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369 points surprisetalk | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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jp57 ◴[] No.45065311[source]
One great piece of advice an informal mentor gave me long ago is that there is no information in a rejection.

That is to say that you cannot draw any conclusions about yourself or your interviewing technique or your skills or anything from the single accept==0 bit that you typically get back. There are so many reasons that a candidate might get rejected that have nothing to do with one's individual performance in the interview or application process.

Having been on the hiring side of the interview table now many more times than on the seeking side, I can say that this is totally true.

One of the biggest misconceptions I see from job seekers, especially younger ones, is to equate a job interview to a test at school, assuming that there is some objective bar and if you pass it then you must be hired. It's simply not true. Frequently more than one good applicant applies for a single open role, and the hiring team has to choose among them. In that case, you could "pass" and still not get the job and the only reason is that the hiring team liked someone else better.

I can only think of one instance where we had two great candidates for one role and management found a way to open another role so we could hire both. In a few other cases, we had people whom we liked but didn't choose and we forwarded their resumes to other teams who had open roles we thought would fit, but most of the time it's just, "sorry."

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1. InsideOutSanta ◴[] No.45081560[source]
"to equate a job interview to a test at school, assuming that there is some objective bar and if you pass it then you must be hired"

This is excellent advice in general.

When you're on Reddit long enough, you'll see posts from men about how they were kind and considerate to a woman, and she still didn't want to date them. But that's not how life works. It's not about putting kindness, skills, effort, and good intentions into the machine and receiving success in return.

You should do these things because you want to. For yourself. Not because you will definitely get any reward in return.

Aim to excel in a job interview because you are good at what you do. Aim for being kind to others because you're a good person. Aim to learn a new skill because you're curious and love learning. Help a friend because you value your relationships.

And be happy because of what you do, because of who you are, because you can be proud of yourself.