People miss out on getting job interviews (and ultimately jobs) for many reasons.
We’ve already spoken about why you didn’t get an interview and why you didn’t get a job you were interested in here and also here.
Working in recruitment has shown me an interesting side of human nature…people often complain about not getting an interview and/or not getting a job and will specifically complain about how they were “a perfect fit” for the job and use this as a justification as to why they should have been hired.
Interestingly, I don’t know of any of these job searchers who can tell me about any of the other candidates who were interviewed for the same job or of the person who was ultimately hired…and yet they confidently declare that they were the “perfect” candidate for the job.
Notwithstanding the fact that they are slightly biased in that they clearly favor themselves and their experience and skills over the other candidates, candidates who as I just mentioned, they know nothing about.
The point is that people make statements regarding their candidacy for a job without knowing all the facts. In many cases, you never find out exactly why you don’t get an interview or a job that you wanted but to suggest that you are a perfect candidate means that perhaps the only person who thought this was you.
As with the links to previous posts that I mentioned above, you can read these posts to check out some popular reasons why people don’t get interviews and why they go to interviews and then don’t get the job.
Your attitude might be a big part of it.
People usually don’t like when other candidates attend an interview with a chip on their shoulder or who portray themselves in their resume with arrogance.
I recall reading a resume of one guy who wrote his career summary in the third person and referred to himself as a “boy wonder” which got many of us in the office laughing and not for a good reason. Statements like this – even if somehow true – don’t add anything to the conversation, at least nothing positive anyways.
Attitude and personality is a big determining factor in any job search and the way you project yourself to others can often be misconstrued and not necessarily for the right reason.
If you find that you often tell yourself or other people that you were the perfect candidate for a job that you either didn’t get or weren’t even allowed to interview for, it’s possible that your attitude is an issue and that perhaps your opinion of yourself is a bit higher than it should be.
