Manager saw my Teams message - AIBU

See above.

Wrong.
'Not private' means accessible to company employees with the right security clearance. Not all and sundry.
Reading over shoulder in my org would get you a formal written warning and, on subsequent attempts, a disciplinary. It's not acceptable.
Especially as your OWN emails/messages may contain private information, such as health details that are shared with the relevant department but not even your line manager or team.
Or details of investigations regarding whistleblowing investigations, reports against your own management etc that they should not see.
Even PA's are bound by strict confidentiality agreements.

Resilience and calm reactions are skills needed to progress in any career

well you'd think so. Plenty of overconfident men prove quite the opposite, though.

I don't think a lot of respondents on this thread have seen a lot of the messages that get bandied around on Teams! People are allowed to moan, and they do. At my firm Teams messages get deleted after a short time anyway, if it's important you put it on an email, which of course this wouldn't be. The OP is allowed to be disappointed and share that with a trusted colleague (who she encouraged to go for a promotion).

Lots of quite nasty comments on here, but lots of constructive ones, too.

Find a mentor, preferably outside your company and ask for interview coaching and practice.

Once you understand that there is no expectation of confidentiality on Teams messenger with a work account you are much less likely to get yourself into pickles.

Nothing on a work computer is private.

If she'd gone through someone's phone or personal computer, that would different.

Why was your line manager reading other people's messages OP? What a breach of confidence.
Now you know not to write things down.
You are entitled to your opinion. And you did nothing wrong , you were encouraging colleague to apply!

...and during actual work with the manager reading the exchanges😅

I think it's fine to state out loud that the process is rarely fair and is often about a face that fits not competences

Just maybe not on a work computer

I dont think oyu read what OP said that the job went to a more popular candidate and maybe you have limited experiences in management as very often there are no 'scores' and there is always a lot of room for bias.

@lifeispainauchocolat Absolutely, I didn't get a job a few times because I was more expensive and the job went to a beginner (cheap) candidate, and ofc they would not have said that in the feedback, so the stuff I got was along the lines "you could have said one more sentence in question 4" and it was laughable, I could tell they were making random stuff on the spot. Other times the job went to the better person and it's fine, but I think it's fine to state out loud that the process is rarely fair and is often about a face that fits not competences.

@Wouldyouguess I know what you're saying about feedback, but often you have to say something and interview performance is an easy thing to latch on to.

The thing about having experience is that it's not the be all and end all of being good at a particular job. I used to work in retail management and while I was excellent at the actual tasks at hand, I was pretty pants at networking and colleague relationships and I know it definitely held me back.

Unfortunately you can't always win everything - there are always going to be people who interview better, or who are more popular, or who "fit" more than you do. There's not much that can be done about it, sadly.

What does your contract say in regard to emails, office space, and company material? If the teams messages were sent using a platform they own, then they may have a right to look through it. Read your contract.

I think you are being unreasonable and don't understand the interview process at all. It's a scoring system with points per question. If someone else said better things then they will have scored higher than you. I'm saying this from experience of interviewing staff. You can't just make up the scores.

I think your supervisor is probably looking ‘down’ because she’s disappointed that you haven’t taken on board the comments made at your last interview. And possibly because she’s offended that you would take the view you have when she supported you in your bid for promotion.

I’m with others here, I think you should go for the job if it’s not too late, and if you’re invited for interview, take seriously the comments made last time, and be better prepared when you have another crack at it. I also wouldn’t let things hang in the air with your supervisor. If she hasn’t mentioned it, then maybe you should take the bull by the horns and do so yourself - that will give you an opportunity to explain your reasoning and ask her opinion.

@lifeispainauchocolat I agree, just stated that sadly most jobs go to people who are liked- so competences don't have much to do with it and OP was right to be upset and her comment was not wrong or far off reality either.
I suppose the 'feedback' triggered me, because it's one of the things that piss me off in general. Feedback that is of exactly zero value, because at the end of the day it depends whom the boss likes more. And sometimes ot does not matter what you do, there will be always someone more popular in the contest.

The other candidate did not have the experience, but had the 'name'. It's unfair and I feel for OP as people pile on her telling her to work on her interview techniques, but the reality was that it did not matter what she would have done at the interview, the job would still have gone to the other person.

Some fields are worse for it than others (show business, law, etc), it's a shame we all have to pretend like it's about actual skill, not about who knows who.

I think the professional ethics of this are relevant but they are a tangent to the point I was making - pp suggested that OP had a reasonable expectation that these messages would be private and I am reminding posters that this isn't the case. I imagine that the line manager could have legitimately requested the transcript of the chat if she so wished.

By that same token perhaps OP's colleague should have clocked that it was unwise to have this particular chat window open on their desktop when OP's line manager was in the office, even if he was too unobservant to realise she was behind him until it was too late.

Maybe I wasn't clear - I wasn't suggesting OP was difficult or disagreeable, I was just trying to point out that your ability to network can be just as important as your ability to do the actual tasks at hand.

For example, if you have two interview candidates with the same amount of experience and the same qualifications, you need some way of deciding which one gets the promotion, and often it's networking that cinches the deal in many industries.

I'm someone that really struggles with networking and chatting with senior managers and other stuff - and I know it''s something that's held me back in the past. Being able to just go out there and network and get your name heard is an important skill to have.

EDIT: It's not necessarily about evening drinks either. Lots of jobs don't network in that way.

I think you've had a strange reaction to the rejection. Instead of reflecting on what you could have done better in the interview, you've decided you didn't get the job because your face doesn't fit. I wonder if that's because its easier to accept it that way - then it's not your "fault"?

I really think you should apply for the new secondment and then take as much coaching/practice as you possibly can from your supervisor or a mentor to help you with the interview. It sounds like that's the only thing that went wrong and you're well liked and respected for the work you do.

But at the same time, colleague A has messenger or emails open, I am not peaking over their shoulder to read the content, unless I'm a nosy b...
There are people within the company who have or can have access to emails and chats and search history and that is OK. Reading email or chat exchanges of other people is bizarre and equally unprofessional.

Networking appears to be seriously misunderstood on this thread.

It's not about kissing ass and chewing the hear off senior management & laughing at their jokes.

Do people really think most managers aren't put off by that shit?

Really networking is about building connections, learning from other people, sharing experiences that can be mutually beneficial, having people to bounce things off when considering change or having to deal with something difficult. It's about looking at the organisation as a whole rather than just your little role in it.

But you are still not recognising that it is your interview performance that isn’t working for you. This is something you can work on , and will need to work on unless you want to spend the rest of your career with growing resentment about not progressing and watching other people moving up the ladder.

Nothing that you write on email or in Teams with a work account is private. A lot of people don't seem to realise this.

Of course it's reasonable to have a moan but if you want privacy you need to do so on a private device with a service using end-to-end encryption, such as WhatsApp - just as you would arrange to meet a friend for a cathartic bitchfest in a coffee shop or bar off site rather than ranting in the works canteen.

@lifeispainauchocolat But if OP was that difficult her manager would not encourage her to go for the job. The job was, as she herself admitted, lined up for someone more popular who people 'talk about' in the company. So OP was spot on with her comment about the interview process. There is a difference between soemone who is a disagreeable brute and someone who may not be able to spend evenings having drinks with the management and is missing out on opportunities.

I think you’re having a bad reaction to rejection.

It’s now a decision on whether you shake off the self pity and have a grown up conversation to really understand how you can put yourself in a better position next time.

Or leave.