Top 10 Lamest Reasons Why You Didn’t Get the Job

The interview process is extremely stressful, and can sometimes make the job search one of the most painful things to do in this life. There are times when you feel like you’ve done an excellent job in the interview, have passed any kind of test they have given you, but are still met with rejection for a plethora of silly reasons. Here are some of those reasons. 

1 – You Didn’t Fit the Company Culture

I’m still not sure what this even means. How could an interviewer tell if you fit in or not based on a 20-30 minute conversation? If there is any validity to this statement, than it must solely refer to the looks and speech of the applicant. There’s no possible way to get to know someone well enough in such a short amount of time and make a decision like that. Plus, most applicants can’t even be themselves and are encouraged to lie and inflate their history on interviews, so how trustworthy are those first impressions? I’m willing to bet when you hear this the company simply had someone else they liked better, and if that’s the case, why can’t they just say that? Also, who’s to decide what environment is for you? 

2 – You’re Overqualified

This is easily one of the stupidest reasons why people get rejected from a job. The employer gets a resume and reads it, and then decides whether or not to conduct an interview. They should know based off the resume whether or not you have the right qualification-level without having to waste your time interviewing on a phone call or in-person.

3 – The Job Was Canceled

This might be the most frustrating one on this list since you can end up doing everything right in the interview process, you are liked by the employer, but either the budget or some other external factor causes the position to be canceled. This is an unfortunate event, but has happened to me on a few occasions. 

4 – You Got Ghosted by an Employer 

Sometimes you take an interview and it goes great. You go home and tell your friends and family about it and expect to hear something back from them within a week’s time. You continuously check your email that whole week and hear nothing. You do the same the following week and receive the same result. After waiting for a third week, you either call your recruiter or their hiring manager for more information. They either give you the run-around, or throw their hands up in the air. You wait a little longer… And still. Silence. You eventually give up and forget this interview ever happened. 

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5 – Nepotism 

This is a fairly common reason as to why people get bypassed during the interview process. A company has to follow a certain policy by interviewing candidates, but has no intention of hiring them. The company is basically checking off its list of to-dos, but really planned to hire someone from within the company, or a friend of family member of the boss. This is another instance where the applicant is powerless. 

6 – You Leave Jobs too Frequently 

This is a valid concern on the part of the employer, however, there are instances when a worker is forced out of several companies in sequence. In today’s technology driven market, methods and tools are constantly changing, and money flows in different directions each day which alters budgets and causes massive lay-offs. I know people that have been out of a job 3 times in the last 4 years, and it was mostly due to working for companies who hired them under the pretenses of a permanent role, but only needed them to finish out a specific project. Employers need to ask more questions and try to trust the applicant more, especially when it comes to today’s market where no one holds a job for more than 1-2 years. 

7 – They Were Looking for Someone More Senior

Again, this is one of those issues that could be solved simply by the employer looking over the resume. Now, there are times when a resume is unclear and further investigation is needed, but if you say you only have one year experience in something, and they want 5 years, than they should not be interviewing you at all. The entire process is a waste of time and will do nothing but aggravate the applicant and waste employers time. This is a mistake commonly made by recruiters. 

8 – The Employer Is Really Cheap

You have a boatload of experience in something and can get a high-paid position in your field. But instead, you’re really interested in a certain company and are willing to take a pay cut to work for them. But even with your willingness to get paid less, the employer will only give you a slave wage that you can’t even live on. To take it a bit further, the employer prefers to hire five-people at this slave wage rather than bringing on one good person who will work for them long-term on a livable wage. These employers are to be avoided at all costs. 

9 – The Employer Doesn’t Tell You Why

You spend five hours interviewing at a company with six different people and leave the interview feeling confident. The recruiter gets back to you a few days later and tells you they decided to move forward with other candidates. You reply by asking for feedback after taking an entire day out of your life to interview with them and you get nothing back. This ends up being a complete waste of time because you don’t even know what you need to improve on after putting this much time into one company. 

10 – Everyone Liked You But One Person 

The company made you interview with five people and at least four of them thought you were the perfect fit for the role. However, that one bad apple didn’t care for you and had someone else in mind the entire time. They likely didn’t even give you a fair shake and were going to disagree with their teammates regardless of how much they liked you. And you know who this person is because they look or sound aggravated when they call, or step into the room to interview you. It’s like going into a sporting event handicapped. However, with this factor it’s very hard to win that person over unless the other candidate they like ends up dropping out.