Reframing the Interview Process
We have all been there. A job description that excites you. A recruiter reached out with the statement of “You are a great fit for my client”. You dive into company research, stalking without regard and learn all you can in preparation. Somehow this work starts to feel like entitlement, not just a selected patron for a job that you have no idea of the candidate pool.
A confidence boost, you bet! This is mine to lose.
You walk away knowing you connected with either the hiring manager, the recruiter, the team interview and the company mission. Impatiently, and optimistically you wait.
Days go by. Sometimes weeks. You hear nothing. Oftentimes you learn about your demise and non-selection from a LinkedIn post of someone celebrating what was supposed to be your next career move. It stings. You become defensive. The “but’s” ensure…We had a great connection. I felt like they wanted me, but they just had to go through the process. Why would they say what they said if they didn’t mean it? Why didn’t they reach out and tell me, or at least get back to me
About Interview and Job Descriptions
There is one spot. Just one. If you boil it down to statistics your odds of scoring this prime job are most likely low. Not even significant. Unless you are in the top two, then it is more like the coin flip probability experiment you did in 5th grade.
Perhaps you have zero idea who else they are interviewing. No real insight to the inner personnel workings, and you barely know, if at all, the hiring manager. If you have ever been responsible for hiring someone, you find there are many people that can do the job. Oftentimes logic does not work here. As a hiring manager, sometimes you go with a gut feeling. It’s not always right, but you have to trust your instincts. As a hiring manager, there are many people I have connected with, visibly shared my enthusiasm and perhaps misspoke and dare I say “led them on” from a single conversation. It is not intentional. Connecting with people is easy for me. I am not one for stoicism and absolutely unable to pull off a poker face,
Being a part of the consideration is better than not being involved in the conversation, even if it feels like failure.
Do not pretend you know the background agenda. Do not assume you know that budget just because it was listed in the job description or agreed upon beforehand. There is always a moving target to a job description and what a company needs and wants. It is a gray of all grays! The same reason that * always accompanies any position you take. Guess what, your job will look quite different from the job description. Job descriptions are crafted in a static world of preferences, not reality.
163.4 million people are a part of the labor force in America. By no means am I saying you are one of 163.4 million applying for this job. But you did get a chance to give it a go and take a crack at something. You got to toss your hat in the ring.
Reframing Interviews with an Objective, Non-emotional Mindset
Someone took a chance on me.
Someone saw something on my resume or profile that caught their eye.
Someone took time out of their day to get to know me, maybe a group of people that prioritized my next step in lieu of an internal meeting that may have been more pertinent.
You got another chance to hone your skills and show up in a place of anxiety, eustress and discomfort.
There are other chances, and in the words of someone much wiser than myself, “You never know what’s good for what.”
In hindsight there are insightful blessings for the objection. Not immediately, but in time.
Celebrate the process, the interviews, the research and work you put forward. Let yourself get excited, but remember you are in a pool of extraordinary people. I like to think a subset of my best of friends are “trying out” for the same role. I would absolutely hire my best friends friends if given the chance. There are a bunch of remarkable people in the job market.
Take it one step further and try to find goodwill in your heart to celebrate the person that just got your dream job. I can assure you, they went into the process with the same fervor and hope as you. This is not about not getting what you wanted, rather this was not the role for you. Trust the company made the right decision based on what they knew at the time they made the decision.
No’s Always Lead to Yeses. Always.
When you get the “no”, however you receive it, go for a walk. Put on your eardrum damaging headphones and blast your favorite hype song. Tell yourself, I made the cut. Remind yourself how many people did not even get a call back, a chance, a notice. Then commit to this, “I am valuable and watch me show up tomorrow with more gumption and resolve than today”!
Sit with the loss for about five minutes then MOVE ON! Maybe you fume, “Look what you missed out on”! Own it, temporarily. Only temporarily. Do not give control and agency to somehow who passed you by. Learn, grow, reset, lick your wounds and get back to what’s next!