Might you be a threat to your interviewers?
I've heard this from more than one of those unpublished behind-closed-door candidate evals. I've heard them live during when I was an interviewer. Or since I'm intensely interested in the subject of humanly fallible hiring managers prematurely discarding capable candidates, people share these stories with me. Goes like this:
- Candidate does all the right things. Researches company. Targets all material.
- Candidate gets invited to interviews. Speaks of company products, admiration of the firm in the industry, points out his role accordingly. Asks if he's correct. Affirmed.
- Candidate seems to be greatest match, with corresponding personality of confidence (not arrogance.)
- Candidate not extended offer.
Why not?
- Hiring manager says, "This candidate knew far more about the company than any of us. He's going to make us look bad."
- Potential coworker invents a flaw. Doesn't want a competitor
I wonder how many times this happens, spoken or unspoken. It did happen to me once, when 3 years later I ran into an interviewer who said, "After I saw what they did to you and others like you, I wondered, how did I ever get hired there?" He was broken-hearted, he departed.
Has it happened to you? Have you witnessed it happen to another job hunter?
Details? (without names, of course!)