Didn’t get promoted and am devastated - please help

[downcast]

I’ve been in my current role for nearly three years. An opportunity to apply for promotion came up recently as two staff left, and my manager strongly encouraged me to go for it, which I did. Given his encouragement and the fact there were two roles I felt I had a good chance. However, after not hearing back for several weeks after my interview I was told that both jobs went to external candidates and am completely devastated. I adore my job, felt ready for more seniority and opportunities like this come round quite rarely as it’s a smallish company.

My manager is now saying he wants to give me feedback as he wants to help me progress my career, but that doesn’t ring true when he’s just given not one but two jobs to other people. I know my experience more than matched the role - it was a small step up in seniority but not by much. I also believe I’m good at my job - I am experienced and consistently get excellent feedback from clients and managers. I put in huge amounts of effort and some unpaid overtime as I have a genuine passion for what I do.

I’m at a loss over how to respond, as I can’t face the sort of meeting he’s proposing when I feel so deflated and frankly heartbroken. Listening to him explaining why I didn’t get the role will just feel like another kick in the teeth and I’m not sure I’m strong enough mentally to deal with that right now. I’ve been on the verge of tears in the office for the last week and am struggling to feel engaged in my work. I also feel quite depressed. What would you do?

This is total rubbish 😂

It's normal to offer feedback, in fact it would be remiss of him NOT to offer it.

Leave. This happened to me once. I was encouraged to apply for a new role, spent several days including an entire weekend of my own time putting together a 12 month plan that they’d asked me to do as part of the process only for them to let me know within a day of submitting it that they’d found an external candidate who was a better fit. Realised their plan was always to hire the external person and they’d just asked me to apply to cover their own arses as the new employee required visa sponsorship and I was effectively used so they could document that they’d made some attempt at looking for a candidate that didn’t require it first. It left me with ill feeling but ended up being the kick up the arse I needed as I left and found a better job within weeks.

i feel for you OP.

i had this happen 2 times at the same company - recommended to apply for the same role on 2 occasions.

first time they decided they wanted someone with more experience - fair enough, i could understand that.

second time (because the first guy only lasted about 4 months), i still didn't get it, because after the interviews, they then decided they wanted it to be a more junior role.

honestly, it was the final kick to show me i needed to be much more selfish about how i manage my career.

i've accepted that quiet competence is almost never rewarded these days.

additionally, internal moves are almost always paid at lower rates than external hires (despite internal moves costing much much less in recruitment costs).

take a deep breath, set yourself, take the feedback, be honest with your manager about how you feel overlooked and undervalued, and tell him that you think you're now better off looking somewhere else.

then get out there and find something great!

Take the feedback and think about it carefully, weighing up whether there are things to learn from it or whether your manager is covering his back and justifying his decision. Everyone, no matter how good they are at their job, has something they can improve.

There may be things going on in the company that you know nothing about. The company may be developing and he may have another, better, role in mind for you. He may also be aware of upcoming structural changes in which the roles he's just recruited for are likely to be cut. This has happened to me in the past. I was passed over for a promotion because my manager know that there was shortly going to be a better vacancy for which I'd be a shoe-in.

If you think the feedback is rubbish and you think your boss behaved unfairly and is covering his back, consider a formal complaint and start looking for work elsewhere.

Take the feedback - it may be insightful.

and to offer a manager’s perspective, the two other candidates may have brought much needed skills in with them, things the company didn’t realise they wanted or needed until the interview process showed them differently. You are already in the company to they have access to all your skills; the others may be bribing additional experience that you simply don’t have yet.

This

Look we lose some and we win some, dealing with rejection is something we need to learn at school. Yes, it's disheartening but that's life. Pick yourself up and something else will come along if that's what you are now on the look out for!

OP I get that you're upset but it's actually a rare opportunity to receive such individualised feedback. If your priority really is eventually being promoted then the productive and professional thing to do is to take the feedback. You can then decide what to do with that feedback be that apply again when something comes up or apply externally. Don't expect such investment or detailed feedback from any external application though.

My DH applied within his workplace for a management position and didn't get it. However on having a similar feedback meeting it turned out they'd more or less created another role for him. The role he was declined for was much more of a people-managing role whereas the role he now has is more of a technical operations role. Both DH and I would say without hesitation that he is so much better suited to this. He thrives in his new role. His company turning him down for the original job wasn't about not valuing him. It turns out that they valued him and understood him so much that they knew better than he did what he was perfect for.

The only reasonable thing to do OP if you are a professional and you have any faith in this company is to have this meeting and hear them out. You really don't know yet what the end result might be.

I honestly agree with this.

Take the feedback, toughen up a little, and then decide what to do.

The adult thing to do would be to go for the feedback on offer.
You may not know what marking criteria was used and the feedback may put you in good stead for any future promotion opportunities.

Your first response is almost always the wrong one. Never respond in the heat of the moment, never fire off an email that you will regret. Take a day to steal yourself.
Then email and ask for the meeting to be scheduled for next week, so you have some time to process your response.

Take the feedback graciously. Make notes, discuss it with a trusted friend/colleague and take from it what you choose. Then start looking for new opportunities.
At this point, you can use what you have learned and take it forward. You can also remain in your current position until you find the perfect long term opportunity.

Good luck!! 🤞

The adult thing to do would be to go for the feedback on offer.
You may not know what marking criteria was used and the feedback may put you in good stead for any future promotion opportunities.

Please don't cut off your nose to spite your face by allowing your emotions to rule your behaviour. Of course getting feedback on why you did not get the job won't be particularly pleasant. No-one would enjoy this, absolutely no one one earth would look forward to this.

However It will help you judge if your manager geuinely wants you to succeed. When you hear his feedback, give it some time and really think about what he says. Does it feel like it is true or is it an excuse. If it is true (however painful it is for you to hear), then take on board what is said and work with your manager to overcome whatever the barrier was

You can also use the feedback and some time to decide if you think you need to change employer or if you feel you can continue where you are. This is certainly something for you to consider, but you can't do that without all of the information you need, some of that important information is why you weren't offered the promotion

I will give a recent example from my work to help you understand why jobs might not always go the person in the current place of work who is looking for a promotion or why they might and why it is sometimes dwn to a bit of luck as well as hard work and effort.

We recently had someone apply for a role who is currently a couple of grades below the advertised role. It was open internally and externally for applications but we only received a couple of very unsuitable applications from external candidates for various reasons.

The internal candidate is absolutely excellent at his current job and incredibly competent but he wrote a very poor application and frankly if he had not been an internal candidate whose work we already knew and if we had a better pool of applicants to choose from, we would not have interviewed him at all

However we did interview him, due to the lask of other good applications, and at interview he did a lot better, but not absolutely stellar. He was pretty lucky that we had no good candidates from external appplicants. Had we had a better pool of applicants he definitely would not have got the job. Frankly his application and even his interview could have been better and we did give him specific feedback as to why that was but he was very lucky that we have had trouble filling the role with no other viable applicants and in fact felt that he could do the job, despite the quality of his application.

So although we gave him the role in the end and he will probably do it very well, even one other excellent candidate would probably have meant he wasn't offered the role. He was lucky in this instance but could easily not have been.

He was also lucky that we gave him feedback on his application and how lucky he was to have been offered the role, which will hopefully help him in other future applications. This feedback was to help him, not us, though I doubt he liked hearing it much

I completely understand the investing a lot of personal worth in your work, but yes, as others have said, that's worth working on. I managed to pull back a lot at work (I was doing so much unpaid overtime and so exhausted, never said no etc.) by telling myself that, if I had died yesterday - much as people would be sad - I'd have been replaced within a week or two. Gave me much needed perspective. I still pride myself on doing a good job, but I think I do an even better one now I know to protect myself and my health. And so I don't take stuff like promotions personally.

If you can, I would definitely get the feedback from your manager. Could you say you have a few projects you'd like to tie up and suggest a date for a meeting next week or the week after?

I am sorry this happened and it is very disappointing for you, but I feel that you are taking this way too hard!

so another candidate was chosen… it happens, it takes nothing away from your skill set or the fact that your manager thought you’d be able to get these jobs! That is positive, even if you did not get it

the fact that you are so extremely upset and emotionally invested shows that maybe it is time to get a bit more of a life outside your work? It feels like maybe your entire self worth is hinging on your job? It is just a job, it does not define who you are

if I wear you I would take some time to process this and rethink how much of yourself you give to this job

As a manager I've been in your managers position. In my case I knew my staff could do the job but their interview didn't go well and HR were insisting on a fair process and the external candidate had all the right qualifications and experience plus they interviewed really well.

Could it be this? If you the feedback might be about interview skills. It is hard but it is also important to be fair to all applicants and I know in the past there were interviews which were just wasting the external candidates time as the job was going to the internal candidate. It almost happened to my husband, it was a big opportunity for him and his new boss admitted that an internal candidate had virtually been guaranteed the job and my husband just aced the interview. It is hard to be fair to everyone but you can learn interview skills if that is the issue. Good luck for the next vacancy.

This is an excellent post and very true!

I would ask for written feedback in the first instance to allow for reflection before a meeting.

I would have hated someone to tell me this a few months ago, but hear me out. Over the past 9 months I have had 3 interviews for the next banding at work. It is fairly senior and have been in different parts of the company so loads of prep and all require presentations at this level. I didnt get any of them, the last one being early March.

Like you I felt really down, I actually ended up taking a few days off as similarly teary and feeling depressed. I felt I needed to leave as was never going to progress.

Long story short, I found an unofficial secondment in a team I was interested in (my substantive boss is awesome and lent me out for free so I wouldnt appear on headcount) as a sideways step. That has now led to a permanent promotion that is a band higher than the ones I was rejected at.

Out of all of them, this is the best one by far, not just in terms of money or seniority but job satisfaction too. I honestly believe now getting those other roles would have been wrong for me though I was deveststed at the time.

This job wasnt the one for you, there is a better fit out there. Go to the feedback meeting. I didnt want to for the last one, but I did, was gracious, pretended I was fine and was praised for my professionalism. If you want to stay where you are, no sense in burning bridges.

It SUCKS I totally get that. Schedule the feedback for a week or so. Ignore the posters having a go at you for being too invested. Rightly or wrongly for some of us our work is tied up to our self esteem and sense of worth so rejection feels deeply personal. You are definitely not alone in feeling that way. Good luck.

I think you need to put your shoulders back take a deep breath and have the most brutally honest conversation possible with your manager if you want to learn and grow from this

It's entirely possible they just wanted some fresh energy - which wouldn't be your 'fault' - but you may have weaknesses you could improve on.

As an external candidate who has lost out SO MANY times in big organisations to internal candidates I feel the bias is usually very strongly in favour of the internal candidate who feels they 'deserve' the role.

I've been in situations where the external candidate got the job and then proved to be a great coach to the internal candidate who didn't get the job, helping them to develop and learn a lot so they were better prepared for the next chance to step up. Learning to cope with 'failure' is a vital skill, and you'll hopefully learn to reframe it as an opportunity for you rather than a reason to go to pieces. Likewise you'll come to a point where you realise you don't have to all the extra hours to prove yourself and get ahead and that good leadership isn't about that kind of thing. These are all important steps to come and the first step is drying your tears and getting the feedback.

This, and to say that the OP’s manager made a poor decision when you know nothing about the other candidates is quite absurd.

A couple of questions.

Are the external candidates male?

Are you an older woman?

I've suffered from both sexism and ageism in the workplace, despite being brilliant at my job. Inevitably, the new starters aren't as good and then I'm asked to help out. Which is a total piss-take.

@downcast I've been there. Like you I wasn't complacent in my prep, I did an excellent presentation and wasn't successful. The kicker being they didn't fill the role and I subsequently ended up doing it for 18 months and nailed it - great client engagement, feedback, successfully managed a team of 20+ through upheaval and more restructuring. Role never became permanent and more changes broke up a great team. I moved at level to another, unrelated organisation. Within 6 months I was acting in a higher role for 6 months. When that role was advertised (after others acting in it too) I was successful. I moved up to a role higher than the one I didn't get in the other place in less than 18 months.

As others have said, listen to the feedback. Sometimes IME internal candidates can be caught up in the doing and how processes work and don't demonstrate the leadership skills that are being looked for (as an example). So, as hard as it is to do, hear your manager out on what they were looking for. Hopefully the feedback will be really handy for when you interview for other roles. I would definitely be looking to move organisations if you've outgrown your current role. From my experience, you are not going to move up where you are.

Exact same thing happened to me OP - I went through the exact same thing twice.

I took the rejection badly for the pure reason that I had been literally covering the role for months already and had also been encouraged to apply by my boss who had the decision to make the hire. Her reason for rejection was because the external candidates had more experience than me. Couldn’t really prove or disprove it.

All worked out in the end as I left soon after - have a way better role and I am now earning almost 3 times the salary too.

I am however absolutely delighted to also add that the external candidates they hired both only stayed for a matter of weeks whilst awaiting other job offers.