Oh, Wants2Fly, I'm so sorry. I thought you would get that job. You must be terribly disappointed. I know it's a blow to your self-esteem, but try to remember there are SO many subjective reasons for why people DO and DO NOT get hired. It's often more about the interviewers than it is about the candidates.

Just today, the replacement for my boss was announced. It was an international search and it was narrowed down to three candidates. During the interview process, our department sat down with each of the candidates and talked for an hour. Afterwards, we had to send a review of each candidate to the President of the university. Everyone in my department felt the same way. We all chose the same candidate. We thought she was competent, sensible and a real get-down-to-business, no-nonsense kind of person who would get things done. It turns out that the job was offered to someone else, though. The successful candidate was our LAST choice. He's nice, but we thought he would be uneffective in the position. Apparently, someone in a position of authority disagree for their own personal reasons. The woman who didn't get hired is probably wondering what she did wrong and the fact is, she did NOTHING wrong. She did everything right. We thought she was PERFECT for the position, but she didn't get the job offer.

If you try to make sense of this and blame this on something you feel is lacking in yourself, you're being very unfair to yourself. You never know what kind of nepotism or personal reactions are going on behind the scenes. It's not about you. I have sat on interview panels, and I admit that sometimes I eliminated a candidate (subconsciously) just because of personal stuff -- someone reminded me of an aunt I don't care for. It's not fair, but that kind of stuff happens all the time. The interviewers are flawed humans just like the rest of us and they're fallible and their decisions are never as objective as we (or they) would like them to be.

I hope you find that this closed door leads you to a better open door soon. That's what happened to me recently. I was devastated about not getting a particular job but in hindsight I'm glad I didn't get it, because a much better one came along soon after.

((((((Wants2Fly)))))