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[quote=Anonymous]I realize no one can answer this question without knowing or interviewing me, but I'm hoping you can help point me toward possible ideas or common pitfalls, or just tell me honestly that I must come off as a jerk or something.  Or perhaps my expectations are too high for finding the right fit by now.  If I'm doing something wrong, how do I figure out what it is?

I'm a government lawyer with about 10 years of experience.  I am looking to make a change, but because I have a job I like, I have been very selective about where I have applied (some inhouse, some other government jobs, one public interest).  I have applied for maybe seven jobs over the last year, gotten 4 interviews, no job offers.  Now, they have been pretty competitive jobs, but my credentials are stellar.  I know I look good on paper.  If some of these jobs were "reaches", it is only because my experience is in another wheelhouse.  I've been a litigator my whole career, and these are more inhouse and agency type jobs, albeit most of them with a litigation component.  (The ones without a litigation component are the ones I didn't get interviews for, which is reasonable, although I was kind of hoping they would consider me at least for entry level positions.)   In each case, I did a screening interview on the phone, got invited in (and flown in) to meet the team.  And no offer.

Now, small talk and meeting new people is really not my forte, but I worked hard to prepare for the interviews.  I knew a lot about each office, asked people what I hoped were intelligent questions about their work, and developed a pithy spiel about why I wanted the job and thought I was a good fit.  If the position seemed likely to involve a pay cut, I went out of my way to assure them that I knew that and was interested anyway.  A couple of these were ALL DAY interviews; and I was probably stumbling by the end of the day, but I have trouble imagining who wouldn't be after 6 hours of interviews.   By way of example:
 -  the most surprising was an office that was looking for a government litigator, seemed to like me, I would have been taking a paycut, and we all seemed to get along really well.  I had a tenuous professional connection to one of the hiring attorneys, and we hit it off.  No offer.  I didn't figure out who they hired instead but suffice to say, it is somewhat unlikely that they found someone with my credentials and experience.  I wanted it anyway because the subject matter genuinely interests me and the hours are spectacularly reasonable.  In the interview, I focused on the subject matter and my skills being a good fit, not the family-friendly hours.   
 - The most heartbreaking of the bunch was an all day interview at what is basically my dream job, which I thought went overall very well  -- except for one exceedingly awkward moment where it seemed like the general counsel was asking about my childbearing plans - but I thought I smoothed it over more or less by pretending he was asking no such thing.  But that was 15 seconds of an interview that basically lasted 10 hours, including dinner.  I had a great rapport with the attorneys, and they spent a fair amount of money flying me out and putting me up and wining and dining me; so they must have been a little interested.  they ended up hiring a kid who interned for them when he was in law school . . . a year and a half ago, and who had been working for his daddy's law firm in the meantime.  I mean, come on.  Maybe he's goddamned Clarence Darrow in training, but I doubt it.  And if they planned to hire him all along, why fly me in and waste all that time and money?  Maybe just the salary difference? But they were hiring at a specific pay range - even if he was at the low end of that range and I was at the high end, it seems like there is not that much difference.  They never broached the subject of salary with me and neither did I, since their advertised pay range is pretty close to my current salary as a fed - adjusted for cost of living anyway.  Before I knew who they hired, I reached out to the guy I talked with the most (and who would have been my immediate supervisor) to ask for any feedback.  He blew me off, told me they had a number of excellent candidates and I should keep trying.[/quote]

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