Job given to internal candidate?

[PrincessOfPreschool]

Is there a way I can find out if this happened?

Applied for a job a couple of weeks before deadline. I was very well qualified for it and it was not widely advertised so I don't think there would have been loads of applicants. I didn't even get an interview and I'm a bit surprised!

Obviously there could have been several candidates better qualified but I doubt it. I'm now wondering if they already had an internal candidate in mind and maybe interviewed one person who wasn't much competition. Can that be how it works? Would I ever be able to find it out? I'm really gutted to be honest and would love to understand what went wrong. What can I do? (It was in a private school, not a teaching role).

I know it's disappointing OP especially when you seem to have spent a lot of time on your application but there's no point in dwelling on it. Truth be told they probably already had an internal candidate in mind. I wish organisations would not advertise externally if they have some one lined up internally. I've heard it said it's because they want to be fair and transparent in the process but how can allowing external applicants to waste their time on a fruitless application be fair and transparent! It's even worse I think when they let external applicants go all the way to interview stage and then present them with a rejection which was a given right from the start of the process. Anyway, rant over - Best of luck with your job search OP.

True..... I was basing my comment on the fact that OP said that it was not widely advertised and she did not think there were many applicants, however, maybe there were!

@vdbfamily indeed. There's no way of knowing unless the school tell the OP.

The school is not operating some sort of job counselling service, they are trying to fill a job vacancy and well, run a school.
OP may have felt she was perfect, but her application may not have been, or there were even more qualified candidates.

Fine to ask for feedback after an interview, never heard it done when you don’t get to interview stage.

oops, i just sent an email following this thread asking for feedback
should be interesting
i know a friend did this and did get feedback

Similar here. I've just applied for a school
Role In a different school that I already do.
Word for word i do the same job. Didn't even get an interview. Very disheartening

@PrincessOfPreschool they can give the job to anyone they want but am pretty sure that by law, they have to also advertise externally, even if they have someone already lines up.

I'm pretty sure that's not the law in England, in my current job and my last one new employees sometimes came by word of mouth due to the nature of the roles.

I don't think two unconnected businesses would be breaking the law like that.

There is no such law. Some firms may have a policy to advertise all roles but it is not law.

There's no obligation to advertise a job externally in the uK.

In fact, many jobs are never advertised and are instead filled by word of mouth, personal contacts or are even created for someone specifically.

Yeah, it's a myth that jobs have to be advertised externally. I don't know why people always seem to believe that there is. If an employer wants to appoint an internal candidate, they can do so without all of the hassle and expense of advertising the post and interviewing etc, so if it was a done deal, why bother? Unless, of course, they have a policy that all jobs must be advertised externally, but I've never worked anywhere where that's the case.

We only advertise externally if we actually want to consider external applicants.

If the closing date was only Wednesday, are you certain you haven't been shortlisted? Or might they still be deciding ?
Might they be sending out e-mails once everyone is back in on Tuesday ?

Thing is that with a job like this there is one job. You could be amazingly qualified and totally brilliant in all ways, but if someone who is amazingly qualified plus 0.5% and totally brilliant in all ways also applies then you're still #2.

I've just been involved in interviewing. We had several candidates, but there were two that fitted the role so perfectly plus that when we read the CVs they'd have had to interview dreadfully to not be suitable. We debated whether to just interview those two on the basis that it was unlikely that anyone else would get near, not because they were bad, but because they were so good.

And still we had to pick one.

This is absolutely not the case. We often only advertise internally.

When recruiting I often get 70+ applicants per role. If 10 of those are internal then we’re far more likely to choose to interview them, as they’ve already been through referencing and vetting, unless the external candidates were much stronger on paper which would be unusual.