Anonymous
Post 02/27/2026 20:05     Subject: Really Odd Rejection
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Could it be they had an internal candidate? It's almost impossible to get the job if there's an internal candidate they like interviewing for the job.

Op possibly! They were hiring for multiple though so I find it hard to believe they had multiple candidates and still bothered to put me in front of leadership - honestly that’s my red flag that I screwed up.


They pulled something like this at my work. Put up a senior VP job, brought in tons of great people, and then at the 11th hour promoted someone from another department who had zero experience in that area to the role because the CEO liked her.
Anonymous
Post 02/27/2026 19:46     Subject: Really Odd Rejection
Anonymous wrote:Op here. Thanks guys. I actually called the recruiter earlier and she just left me a voicemail saying she’ll connect Monday. Weirdly I apparently did “really well” but then she did mention having feedback to give me and reiterated going in another direction. I was really excited about the role but ah well.

Annoyingly this is the second time this company has done this to me.

Either they are going to give you specific feedback, or they will reiterate that they went in a different direction. Depending on what it is (different skill set, decided to relevel the job, etc), they might tell you. I had two recent hires, each with two highly qualified candidates. The reasons for picking one over the other were practical (location, experience in the same industry), so I felt it was better to share them.
Anonymous
Post 02/27/2026 19:37     Subject: Really Odd Rejection
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry, OP. It's impossible to tell whether there was an actual flaw in your presentation or whether they just preferred someone else, for good or bad reasons. Usually every interview will give the impression it went well, though, because in person, no wants to be rude and social people get caught up in the emotional moment and become extra enthusiastic. So that's not a good measure of how well you did. It means you were decent... but it doesn't always mean you were the best.

The rejection was quite brusque, and I take it to mean that the person writing it knows very well what a warm reception you got during the interview, and is feeling very awkward about having to write such a missive. So they went for sharp break... which says more about them than about you!


Op I do fear it was a flaw in my presentation. I was nervous and I think I spoke too quickly, so then I made a joke about too much coffee, which everyone laughed at but clearly wasn't funny. Or the hiring manager mentioned something about her husband that he has in common with my husband so then we were talking about that and I'm sure maybe she felt I was being too familiar for a job interviewer.

Anyway, thank you all for the kind words.

You know damn well for the right candidates a dorky joke or a harmless mention of personal life is not going to make them go from "Wow! We need to bring her on board!" to "Oh my god get her out of here."

Honestly they likely knew before they brought you in that it wouldn't be you and were just being polite. Which is shitty.
Anonymous
Post 02/27/2026 19:35     Subject: Really Odd Rejection
Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry, OP. It's impossible to tell whether there was an actual flaw in your presentation or whether they just preferred someone else, for good or bad reasons. Usually every interview will give the impression it went well, though, because in person, no wants to be rude and social people get caught up in the emotional moment and become extra enthusiastic. So that's not a good measure of how well you did. It means you were decent... but it doesn't always mean you were the best.

The rejection was quite brusque, and I take it to mean that the person writing it knows very well what a warm reception you got during the interview, and is feeling very awkward about having to write such a missive. So they went for sharp break... which says more about them than about you!


Op I do fear it was a flaw in my presentation. I was nervous and I think I spoke too quickly, so then I made a joke about too much coffee, which everyone laughed at but clearly wasn't funny. Or the hiring manager mentioned something about her husband that he has in common with my husband so then we were talking about that and I'm sure maybe she felt I was being too familiar for a job interviewer.

Anyway, thank you all for the kind words.
Anonymous
Post 02/27/2026 19:31     Subject: Really Odd Rejection
I'm sorry, OP. It's impossible to tell whether there was an actual flaw in your presentation or whether they just preferred someone else, for good or bad reasons. Usually every interview will give the impression it went well, though, because in person, no wants to be rude and social people get caught up in the emotional moment and become extra enthusiastic. So that's not a good measure of how well you did. It means you were decent... but it doesn't always mean you were the best.

The rejection was quite brusque, and I take it to mean that the person writing it knows very well what a warm reception you got during the interview, and is feeling very awkward about having to write such a missive. So they went for sharp break... which says more about them than about you!

Anonymous
Post 02/27/2026 19:31     Subject: Really Odd Rejection
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Op here. Thanks guys. I actually called the recruiter earlier and she just left me a voicemail saying she’ll connect Monday. Weirdly I apparently did “really well” but then she did mention having feedback to give me and reiterated going in another direction. I was really excited about the role but ah well.

Annoyingly this is the second time this company has done this to me.

Eh, some companies are tricky like this.

Op Not the company, though. The team. This is the second time this same hiring manager has brought me in, had me do a day or two of interviews, and then sent an email saying they've decided to go a different direction. And she didn't forget this because she acknowledged it in my interview this past week.

It's very frustrating. If there are rules about internal candidates, I get that, but I took two entire afternoons off of work this week. If there was an internal candidate then why make externals go through all those hoops.

Tbh, that is feedback I would share with the recruiter, although you would need to accept the fact that if you do, you're absolutely never getting a job here. She will go back and share it with the hiring manager because she works for them, not you. But I do think that is fair criticism. "Hey, this is the second time Jane has brought me in for multi-round interviews only to say they were going in a different direction. If there is something about my resume that makes me ineligible to work here, I would be interested to know, but otherwise it's very frustrating."
Anonymous
Post 02/27/2026 19:29     Subject: Really Odd Rejection
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Op here. Thanks guys. I actually called the recruiter earlier and she just left me a voicemail saying she’ll connect Monday. Weirdly I apparently did “really well” but then she did mention having feedback to give me and reiterated going in another direction. I was really excited about the role but ah well.

Annoyingly this is the second time this company has done this to me.

Eh, some companies are tricky like this.

Op Not the company, though. The team. This is the second time this same hiring manager has brought me in, had me do a day or two of interviews, and then sent an email saying they've decided to go a different direction. And she didn't forget this because she acknowledged it in my interview this past week.

It's very frustrating. If there are rules about internal candidates, I get that, but I took two entire afternoons off of work this week. If there was an internal candidate then why make externals go through all those hoops.
Anonymous
Post 02/27/2026 19:27     Subject: Really Odd Rejection
Anonymous wrote:Op here. Thanks guys. I actually called the recruiter earlier and she just left me a voicemail saying she’ll connect Monday. Weirdly I apparently did “really well” but then she did mention having feedback to give me and reiterated going in another direction. I was really excited about the role but ah well.

Annoyingly this is the second time this company has done this to me.

Eh, some companies are tricky like this.
Anonymous
Post 02/27/2026 19:15     Subject: Really Odd Rejection
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Are you a woman? And a man got picked?

Op I am a woman but I obviously have no idea who got picked


You can often figure this out from LinkedIn. Are you LinkedIn to the recruiter? I've sometimes been able to figure out who got picked before it gets announced.
Anonymous
Post 02/27/2026 19:10     Subject: Really Odd Rejection
Anyway. Thank you, everybody. I really don't know how we went from the AVP saying "I think you have great experience and you're ready for this and I look forward to future conversations" to a brusque (thank you to whoever corrected me) three sentence rejection. I've obviously gotten rejected from jobs before but they typically aren't ones where everyone was very nice to me and the vibe (for lack of a better term) was good.
Anonymous
Post 02/27/2026 19:08     Subject: Really Odd Rejection
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Anything that could kick up in your reference check?

Op I didn’t provide references and I would’ve just used my references I gave at my current job and I distinctly remember when I got hired the HR manager said my references were some of the most glowing she’d ever heard


Recently I was helping with hiring and the hiring firm did all kinds of backdoor references. I think these matter more than given references.

Op Yeah, definitely, I've honestly always thought references were kind of silly because like...obviously people only give names of colleagues who'd give good references. There's nothing glaring, I've never been fired or committed any major transgression in the work place. I generally get along with my colleagues. I can think of one boss who really didn't like me (for no major reason other than we just didn't click) and so who knows, it's a small industry. That being said, her predecessor now works at this company and we got along great.
Anonymous
Post 02/27/2026 19:04     Subject: Really Odd Rejection
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Anything that could kick up in your reference check?

Op I didn’t provide references and I would’ve just used my references I gave at my current job and I distinctly remember when I got hired the HR manager said my references were some of the most glowing she’d ever heard


Recently I was helping with hiring and the hiring firm did all kinds of backdoor references. I think these matter more than given references.
Anonymous
Post 02/27/2026 19:00     Subject: Re:Really Odd Rejection
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My guess: Someone internal is getting the role (internal politics) or someone with influence swooped in with a candidate. Anyway, sounds like they did like you, and it’s good practice for your next opportunity.

NP and Agree with this but also it’s a strangely cold dismissal for a rejection email.
And I think hiring manager could really work on making a quick remark about how much the team enjoyed meeting the candidate and how they appreciate the time spent over the interview process, etc.
This other way leaves a bad break-up taste in the mouth of the interviewee…


I mean, while I think they could've done better (not bringing her in AGAIN to reject her AGAIN) I do understand. It's super awkward to reject someone, whether you like them or not. If you're too gushy, people are like, "Well wtf, no, you clearly didn't enjoy meeting me if you're rejecting me" but yeah, when you're too cold, it does give a sense of, "Did I say something?"
Anonymous
Post 02/27/2026 18:48     Subject: Re:Really Odd Rejection
Anonymous wrote:My guess: Someone internal is getting the role (internal politics) or someone with influence swooped in with a candidate. Anyway, sounds like they did like you, and it’s good practice for your next opportunity.

NP and Agree with this but also it’s a strangely cold dismissal for a rejection email.
And I think hiring manager could really work on making a quick remark about how much the team enjoyed meeting the candidate and how they appreciate the time spent over the interview process, etc.
This other way leaves a bad break-up taste in the mouth of the interviewee…

Anonymous
Post 02/27/2026 18:47     Subject: Really Odd Rejection
Anonymous wrote:Op here. Thanks guys. I actually called the recruiter earlier and she just left me a voicemail saying she’ll connect Monday. Weirdly I apparently did “really well” but then she did mention having feedback to give me and reiterated going in another direction. I was really excited about the role but ah well.

Annoyingly this is the second time this company has done this to me.

Okay to be fair if they do this frequently that says more about them than you. Get it together and stop bringing external candidates in for multiple interviews. At my org you do have to do three external interviews before selecting an internal candidate but they do let us count phone screenings towards that.