So, you just received a rejection email or maybe 3 months just passed without any reply regarding the job you applied for. You considered yourself qualified for the job or, at the very least, they should have invited you for an interview. You start wondering why you did not get the job.
There are many possible reasons why you did not get the job, and we will return to them. First, let’s have a look at how employers may evaluate candidates.
Overall factors in evaluating candidates
Basically, there are three overall factors that an employer would evaluate you against:
- Professional competences – Would you be able to do the job?
- Personal competences – Does your personal profile fit with the job, the team and the company culture?
- Job satisfaction – Would you be happy with the job, motivated and likely to stay with the employer for a reasonable time?
We will go through these factors one by one. However, keep in mind that in most cases your application will not be rejected for one single reason, but rather based on an overall evaluation of your profile compared to other candidates.
Professional competences
It may be that you simply did not get the job, as the employer did not consider you to be sufficiently qualified professionally. This could be due to your educational background or due to some specific experience missing. When evaluating candidate competences, there is also a time factor. One employer may need a senior engineer who can work independently in a new position from day one, while another may be happy hiring a junior engineer, who needs 6-12 months before being able to do the job and even more before becoming good at it.
Keep in mind that the evaluation of your competences is relative. For one job, a very experienced engineer may be rejected as there was someone else even more qualified, while for another job, a junior engineer who lacks important experience may be hired anyway because there was no one better qualified.
Example:
At Look Abroad!, we published a job offer for a software engineer some time ago. We had around 100 applicants, of which 5 were highly qualified and 15 might be able to do the job. However, all of the remaining 80 candidates would probably have been able to learn to do the job too. They were all qualified software engineers, but would have needed too long a time to get up and running.
You should also be aware that your application may be rejected, because you did not highlight key competences in your CV, even if you have them. A recruiter will typically spend a few minutes on each CV during the screening. Therefore, it is important that he or she can find the main professional competences of the job mentioned in your CV. Keep in mind that most recruiters have limited understanding of the competences they are hiring for, so you need to make it clear to them what you know.
If your application falls into one of the above categories, you are likely to receive a fairly quick rejection, even before reaching an interview.
During the interview process, you may also have your application rejected due to your professional profile. When that happens, it is often not because you do not have the professional competences needed (after all you did reach a first or even a second interview). It will rather be because there is someone around with a stronger professional profile.
Personal competences
The employer may discard you, because your personal profile does not fit with the position. It could e.g. be that you are a very extroverted and entrepreneurial person, but that they need someone who likes to work alone, focusing on the same technically challenging project for a long time.
It may also be that your personal profile as such fits nicely with the position, but not with the team. The hiring manager may have an existing team, which is too homogeneous and would be enriched by including someone different. If you are not that different person, then that may be a reason to choose another candidate.
The above also applies for diversity in a broader sense. Company policies or the hiring manager herself may prioritise having a diverse team, meaning that if several candidates are close, the choice may be made based on diversity criteria, preferring a candidate belonging to a group which is underrepresented in the present team.
Job satisfaction
The question of job satisfaction is a major issue for hiring managers, as it is closely linked to you being motivated at work and staying with the employer. Hiring managers are likely to be really risk-adverse when it comes to hiring someone who may leave the employer again too soon.
No one can know for how long you will stay in a job, not even yourself. But hiring managers and HR will be looking for signs that you may not stay with them for long.
Some warning lights they may be looking for are if you have a history of shifting job too often and also if in the past you have had a salary significantly higher than for the job you applied for. In the latter case, hiring managers will assume that while you may have an interest in their job offer today, in some time you will look for a salary increase, which they cannot offer you. Say, for example, that an engineer who used to work as a plant manager, applies for a job as a process engineer. In that case, the employer behind the job offer may discard the candidate or at least challenge her during the interviews to learn about her motivation for moving one or two steps down the career ladder.
The employer will also try to understand your motivation for applying for the job. They will ask you what drives you professionally and how you want to progress in yourt career, to check if they can actually give you what you are looking for. You may e.g., want to work with some specific tasks or technologies or to become a team leader.
If it becomes clear to the employer that they will not be able to offer you some of the main things you are looking for, then they may choose not to go ahead with your application, and you are likely to agree with their decision.
Location is another factor related to job satisfaction and stability. If you live in Sevilla, Spain and apply for a job in Copenhagen, Denmark then an employer may wonder why you want to relocate. They will then look for hints in your CV and may find that you went to high school and university in Sevilla, worked there afterwards and have a family there. If you do not mention your reasons for wanting to relocate to Denmark (e.g. in your Cover Letter), then the employer will be left with some doubts. Few employers will discard a candidate just because of that, but if there are other doubts related to your application, the employer may decide that it is not worth the effort inviting you for an interview.
Your motivation for applying for the job is important. While it cannot be explained in a CV, any employer is likely to ask you about this during the interviews. If you are not able to provide an answer which indicates that you really want the job and why, then the employer is likely to reject your application. Apart from that, if you do not know why you applied for the job, then you should withdraw from the process yourself.
Which are NOT the reasons that you didn’t get the job?
On the Internet can may find plenty of information about why someone might not get a job. Seen from our point of view, some of this information is incorrect and misleading, so let’s list some reasons for which you would not be rejected by Look Abroad! and many employers.
- Saying something stupid once during an interview.
Everyone commits mistakes. - Your CV contained a few minor orthographical errors.
This is of no importance, unless the employer is looking for a proofreader. - You were nervous during the interview.
Many people get nervous during job interviews and that will normally not be a factor of concern. However, in the case of e.g. a senior management position or a position including formal presentations for large audiences, becoming nervous could be a concern. - What you said during the interview was not that well-articulated and structured.
This is only important in the case that oral communication skills are a key job requisite. - You are too young.
You should never be rejected because of your age. However, the employer may consider that you lack important experience. - You are too old.
You should never be rejected because of your age, even though we at Look Abroad! have the impression that this happens. However, the employer may consider that you are too senior compared to what is needed to do the job and that accordingly, it would not be challenging for you. Salary could also be an issue. - You are overqualified.
To reject someone for a job because she is overqualified does not make any sense. However, an employer may be concerned about an overqualified candidate not being challenged at work and therefore becoming bored. Again, present and future salary expectations may also be a concern.
You got the job, even though you are not qualified!
Finally, let’s have a look at this curious situation. You applied for the job, because it looked really interesting, even though you were not really qualified. Then came the surprises – they invited you for an interview, then for a second one and finally they offered you the job.
What happened?
- First of all, the perfect candidate never exists. While employers do list their requirements in job posts, they will usually end up hiring someone who does not tick all the boxes.
- The hiring process is relative. You may not be entirely qualified, but maybe you were the best one around. So, the employer was happy to hire you and will (hopefully) help you on your way to build up the missing competences.
- Job descriptions are incomplete. Important skills are often omitted from job posts, either because they are forgotten or because it is simply impossible to include all requirements in a job offer. So, maybe you have some skills (professional or personal), which are highly relevant for the job, but were not mentioned in the job post.
- The employer hired for the future. They saw a potential for you to grow in this job and do well and were willing to invest in giving you some time to learn.
Conclusion
Your job applications may be rejected for many reasons, some of which are mentioned above. As a candidate, you are likely to receive many rejections before finally landing your dream job. Therefore, it is important to keep in mind that having an application rejected is normally not because you made some silly mistake in your CV or during an interview, but rather because there was another candidate with a profile fitting better with the job offer. In future posts, we will dig further into each step of your job search process and provide you with some practical tips for each step.
This post has been written based on our experience recruiting engineers, IT professionals, medical specialists, and dentists for jobs in Denmark. We hope that it will prove useful for other job seekers too, but it may be that the information is not entirely valid for other types of jobs. Should you feel that something is missing or not correct, then let us know. We are always happy to receive feedback on our posts.
Written by Arne Beyerholm, International Recruiter at Look Abroad!