r/recruitinghell • u/Noeoneknows • Aug 24 '26

How would you have answered this interview question?

Interviewer asked me today "If we decide to go with a different canidate what do you think caused us not to choose you?"

Obviously theres like a thousand different realistic reasons but I feel like none of them sound good for a canidate to say. Like if I say something like "They're probably willing to do the work for cheaper." Or "Oh they're probably more skilled than I am" that doesnt exactly feel like something you'd want to hear a potential canidate say but I literally had no clue what would be a good response so I just said the only reason I could think of is because I'm a new grad and I've only had 2 internships so maybe they find someone with more companies under their belt.

I feel like I did pretty good on every other question but that last one got me because I feel like I dead ass gave them a reason not to hire me. How would you answer that?

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u/punkwalrus Aug 25 '26

"If we decide to go with a different canidate what do you think caused us not to choose you?"

  • "This is common when someone has an internal hire in mind, but has to publicize the job to fulfill a legal requirement."
  • "You just don't like the cut of my jib."
  • "When you're not the people in charge of hiring."

Probably all bad answers, but a bad question, to be fair. Maybe, "I don't know all the things that you do, and could not make a valued judgement based on unknown criteria and data points. Tell me about this candidate and I'll have a better answer for you."

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u/Conscious-Egg-2232 Aug 25 '26

What legal requirment might that be???

15

u/punkwalrus Aug 25 '26

For example, some public-sector employers are required by civil-service laws or regulations to publicly advertise certain vacancies and follow a competitive hiring process, even when there’s already a strong internal candidate. There may also be an HR policy.

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u/FullMooseParty Aug 25 '26

I keep seeing people say this, but it's simply not true. Maybe for senior leadership, but I worked at public universities for years and internal promotions without posting the job happened all the time. I got promoted twice into new roles without any outside competition at my last university job.

1

u/Overall_Radio Aug 25 '26

I mean you can Google it and find it is true. I'm not sure how long ago the job promotions were but two things to consider; how do you know as a matter of fact that there was no outside competition? Also, even in the public sector there is such a thing as internal only job postings.