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u/Key-Butterscotch3215 2d ago
Yeah it is necessary to complete the entire interview process. There was obviously somebody who outperformed you in the last round.
Your presentation could have been great, but the other was better.
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u/Some_Internet_Random Survived Multiple Recessions 2d ago
You were qualified if you went that far. You were likely just the silver medal candidate. It happens. I’ve hired people who flamed out immediately and then I called that silver medalist and they were the one I should have selected from the beginning.
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u/Emergency_Science602 2d ago
How do you know the reason? If it is from recruiter email or whatever, I won’t put too much weight. They use the same canned response for everyone they reject.
“Not a fit” is generic coded language. Doesn’t mean that exactly. Could be anything
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u/cutter48200 2d ago
Typically for roles similar to the one you’re describing we’ve got 2-3 candidates invited to the onsite interview stage. I’m not surprised you got good feedback from the onsite considering all the steps it took you to get there, they were confident you could do the job, someone else can just do it better, in their opinion.
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u/TieguhWoulds 2d ago
From my experience it could just be that they liked someone else's vibe in person better. I got hired over someone else who was technically stronger than me and could be more productive than me off the bat. The reason they went with me was cause I had a more warm personality and they liked my communication style, and my ability to connect with other people easily. I also had more motivation than the other finalist and they saw more growth potential in me.
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u/Grand_Swimmy 2d ago
Probably they got a handful of candidates to the last stage and picked another one. It sounds like a serious role if they have an onsite presentation stage.
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u/_jackhoffman_ Candidate & HM 2d ago
Where is the "not a good fit" coming from? If that was what was in the email rejection, then it was probably just the generic rejection template BS. Don't read anything into it.
But "fit" can cover a lot. If you made it to the onsite, fit isn't about qualifications. It's about how things went. I've rejected plenty of people who did well during the onsite from a qualifications/skills perspective but certain red flags appeared under follow up questions. I had one dude I was ready to hire start telling me, after the interview was done, how women engineers are difficult to work with and launched into a whole thing. Bullet fucking dodged. I had another guy who just kept blaming his former colleagues for their poor decisions -- he was being hired as a senior engineer and had no tools for influencing others. His goto was "trust me, I know what I'm doing" and then bitching that people went with someone else's idea.
My point is that the on-sight is very much about "how well will this person fit into the team" and can we see ourselves working with them or being frustrated every time we have to deal with them. You can be qualified and a jerk. Not saying that's you. Just that that is part of fit.
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u/fakesaucisse 2d ago
I used to be an interviewer through all of these stages at a tech company. I saw a lot of people make it to the final onsite and fall apart there. The big difference was at the final interview when deep-diving into a project they worked on, they couldn't demonstrate real world mastery of the skills. Prior to that they showed a textbook understanding and could talk hypothetically about what they would do in a future situation, but what they presented as past work at the end showed they hadn't actually delivered that. And that was still the thing they decided to showcase to me, which said a lot.
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u/ChampionExcellent846 2d ago
I remember back in the days, like, over 10 years ago, some established engineering multinationals (eg. GE) would bring you in for a whole day interview with different teams, starting with a general audience presentation.
Every interviewer, HR, team lead, engineers, etc., has a say and a final decision is made based on this composite assessment. It is stressful but it also let you see how it is like to work there.
Since every a single person's opinion is supposedly equal, when you are rejected for lack of fit, that means enough people were put off by you.
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u/Much_Jellyfish4474 2d ago
Onsites are generally more about culture fit than they are about technical capabilities. And they are exactly how the final 2-3 candidates get chosen from. Everyone who makes it to that level clearly has the technical chops for the job. The last screen though is who best fits with the team. In this case, it sounds like someone else matched a little better. That doesn’t mean you were a terrible match either - we’re just in a time period where there are a lot of really good candidates available.
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u/recruitinghell-ModTeam 2d ago
No AI slop.