In our previous blog, we understood three stages where an interviewee will face rejection. Let us understand the likely reasons for rejection at each of these stages.
Reasons for rejecting the resume:
Your resume may not be meeting even the minimum specifications of the job requirement. These requirements are mostly seen as mandatory; any CV that does not meet the minimum criteria will not be shortlisted – even it has other merits. Some of the minimum criteria will include qualifications, academic performance, number of years of experience, age, area of specialization/skills of handling specific machinery, technology, computer languages, platforms etc.
There could be other special reasons for rejecting resume’ such as gaps in career, frequent career changes, your present company (in case it has any bad reputation or if there is any non-competing agreement) or your higher qualifications.
Reasons for rejecting at pre-interview stage:
After short-listing your resume’, some companies may have additional steps in the selection process before calling your for a personal interview. Such steps include a written test, psychometric test, telephonic interaction, group discussion and so on.
Reasons for rejection during this stage are lot more intricate to understand. Seldom have you heard any specific reason for rejection after this stage. You need to keep introspecting and self-evaluating your performance during written test or group discussion. Your language, numerical or technical abilities have to be reassessed based on the focus of the written test. If you were rejected after a telephonic interaction, the primary reason could be your oral communication. It helps to closely scrutinize your English communication!
If you had gone through an on-line or paper based psychometric test, it would reveal your personality traits. In case, they find your personality not readily matching the job requirements, you will be rejected. This one is surely difficult to gauge. You may be left wondering why you were rejected.
Reasons for rejection after the personal interview:
The main reason for rejection after the personal interaction seems to be mismatch of expectations. Your resume would have created some level of positive expectation and in case you could not match to the same during the personal interview, you will often hear a statement – “only good on paper”!
When you probe a little deeper, reasons could be simple aspects like poor presentation of yourself, inappropriate dressing, immature talking or comments, attempting to be smarter than the interview panel (telling that they were wrong!), arguing during the interview, throwing too much of attitude in an attempt to project confidence, faking, inconsistent responses, hiding facts and so on. Other reasons could be higher salary expectations, mismatch of role expectations or your longer time to join.
During your career, it is common to get rejected in your attempts. Smarter attitude is to understand and analyze the probable reasons for rejection; more importantly, avoid the same mistakes and approach your next attempt more positively!
Article – “Reasons for Rejection”
By: Dr.Raj,
Published in HR Mirror, Hans India.
Follow Dr.Raj on Twitter @drraj29
