Why You Didn't Get Hired

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Although most of what you say is true, I am finding that anyone over 50 is not quite what companies are looking for. We are the ones with experience, and skills as opposed to a 20 year old is is still kinda wet behind the ears.

Deb of ID 11:14PM February 15, 2012

I love your post you make great points for anyone in the job market. Although unflinching self-analysis is often difficult, it is necessary to make it in this challenging economy. I agree with you that we are not always as intelligent, prepared or experienced as we would like to think. I do believe, however, that if an applicant has been through several phases of an interviewing process with a company that it is courteous to send an email thanking them for their time and letting them know they are going in a different direction. I've experienced a surprising lack of basic courtesy and so have many friends as of late. It is odd. It is as shocking as poor communication skills, sloppy writing, hostility and the like are from applicants.

Jennifer of CA 11:17PM November 28, 2010

Man, I want to be friends with you guys! Thank you for speaking MY mind!

Krista M of AZ 11:13PM November 16, 2010

Another idea regarding unemployment and the hardship people experience finding work.
No property tax on houses below average value. Only tax luxury.
No income tax on income below that necessary to sustain a basic, healthy standard of life.
No taxes on survival at all because the nation has not earned it yet.
Tax ONLY that which is "luxury" or above the level needed for normal, basic living.
Then tax everything above that level to the hilt until unemployment is eliminated. Then either the wealthy will hire, or they will let the government do it. And of course, they have nothing to worry about because if their businesses die, they can look for jobs, too, if they haven't been eliminated or offshored. Perhaps government could even work more inexpensively and efficiently if we were to offshore government jobs as well. We can have a president from north korea, lawyers from Indonesia, senators from Iran, and every American living on unemployment.
After all, if the rich can get richer by eliminating other businesses and their employees, then perhaps the government can practice the same kind of economics and contribute to this nation in the same way.

Dan Dick of CA 11:08PM September 25, 2010

I ranted a bit about bigoted hiring practices and stalking social networking sites for candidates with "a good fit". But there's more.
Do you know that most of the most competent, respected, most qualified people may ignore Facebook and still have hundreds or thousands of friends?
Have you a clue that this is not an anomaly?
I was shocked to find I had 240 friends on Facebook, and I almost ignore it. I most certainly do not have any interest in burning up time with the online games. I have a purpose, a mission, a vision, a life. I spend most of my time working and building my managerial and technical skills.
But, I have 13 good solid references on LinkedIn. I have about 35 certifications from Brainbench many of which are at the Masters level simply because I use it as a tool to measure myself and give me a view of where I might apply time studying to improve my competence in the industry.
I studied computer science at the graduate level at Stanford University, and in my undergrad studies at CSUF, I took first and second place in the mathematics competition there. I have worked for NASA, Ingres, Oracle, PeopleSoft, and on contract for IBM. As Director of IT and Operations and Chief Systems Architect at Clickmarks, I built their IT team before they were acquired by Semotus. At US Script I was called a Detangler since I inherited a bunch of prototype programs prematurely inducted into production--programs that had been generating errors for over a year through no fault of the company, but the company needed a turnaround, and senior developers did not typically stay on that job for more than 3 months. I rearchitected it, implemented error correcting, unified the systems for several health plans in several states, introduced intelligent parsing of files and tracking and data mining of information not provided by the pharmacies. And in the end, the company not only had years of data corrected and audited, but they had the ability to bring on new lines of business in weeks rather than months or years.
Suppose a manager was such a butthead that he turned me down because I had 240 friends on Facebook? Hopefully his company would go bust and file for bankruptcy because not only is that method of hiring stupid, it is reprehensible.
I am writing things that may be career limiting as well, but frankly, I want to work for a manager with a brain and for a company that wants and expects to win, and if this helps keep me from working for petty, bigoted, narrow minded incompetent idiot, then so be it.
I want to be attractive to good managers--not incompetent ones. I have no patience with stupidity. I can be patient with almost anyone but a bigot. People with lower IQ's help me design better documentation and teach better. But, people who are intelligent but stupid are a bane, an irritation, a distraction, a waste of time. People at least need to have a good heart for others, for their company, customers, and employees.

Dan Dick of CA 9:52PM September 25, 2010

Debbie, the manager who stalks their candidates to their political and religious and personal life through Facebook is no better than spying on them to see what they voted for, finding out their religion and discriminating against them for those reasons in addition to their age, their weight, their marital status, their gender, their race, their religion, their political affiliation and punishing them for expressing their freedoms on their time in their venues.
You say "they're not a good fit". Do you really mean, "They're negroes"?
Do you mean "They're geezer's over 40"? Or do you find that reprehensible because you only discriminate against people over 50?
Do you mean you don't want any "ragheads" in your company? Or Christians?
Or Democrats? Or Republicans? Do you want to "out" those who voted for Bush and send them to Siberia?
Or do you want your company to have a qualified candidate who will drive up the stockholder value of the company?
Do you want a "diverse" team so that people of all races, religions, genders, and political persuasions might want to become customers or clients?
Or do you want a "diverse" team of people who share your opinion and way of life? Is your motto, "Diversity in things I don't care about and unity in things that matter to me"?
Why is it that when I had a potential system administrator interviewing for a position in my company that he felt the need to apologize for the turbin on his head? We offered him the job. Why? Dumb question. He was good. And we didn't hire him fast enough because someone offered him the job first. Was I looking for a Christian guy like me? No. A white guy? No. An American? No, but he was an American. A guy under 50? I'd rather have someone with experience, but he happened to be under 50. Perhaps 35. I didn't care. Did I stalk his Facebook account? Am I a blithering idiot? Of course not. Only a dumb jerk would do that.
Look. The keys on the computer work the same way for a straight person as they do a gay person whether I agree with homosexual lifestyles or not. They work the same for tall and short people. Computers don't care. Would this guy have been a good fit? Relative to who? Me?
Yeah. He would have been a great fit. So would my Muslim friends, my Wiccan friends, my Hindu friends, my old friends, my young friends. I don't have my head up my butt like a blithering idiot, and therefore I would put a knife to my throat before I would ever think to do something so stupid as to hire based on any of that stuff. Unless it was for a job related specifically for those things. If I were hiring an actor to play Martin Luther King, I would not choose a Chinese guy. If I were hiring a preacher for a Christian church, I would not choose a Sikh. And so on.
Unless you're scoping a person's religion or political views, you should not be stalking them on social networking sites. Besides, how do you know you have the right person? Ever think of that?

Dan Dick of CA 9:09PM September 25, 2010

You might not get hired because you're too old, because your hair is too grey, because you're a Christian or a Sikh or a Muslim or a Wiccan or because you're staight or gay. You may be turned down because you walk with a limp or because your back is not straight or because one eye is foggy.
Those are reasons you may not "be a good fit".
No bigot wants to be known to be a bigot, but if the hiring practices are not qualifiable, quantifiable, pre-established, and transparent, then your company's hiring practices are based on nothing but bigotry.
Some argue metrics alone can never tell the whole story. There are two reasons for that. Either someone has done a very lousy job of setting the metrics, or someone is being a closet bigot.
End the bigotry. Set the metrics. Apply them. Work with integrity. And nobody will have grounds to sue you.
It is shameful that our nation's courts have lacked the spine and integrity to make lawsuits for discrimination a little more easy to prove. The lack of metrics alone should be sufficient to prove a disdain for transparency. And the notion of a "bad fit" that cannot be qualified or quantified on paper is a euphamism for the need for bigotry to make the selection.
Operate with integrity. Chuck the bigotry.
People of age or various races need and deserve hope as much as anyone else does.

Dan Dick of CA 6:02PM September 25, 2010

This is so common. I have gone to so many interviews, which fit the job descriptions from my former jobs. I knew I was qualified and performed well at the interviews. I wasn't hired.. I think positions with the state and goverment have to post and interview so many postions by law, however the already know who they are going to hire in the first place, but it doesn't stop them from waisting your time and gas money. They continue to toy with peoples lives, especially recent college grads who are so anxious to land anything at this point. I'm really not buying the whole facebook thing, because what you do on your personal life has nothing to do with your job performance. These jobs are using excuses such as facebook interest to judge your character and it says that they are not seperating the personal from the business. So no Im not buying that Debbie of GA- you may have lost a good worker, because you were so concerned with her personal opinion,life and not her qualifications.

Nesha of NV 8:11PM August 20, 2010

Some managers already have a candidate in mind maybe from a refferel and they waste other cadidtate's time by bringing them in for an interview just so they can comply with equal opportunity laws.

Carly of CA 3:36PM November 07, 2009

I recently had this sort of experience in that I was interviewed by a big company for a position which I felt I was a fit for in experience and education. Unfortunately, after having made it through the HR recruiter interview, the GM of the facility on-site interview, another phone interview with an HR rep, a phone interview with a manager who held the position which I was applying for, and finally getting to the regional manager, I received an email from the HR recruiter that I was not accepted b/c they were not sure my skills were strong enough?
How does one get so far to be turned away? And on top of this, they have recently posted the same job again - meaning they didn't find what they were looking for.
Should I apply again for this position and let them know that I have a strong desire to become part of their team and can be the essential candidate they need to fill the position, OR would I just be wasting their and my time and efforts in doing so?
Any information or thoughts would be of great help.

Frank of NY 3:00PM September 08, 2009