true extent of the radicalization of "the youth", at least in the USA, given that the DSA/Mamdani voter base is squarely bougie upper middle class college grads freaked out that elite overproduction has killed their job prospects. Whatever radical things they may do, the result won't be to create more jobs for college grads.
- corimaith 1y ago
  >Whatever radical things they may do, the result won't be to create more jobs for college grads. They probably won't. But whatever damage is caused likely won't be good for us all anyways. Not everyone is going to have the luxury of being detached from crisis once radicals make sure they feel it too.

devoutsalsa 1y ago

The opposite can also be true. The worst job I ever had was where I was hired by a company, and placed on the team of, a hiring manager that had recommended I not be hired. He offered me no support at all. They just couldn't find many people willing to work at the company, and I was naive enough to just be excited that someone wanted me. I left after about 5 months.

InsideOutSanta 1y ago

"to equate a job interview to a test at school, assuming that there is some objective bar and if you pass it then you must be hired" This is excellent advice in general. When you're on Reddit long enough, you'll see posts from men about how they were kind and considerate to a woman, and she still didn't want to date them. But that's not how life works. It's not about putting kindness, skills, effort, and good intentions into the machine and receiving success in return. You should do these things because you want to. For yourself. Not because you will definitely get any reward in return. Aim to excel in a job interview because you are good at what you do. Aim for being kind to others because you're a good person. Aim to learn a new skill because you're curious and love learning. Help a friend because you value your relationships. And be happy because of what you do, because of who you are, because you can be proud of yourself.