Rejected by old boss - argh!

I agree with all of this especially letting the friendship drift. If he didn’t have the guts to speak to me and wouldn’t give me actual feedback, I cannot see our friendship continuing

Absolutely no way!

Hi. It’s OP here but some technical issues mean I can’t get back into the original account. Just thought I’d give an update, it’s all turned a bit sour. I asked for feedback from the generic rejection email (which he was actually copied into, I didn’t notice that on Friday) and essentially didn’t really get given anything constructive. It was just that i performed really well but they chose someone else. So no ways of improving for my next interview etc. just a simple you were good but not good enough.

We also have not spoken personally since this happened. All not great!

I really want to find a great new job and this has knocked me for ten that no one will hire me.

Haven't RTFT so this has probably been suggested already, but is there any possibility he fancies you or has developed "feelings" in some way?

I've been the boss in this situation. It was purely down to the interview on the day. My colleagues name was pretty much on the job however she performed very poorly on the day and assumed we knew what she was capable of. It's all about points. She was blown out of the water by the one other candidate who literally told us what we wanted to hear

On the upside we are still very close friends 5 years on!

Can you just ask HR for feedback for future experiences, rather than him - respond to the email asking for it and take the direct awkwardness out of the equation.

I was always told that if you can go out for a drink on Saturday with them and fire them on the Monday then you can be their boss, if however you can’t be that ruthless then you should stay distant. Maybe you’re just too friendly now and he couldn’t do that to you 🤷‍♀️

Is it that he just wants "a younger model".

It's what men do.

Don't be surprised.
It's not you.
It's them.

You are taking this far too personally.

I can imagine how you feel. Nothing worse than when you think you are a shoe in for a job and you don't get it, especially when a friend is involved. I think you need to wait for him to raise the subject tbh, see what he has to say.

I'd hope it didn't, it's not fair interviewing to factor in things like that.

He may have even voiced a conflict of interest and let the panel decide on you in order to be fair to all candidates

I think he’s up to something eg an affair and because you know him so well he knows you would find him out and that’s why.

I don't think the OP is coming back.

Scoring systems tend to be a thing in public sector / non-profit sector where there needs to be more transparency over hiring decisions. They are not really used in the private sector.

Ah, I left the work place early 2000s for many years.

I think you answered your own question!
It's been a scoring system for as long as I can remember interviewing -20 plus years

When did all this scoring system become a thing? It definitely didn’t used to be year’s ago before I took several years out to be a full time mum.

But if there’s a scoring system, they can only score the candidate on what they actually said in their interview. So even if you know someone was great in the role before, if they don’t explain that themselves in their answers, you can’t score them on it. And you have to offer the job to the highest scoring candidate.

Hi OP, sorry you're feeling so hurt by this. It does sound like you feel too close to him as a friend. One of the most important things in leadership is to be able to keep people at an arm's length and be respectful and decent but not friends.

There are many people I've had in my teams who i like but needed to create some distance from because they wanted a friendship. It's not personal, just the best way to avoiding confusion/expectations of favourable treatment and perception of favouritism.

It sucks! But possible that your old boss had a similar thought process x

Agreed. Don’t take this personally OP, maintain your good friendship with your old boss, a valuable connection and a friend

This sounds to me like he values your friendship and perhaps prefers someone he doesn’t have a friendship with as his employee. If he didn’t think you were professional and good at your job he wouldn’t have stayed friends with you. Sometimes bosses don’t have time for pleasantries and chit chat and he doesn’t want to be in a situation where he comes across as abrupt to a friend when he’s really just focused on business . I think I’d feel the same. Perhaps he can refer you for another great role?

I wouldn’t want a close friend working for me, if that’s what you’ve become.

It also wouldn’t be a very good look for him at the company if he gave the impression of just hiring whoever he’s closest to, even with your previous collaboration in mind.

This.

The woman he's hired will be younger than you, attractive, and less experienced.

I'd put money on it.

Nothing to do with you at all. Decision made with dick not brain.

Depending on which way it goes, the job may be made available again soon. I had a boss who went down this route once and he fired the girl after a month when she still couldn't pronounce the company name correctly when taking calls. And yes, she was a native and native speaker.

It would be interesting to know who got the job. Sometimes the results are driven by HR based on criteria needed. About a year ago, I worked in HR on a short temp contract assisting with recruitment and when vetting applications they were obsessed with (a) if the candidate was female (b) if she wasn't white (c) if she wasn't heterosexual. The HR director first told us to separate the applicants by gender (the male ones didn't make the shortlist), then she wanted the women divided by race which led to lots of uncomfortable conversations and assumptions as one candidate had a Brazilian sounding name (we had to google) and then there was a huge discussion as to whether she would be black as there was no trace of her on LinkedIn and she hadn't disclosed her racial demographic.

When discussing this later at lunchtime, my co-worker told me that 'this was how it was done these days' and that we shouldn't discuss it outside of work. When no I mentioned that it felt like social engineering, she said no - it was positive discrimination and that everyone was doing it.

Maybe your boss didn't get to make the final decision?

I think with every update the Op showed why it would have been a really bad idea and it wouldn't have worked. She clearly sees herself as a close friend and that would have so many recipes for disaster.

Op, I think your former boss has actually done everything right. He would have been the wrong person to contact you to say you had or hadn't got the job. He's given you space to lick your wounds. Honestly I don't think he could say anything that would make you feel better at the moment, so he's better to say nothing.
He may well have talked about it with HR and asked for advice. And I'm sure this is what they would have said to do.

If you do want feedback, go through HR. Give him the compliment of being as professional as he's been. Then you don't mention how disappointed you were, run down or ask about the successful candidate etc.
This is separate from your friendship and if you want to keep your friendship, you need to keep it separate.

There is nothing wrong in asking for some feedback to find out why you did not get the job. It could be someone more fitting applied to the role or perhaps he thought of you as a friend and thought better not to work together.