| You never really know That's actually the only correct answer. Having been on both sides of the table for many years, I can pretty much guarantee that whatever reason the candidate is given is nowhere close to the actual reasons. There may not be any specific reason why we didn't pick you, but we'll give you a tiny sample anyway. So you think that's the reason - it's not. In other cases, we have a strong reason not to pick you, but it's embarrassing so we feed you a bogus reason instead. And in more cases than I'd like, there is no problem on your side, we are having internal issues that we can't reveal anyway. Any reason you hear from us in that case is completely irrelevant. By the way, when you evaluate people in interview, you really need to figure out a vector: where they are today in terms of knowledge and experience, but also in what direction they are going (fast learner or not, high potential, etc.). Which is why sometimes you can hire someone who has less relevant experience, but you think they'll learn fast and are very smart, and sometimes you are looking for the perfect match to the current position, but don't care too much whether they can pick up new stuff or not. |