You did not get hired (but it is not your fault)
15 Mar 2026If you’re fed up of your job hunt, this is for you.
It’s tough out there. I think it’s mandatory to start any scribble about the job market with “it’s tough out there” but reading it a dozen times doesn’t make it less important to remember.
Some of my favourite CX sector writers have put out great stuff in this direction recently and so I would urge you to read Betts and Steph Lundberg for some great perspectives.
Job hunting is just work, work, work!
There are two ways this sort of writing goes from here. One option is the “don’t beat yourself up, keep going” type sentiment. The other is the “here’s how you hack it” where someone declares they have found the secret and that secret is some automated scattergun approach.
Here’s a third way. Yes, you need to be kind to yourself but it’s also essential to continually refine your approach. Don’t automate spamming out a CV to everything and anything but do actual science and have some sort of testing and measuring cycle. At the same time you need to put yourself in the context that gives you the motivation to build yourself up.
Let yourself off the hook
Let’s review a bunch of facts which you should remind yourself of if you’re feeling a bit glum about proceedings.
There probably isn’t really a job anyway
It’s completely mad but often a job advert is just a fishing expedition and there isn’t an empty seat at a desk with a pile of work building up they need someone to get stuck in to.
Jobs are listed for all sorts of reasons and we just don’t know what those reasons are for any given posting. I have known businesses list jobs so that they can get a sense of how accurate their salary benchmarking is. This sounds bad (because it is) but you have no way of knowing and nothing you can do about it so you might as well be angry about the moon.
Even if there is a job, they probably have someone in mind
We’ve definitely all seen a job advertised even though there’s already a preferred candidate. Got to follow the company process despite the decision being made some time ago.
The manager might well want to bring in a colleague from their old team or they have an internal promotion lined up but the policy says we advertise and so people apply for jobs somebody already got. It’s unreasonable to be upset about not getting a job that was never really available but we’re all unreasonable fleshy things.
The trick is to make the “somebody” you and we’ll come to that somewhere down the page.
You weren’t there in the other interviews
You’re really great! I’m sure of that. The other candidates are probably also pretty great. You probably don’t know them and that is another key item of the information asymmetry inherent in the recruitment process.
There was a gig I didn’t get a few years ago and I felt a bit hard done by. Some time later I got talking to an industry colleague who had become a good friend and I found out he was the other finalist for that gig and he’s a great and talented guy and I’m sure was the better choice for that piece of work. Turned out we had also been the final two for another gig which I got and he was grouchy about that one!
Stressed but iconic.
It’s very unusual to get that kind of closure but please feel free to imagine it for yourself going forwards.
Here are some things that won’t get you a job
People ask me all the time about how to get a job. They say “Can you take a look at my CV?” Of course I can but I shouldn’t. You probably don’t need a better CV right now. Sorry.
Sending out CVs and clicking through job application forms is a pointless waste of time.
Never send someone a CV until they actually ask for it. You need them to buy in to you before you reduce yourself to a sequential list of events. A really good CV is honestly a bit weird anyway.
Don’t cold apply for jobs at all.
I’m serious. The best case scenario is you end up being the person against whom they benchmark the preferred candidate. You need to be that preferred candidate! You do this by creating a relationship with the humans who will be making the decision. You do that and the rest follows.
It is not a numbers game.
I still see people sort of boast “I’ve sent out 500 job applications and had no interviews” and I can’t help but think “you’re doing it wrong then” but it’s bad manners to say that.
This assumes that successful job applications have some kind of statistical distribution like rolling dice and that just isn’t the case. You can definitely do a lot to give yourself an easier time of it and so you do have to do those things. That doesn’t mean that the world is fair and you’re not entitled to be upset about your job hunt. Feel free! But believing your time will come and your number is due is how people become gambling addicts.
Tailoring your CV is actually bad.
No one likes it when I say this! I actually go out of my way to make it clear I am not making a special CV for your job. Someone asks for a CV and I say “Well I have an old one which I can bring up to date and pop over quickly so we can get the next chat scheduled” and then their expectations are flipped. It changes the whole narrative of the process! I’ve rendered the CV part mere formality.
So what do you actually do
You see a job you want. Don’t you dare apply for it! Find out who you would be working with. The company is on LinkedIn, the team is on Linkedin. The hiring manager is almost certainly on Linkedin. Find them!
Now find the bridge person. Who do you know who knows someone there? You have more connections than you think and it only takes one and Linkedin will tell you who that is. A former colleague, a friend of a friend, someone you met at a conference three years ago. Find the common thread and use it to start a conversation.
Something like “Hey, you and I both worked with Liz, do you keep in touch with her? She’s a great engineer but she makes a weak cup of tea. I see you’re looking for a specialist in what I do over at your company. Would this role be in your team? It’d be good to have an informal chat about life over there. Would you have time for a quick chat tomorrow?”
I might well be that person for you and this role. Please feel free to pop me a message if so! Say to them “Hey, you and I both know Nico Boyce, did you work with him at X? Did he ever make you listen to his terrible music? He mentioned you were an expert in Y, I have been working as a junior Y…” and so on. The key phrases are “informal chat” and “life at company”. You are not asking for a job. You are having a conversation. It might turn out it’s not the thing for you but they know someone else. You might just make a friend! These are all good outcomes.
Help them want you before they actually evaluate anyone. By the time the process catches up you’re already the preferred candidate. Managers are human people who would rather work with someone they’ve had a nice chat with than a stranger from a spreadsheet, so you will beat someone of equivalent skills and experience who does run through the application process properly.
When they do ask for your CV
By this point you’re already winning. The CV is a box-ticking exercise for HR. So when someone asks for it I say “Well I have a CV which is a bit dated, I’ll pop the latest bits on and send it over” because their expectations are already set. But you should still make it decent. Don’t offer it! Only send a CV to someone who has asked to see one.
I’m not going to put my full list of CV tips here now but here’s one you can enjoy:
Make your name massive. This document is your tour poster. You are the Taylor Swift of this PDF. You are the star of the show for anyone reading it and the design should reflect that.
This can be true in your whole life
You are the hero of your story and you’re allowed to carry yourself in a manner that a hero deserves. You shouldn’t beat yourself up for having tough times. Tough times are an essential part of any good narrative structure! Now get out there and write your next chapter.
