AIBU to be confused about interview rejection reason

I'm sorry you didn't get the job. As you know, in schools it's important that teams work well together. It's possible they just didn't feel you'd fit as well into the team as others they interviewed. They're obviously not going to tell you that though.

Keep your chin up, that might not have been a good fit but your next one may!

I’d read that as you ‘came 2nd’ and would have been offered the role but were trumped my someone with more relevant experience

They haven’t said she was barred from the position 😂

Presumably your experience was on your CV/application form?

If so, they were wankers for interviewing you and wasting your time. Why would they interview someone for a job, who is barred from the position by this factor? Probably they were box ticking and then gave it to someone who had some sort of foot in the door.

I’ve had similar feedback before and it is very frustrating. You cannot account for someone else’s better experience/knowledge; you can only do your best. I have, however, just been offered a really good job - better than any I’ve tried for before - and I’m sure you will too. The right one is out there x

If the shortlisting and interview process for schools is anything like local government (which I work in) - it is actually very prescriptive and a series of ticking boxes and having to ask exactly the same question etc.. from everyone. In an effort to remove interviewer bias and be completely transparent etc…. I get it - but it makes it really hard because we literally can’t employ someone who didn’t tick a particular box in the interview or app form or if someone else ‘scored’ more in the box (even if we liked the person better) - it’s a bit of a game really - sounds like they really liked you but someone else got a bigger score so they had to go with them. Onward and upward I guess!

Unless you’re offsite there will be student contact.

There are significant difference between the challenges facing specialist and mainstream. You’ve not touched on the main ones.

Because it likely isn’t essential or even necessarily desirable but if all candidates are equal you start looking beyond what you requested. I work in a school and was offered the job due to experience working for the LA - not specified but it was something the others didn’t have so they went with it.

I feel for you as had a similar experience where I didn’t get offered a job. The feedback was basically that I hadn’t experience at that level but they knew that from my application which was a little bit frustrating but I put it down to experience x

It's unfair to give this lack of specific experience as the reason for not giving you the role when this wasn't specified in the desirable or essential criteria.

They aren't supposed to randomly make up other criteria, they are supposed to judge candidates against the set items.

They should have been more vague in their feedback I think

Its not that they "can't" take someone without the experience, it's that this time they had an equally strong candidate who did have the experience. That candidate might have interviewed terribly and OP could have demonstrated that she had a really good understanding, despite the lack of experience, but they didn't.

It is different though. Interactions with parents and students will be completely different, funding is different, behaviour management is different, the timing of and processes around intake are different. Nothing you can't deal with I'm sure, but they wanted to know you'd thought about it.

I actually got the same question when I interviewed for an admin job in a grammar school, and my own answer made me realise I really didn't want the job 🤣

It's not rubbish. If you can't take someone because they didn't have the relevant experience and their CV didn't show the relevant experience it's twatty behaviour to waste everyone's time. The feedback should have been we really liked your CV even though some relevant experience was missing, however someone interviewed who matched in all areas.

I think they expected you to demonstrate an understanding of the different challenges you might face, in lieu of experience in the sector. On another day, when no one had that experience, you might have got it.

Or it might be flannel because they don't think you'll gel with the team, or something. They can't say you did brilliantly but we didn't like you.

Fwiw, our HR advisors say it's best not to give feedback and save yourself the hassle.

I think at least 50% of the time if you got great interview feedback but didn't get the job, the job was effectively someone else's from the start. This is particularly true in the public sector where "fairness" means everything goes out to advert even if there's a great internal candidate they're desperate to appoint. I once had the feedback that I was appointable, a close second etc; and later found out that they appointed someone who had been doing the job on a temporary basis for six months already. Such a waste of everyone's time in the name of "fairness".

I agree, but then the feedback should be "there was an applicant who had x experience who also performed well in interview. So that was why we offered the job to them, despite your excellent interview."

That's rubbish, why have interviews at all or just pick the top CV? At the start of interviews I usually have a candidate that looks best on paper they don't always get the job. I expect they had at least two candidates with CVs that met the criteria for interview that on the day presented at a similar level, when looking for a point of difference one with special school experience was more suited. But if the one with experience had in other ways interviewed badly they would have probably go the job.

It makes a lot of sense to keep criteria broad and encourage a decent number of applications. Men are said to think if they can do half of them they may as well apply, with women much less likely to apply unless they can do almost all.

From the other side of this, it's really hard to give 'constructive' feedback to an unsuccessful candidate who ticked all the boxes and gave a very good interview and who you'd have employed without hesitation...if only candidate B hadn't turned up and blown you away. Because feedback can only be about the performance of the person you're giving it to, and you can't wax lyrical about someone else. I'd imagine they had nothing constructive for you, because on another day, without super duper experienced candidate B, you'd have got it. So there's nothing you need to do differently. It's just bad luck sometimes.

OP, I have had this a number of times in the public sector, 'Fantastic interview, great interview, can't give you any feedback on how to improve, but you don't have experience in X and we really need someone with experience of X'. Even though I was completely explicit in my application that I did not have experience of X. Even to the point of having a header on my application saying 'X' and then writing underneath, ' I do not have experience of X'.

I think it is a public sector thing where they feel that have to interview a certain number of candidates so people like you and me are brought in as interview collateral damage so they can tell HR it was a fair and competitive interview process.

Not very fair on those of us who waste preparation time and hope (and annual leave) on interviews we don't have a chance of getting.

I'm trying to think what the admin at our special school has to do that a regular school admin person couldn't do (or pick up in 5 mins)
And I can't really think of anything. It's the same job just a different type of school.

Fair enough she will hear different language and have to liaise with different specialists but realistically it's all admin based tasks.

I suppose she has to order things like special equipment but it's not rocket science.

🤨

I’m not sure they were saying it is a must, more basically telling you someone else had that experience but also you were unable to articulate the particular challenges they face. However had no one applied with experience in that arena, you’d maybe have got it.