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This is the Get a 6-Figure Job You Love Podcast. This is Episode 84, 8 Reasons You’re Not Getting Hired. Stay tuned.
Hey there, welcome to the Get a 6-Figure Job You Love Podcast. I’m your host, Natalie Fisher. I’m a certified career mindset coach who also happens to want to skip all the BS and get to what it really takes to create real results for you and your career. On this podcast, you will create real mindset shifts that will lead to big results and big changes in your career and your income. No fluff here. If you want to get a 6-figure job you love and create real concrete results in your industry and make a real impact, you’re in the right place. Are you ready? Let’s go.
All right. Hello today. So this is the question I mostly get. It’s probably the most common problem that I solve. For each individual client, this is the thing that needs figuring out, and it is “What am I doing wrong? I’m getting interviews. I keep going on interviews. Why aren’t I getting the offer? Sometimes it seems to get close and I’m almost at the offer, but I just can’t seem to seal that deal. What am I doing wrong?” That is what people always ask, which is very, very interesting. And I can understand how frustrating that is to have no idea what you’re doing wrong. And then you’re feeling frustrated and then you’re just going back doing the same things, because you don’t know what you’re doing wrong. And then getting increasingly more frustrated because nobody’s giving you any feedback.
And you can reference the episode on When Feedback is Not Available to help you to process the fact that we don’t get the feedback in this particular problem. This is not a problem where people are very helpful as far as hiring managers or recruiters usually to give us that feedback that’s actually going to help us. And they’re not experts at articulating it, so even if they were to give it, it probably wouldn’t be the most helpful for you. So this is what I do. Being in this with hundreds of people every day, this is the problem that I’m working to solve. I feel like I’m qualified to talk to you about this, so let’s get started.
So I’ve divided it up into eight reasons. And there might be more ways that I explain it in the future, because I’m always trying to figure out how to explain things more simply, more clearly, more understandably so that you can be like, “Ugh. Okay, yes, I haven’t tried that. Yes, that’s it,” right? And I like to go deep. It’s more beyond, “You said this when you should have this,” like that’s very surface level stuff. So I like to give you an insight on much deeper than that.
So the first reason that I’ve got here, and I’ve got a freebie for you also with these reasons so if you want to download that, you can click the link below and you can get a downloadable PDF that goes deeper into this topic, and you can sign up. You just have to put your email in and you can grab that. That one’s been very, very popular. And that’s why I decided to do this podcast episode actually, because everybody was like, “I need this freebie” and everybody’s been signing up for it like crazy.
So they felt an energetic, needy or desperate vibe coming from you. So this comes from people when they’re not feeling very motivated, maybe they’ve had a few rejections already and they’ve got a mentality that might go like, “I really need this. I can’t blow this opportunity. If I don’t get this, I’m screwed. I have to get this.” Right? When people are thinking like that, they’re putting pressure on themselves, which creates tense energy, which removes them from the value that they can actually offer, right?
So all the problems that they can solve, all the things that they have done, all the genius that’s within their brain isn’t there when they’re thinking and feeling in their body so tensely, “I can’t blow this. I need this,” right? And so this puts your main focus on you and what you need and why you need to get it immediately. And your mind is consumed with what happens if you don’t get it, going to worst case scenario and you’re way attached to the outcome. And it can’t be hidden. So some people will say, “Oh no, no, but I don’t let them see this. They can’t tell this is how I’m feeling. They can’t see this.” Well, if
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you’re doing that, then you’re not being genuine, right? Because if you’re hiding how you’re really feeling, then you’re not actually being genuine. And so that’s a different problem.
But people can smell it. They always can smell it, right? You could smell it. Like if you put yourself in their shoes and someone’s feeling really needy, like, “Oh my God, I’m not going to be able to feed my kids tomorrow if I don’t get this.” You’re going to feel that coming from them, or you’re going to feel some sort of energy that’s off, right? You’re not going to feel confident, empowered service oriented energy coming from them. You’re going to feel like something is off, right?
So that’s the first one. And I really described it the most clearly, I think, with this example. So say you go to buy a car and we’ve all had the experience of buying a car where we know the salesman just wants his commission, right? I remember this from a very young age actually. My parents went to a used car dealership and they were looking at a particular car. The salesman was just on it right away, he was like, “Oh yeah, yeah” and there’s this and this and just telling them everything that this car could do and what a great deal it was and how amazing it was. He didn’t ask them any questions. He was just hard selling them, right? Just in there, like telling them everything and not stopping to get curious about what they needed or anything like that. Just hard sell. And that was the first thing he was doing.
I remember that another car salesman came along and decided to tell my parents that this car was actually no good. It was burning oil. And so then my parents checked and it was, and then they were like, “Wow, that salesman…” They were picking up this vibe of him being kind of “All I want is my commission” look, buy it now before someone else does. And then it turns out that the car wasn’t any good, right? So you can tell when a salesman is really into getting his commission, right? And so that’s how you kind of come across when you go into an interview with these thoughts, when you’re like, “I need this, I can’t blow this. I have to get this,” right? And people can tell that’s where you’re at. You’re in it for you, right? Just like the salesman’s in it for his commission, right?
And so the difference, the contrast is when you meet a car salesman who still wants to make, obviously, and that’s okay. There’s nothing to be ashamed of there. Salesmen want to make sales. But they go about it a different way. And so that feels differently for the person on the receiving end and for the salesman. And then it’s just completely different interaction altogether, right? So it’s like the contrast is, the second salesman will say things like, “Oh, why are you upgrading? Or what is it that brings you in? What are you interested in? What’s most important to you in the new car? What don’t you like about your old car? What are the things you’d love to see?” right?
So they ask you a bunch of questions first, and then they start to gather this information about you. They start to get to know you, and they’re like, “Okay. Well, I think this family or this person would be really happy with this car. So I think I’m going to go show them this one first, or I’ll give them a few options based on what they’ve told me and let’s see if these are aligned with what they would want,” right? And you can see how this salesman is thinking differently because he’s like, “What do they want? What do they need? I want to give them that,” right? That’s their primary objective versus the other, which is like “Me, me, me, me. Here, look at all this great stuff. Take it now.” And that’s called selling with fear, scarcity, urgency. And people don’t like that. It’s all just BS because people can feel it. And if they do buy it, then they’re going to feel bad after, like they could have buyers remorse. They could feel like they were pressured, right? All around just not a good feeling.
So when you’re interviewing you want to interview like the second salesman who’s like, “Huh, let’s go in here. Let’s get curious. Let’s see what they need,” right? “Let’s see what they need and what I can do and how my unique skills are going to fit to help them get exactly what they need,” right? So that’s the first thing with the example of the salesman, because I feel like a lot of us can relate to that.
And so you’re basically going in there and you are presenting the interviewers with an offer to say, “Hey, I would like to do this work for you, but I need to know these things first so that I can see if we’re going
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to be a right fit. This is where I’m at,” versus “I need this. I can’t blow this. This has to work out,” right? Because that is just going to take you down the path of feeling needy and desperate, right?
And people will say… not my clients so much, but I’ll get comments a lot on YouTube or on LinkedIn, and people will say, “Well, I have bills to pay. I have a family to feed.” And it’s like, “Well, yes you do. And we don’t blame you for that, but that way, going in there with that isn’t going to help you.” Because it’s like, you can’t go into an interview and say, “Well, give me the job because I have a family to feed and I’m entitled to it because I have a family to feed.” It doesn’t work like that. They want to know why they should pick you out of all the other people, right? And they don’t pick people based on the fact that they feel sorry for them.
Someone did ask me one time, they’re like, “Well, wouldn’t you want to hire someone that you feel really, really needs the job?” And it’s like, well, you might feel bad for them, you might feel sorry for them, but hiring them based on that is not a responsible business decision, right? If you’re the CEO and you have the choice between someone who’s needy and really needs this job and that’s all you know about them because that’s the vibe you’re getting, that’s all you can really focus on when they’re talking is, “Oh, they really need this,” versus the person who comes in and they’re speaking to you about how they’re going to add value, what they’re going to do, what their plan is, what they’ve done before and they’re speaking confidently and they’re really giving you that feeling about what they’ll be doing in the role and they come in a different way, you are going to want to hire the person who’s feeling confident about themselves to deliver and who wants to put you first, right?
So we can’t blame people for how they’re going to make the decision because you would make the same decision, right? So it’s like we can’t give people jobs because we feel sorry for them, right? So that’s why this approach just doesn’t work. And people can go on and on about how it’s not fair, but that’s just entitlement. It’s like, if you want to get the job, you need to perfect these skills. You need to master these skills of letting go of your neediness in that interview so that you can actually get the job. So some of the things I say might be, they probably aren’t going to feel like a big hug or like I’m giving you a cuddle or something, but the truth is required to be able to move forward. The truth is required to be able to make a change and act differently than how you have been. So that’s the first one.
Second one is they felt an energetic doubt in your ability. So they felt that you lacked confidence and they didn’t feel that confident vibe coming from you. And normally, when someone comes in like this, they’re thinking things like this, this is what their brain looks like, they’re thinking, “I’m not really sure I’m good enough. I don’t really know if I have enough experience. I don’t really know if I can live up to their expectations. I don’t know if I can do what they want. I don’t want to over promise anything. I’m not really confident I measure up to the other candidates. They probably do have more to offer than me. I’m not really sure that I can do what they need. I don’t really know what they want, but let’s see. Let’s just go see.” Right? You’ve got that tentative kind of hesitant energy, right? And it comes off as doubtful.
So when they ask you questions, you might get squirrely or defensive or like you’re hiding something. Not on purpose of course, but that’s how it will come across, right? So a big one is when they ask you about thing that you’ve never done before, and you go into justification energy where you’re just like, “Well, I haven’t done it, but I did this, this and this. And I can do this, this and this,” right? And it’s the way that you say it, the way that you speak about it. It comes across as like, “Well, no I haven’t, but it’s okay. Trust me. I can do it this way. I can do this.” Right? Instead of just knowing in your bones that you figured things out, because you have figured things out in the past. And saying it and knowing it and believing it about yourself are two different things.
So it’s not so much about the words that you say, it’s about what you believe, like what you truly believe about yourself in your bones. And inside my program, there’s an exercise that takes you through beliefs
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and exactly where your gaps and belief are as far as these obstacles go, right? Because when there’s gap in belief, that is where your problem is. So when they feel a doubt in your abilities, they’re not going to want to take that risk to hire you, right? And it’s because you are doubting your abilities.
So number 3, they didn’t get specific enough or concrete enough information to feel confident moving forward. So they didn’t understand the impact of your past results. And they need to understand this stuff pretty quickly in an interview because an interview is maybe one hour, maximum two hour conversation where you need to make yourself understood pretty fast. So when they don’t get that information, they’re not going to keep digging for it, right? They might ask for clarification once, but they’re not going to be like, “Okay. And what impact did that have? What would happen if you weren’t there?” They’re not going to ask you those questions. It’s your job to explain that stuff to them really clearly. So if they didn’t get that, they didn’t get the info from the stories that you told, they didn’t get the full explanation of how you drive results. That didn’t have the trust that they needed, like the stories didn’t give them the trust they needed in you, which was because you weren’t giving them specific enough concrete information so that they could feel confident moving forward.
And this is a symptom of you not being clear on your results or how they had an impact or what they even were or how you achieved them, right? And if you struggle to answer questions like what was the value you created for your last employer in terms of monetary time or in terms of time or money or in other ways, if you struggle to answer those questions, that’s a red flag for yourself to be like, “Okay, I’m really not clear on this stuff so when I’m talking about it, I’m probably not being clear about it either,” right? And being specific is really what helps people grab onto that trust and be like, “Okay, this person knows,” right? And I have a podcast on this called the Specificity Sell. So if you think this might be your issue, being specific, check out that one.
Number 4, they had specific concerns that were not addressed. So you didn’t pick up on what the concerns were. Maybe because you were oblivious to the fact that they had them, so you didn’t find a way to address them. And that’s something that we cover in my program as well, is how to identify the specific concerns they have. And you were avoiding, maybe offensive, if they did try to talk about them and you didn’t even notice that you were.
So a lot of common ones are, people are concerned first. So the candidate’s concerned about maybe several jobs on their resume or just contract positions or the fact that they had a gap in their resume, right? They’re concerned about it first, and so if it gets brought up in the interview and they’re not clear about how they want to feel and how they want to think and feel and talk about it, then they talk about it hesitantly, defensively, avoidantly, and then that comes across. And then of course, they’re just like, “Yeah, that concern wasn’t addressed. We’re not really sure.” And then when they’re confused, when they’re unsure, the answer is going to be no.
So they were worried about it because you were worried about it. And then they likely said no, because well, they couldn’t trust that wasn’t a problem. Again, if you put yourself in their shoes, you can’t totally blame them, right? So your own concerns about yourself and what they might be thinking we’re mirrored right back to you. And you can tell that when they don’t hire you and this stuff keeps coming up, right? That stuff you have to deal with and you likely haven’t.
And if it keeps coming up repeatedly, you think about it repeatedly and then you start to think, “Oh no, this is the problem. This is why I’m not getting the job.” It’s not actually the problem. It’s the way that you’re thinking and feeling about that circumstance that’s creating the problem. And then it’s making the problem bigger and bigger and bigger, instead of just being like, “Okay, I’m going to look at it and I’m really going to decide how I’m going to think and feel about it. I’m going to talk about it confidently.” And that’s going to be the end of it. That’s something that I’ve helped many people through in the program as well.
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So number 5, they were not clear on who you were and what you really wanted. So sometimes, and this is from my personal experience, hiring managers will feel like, “Ugh, they just didn’t really feel aligned with this particular position. It kind of felt like they would take whatever,” right? And if they don’t feel like you really want that particular position and they don’t know why you want it, they’re not going to be inclined to pick you, right? They’re going to be like, “Well, they didn’t really seem clear on what it is they wanted to be doing, where they wanted to be spending their time, what they were really good at.”
And I’ve had people apply being like, “Well, I’ll take whatever. Whatever’s open, I’ll just interview for it.” And it’s like, “Well, do you really want to be hiring someone who will just be placed anywhere?” I mean, maybe for some things. Maybe for some entry-level positions it’s great to have someone who’s like, “Yeah, I don’t mind if I’m cleaning the bathroom or if I’m on the tail or whatever.” right? But if you’re at a higher level, they want to know that you specifically want to be doing that thing, right? And if they don’t get that feeling, then they’re going to be fuzzy on whether or not you’re the right fit because they weren’t clear on it. So you need to be clear on who you are and what you specifically want and why you want it.
So if you struggle to answer a question like, “What are you looking for specifically in terms of what work you’ll be doing every day, what results you’ll be in charge of driving every day, what type of pay environment and culture works best for you, if you’re fuzzy on answer those questions, then that’s an indicator that this is an area of weakness for you and just something that you need to answer and get clear on, get intentional on so that you can move forward.
Number 6, they felt you were not all in on the role. So I’ve had several clients who have gone to interviews and they’re good at interviewing now because they have been working with me for a while. And so their problem isn’t their ability to communicate their value or talk about their skills, but they didn’t really feel this role that they were interviewing for. Maybe they figured it out halfway through the interview. Maybe they didn’t really love it.
So I’ll use one example of one of my clients who is an expert in the supply chain space. He’s looking for a position he wanted to switch where he was working for. So he was working for a bike company, a really cool bike company. He really liked cycling so that was a really good fit for him. But he was ready to move on to a different industry, a different type of culture, a different environment where he could grow. And supply chain is needed in all sorts of industries, right? They needed his expertise in a lot of different areas. And so he interviewed for a company that was a tuna company and all they did was manufacture tuna. Even though he had the skills and the capability and everything that they would’ve needed in this role, he wasn’t really feeling it. He was not feeling excited about going to work from a really cool bike parts company to a tuna company.
He was like, “Ugh,” he was like, “It’s just boring. It doesn’t really sound fun to me.” Right? So when he was interviewing, they could likely sense that, even though he had everything needed. They were probably thinking like, “This guy’s too cool to work for us.” Right? Because he was probably feeling that too, right? So the energy is a real thing and it can really show up even when you can’t see it, because humans feel it, right? Humans are energy. That is what we are. So it’s hard, it’s impossible to hide that. So when they feel that you’re not all in on it, when you’re not really excited about it, when you’re not really aligned with it, then they would rather probably pick someone who is, right? They’d rather pick someone who is excited to come and work for them, right? And you can’t blame them there either, right? I wouldn’t want to pick someone who has all the skills and could do everything great and I know he’d be a great asset, but I really don’t think he wants to come here. I wouldn’t want to hire him either, right?
This is again, nothing he did wrong. He did great. He knew how to interview. He knew how to provide value. He could have done a great job. He just didn’t want that, and that can be sensed. And that’s
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completely fine. So in those situations, when you find yourself interviewing in a role where you’re just not feeling like you really want it and you’ll pick up on things during the interview where you’re like, “Ah, that doesn’t really sound right to me” or “I don’t really love the sound of that,” then your energy’s probably going to change. And if it doesn’t, you’re just faking it, right? You’re like, “Yeah,” just seeing what you can do, seeing if you can get it, right? And in that case, you just want to recognize, “I don’t think I’m a good fit here.” And that’s okay. So that’s reason number 6.
Reason number 7, the human to human connection was not created. So often, there’s several reasons for this, right? We need some sort of human to human connection to hire somebody, right? We have to talk to them and one way or another to decide we’re going to hire them. One reason is you sounded scripted, robotic, over rehearsed. That makes it difficult to connect with you. It makes it really hard to get an accurate feel for who you are and what you can really do, right? And it’s impossible to tell who this real person is we’d be working with because we’re just talking to a robot, basically a robot who’s very well prepared. And that’s not who… If you get hired, that’s not who you’re going to be. You’re not going to be that robot.
So that human to human connection is very difficult to form. And if it’s a phone interview or something like that, they’re probably zoning out. They’re probably zoning out, looking on their Instagram, on their LinkedIn, totally not even paying attention anymore because a robotic over rehearsed monotone voice is boring, right? And you might not know you’re doing it, but if you tend to practice a lot and give your reading or something, they’ll be able to tell. I have some really old YouTube videos where I was getting used to talking on camera. And yeah, it looks like I was reading the script and it probably doesn’t sound very entertaining. And a lot of people are saying it was boring, but that was my process. So I had to start doing it. I had to start somewhere, right? It’s like, I have this information, I want to share it, but I wasn’t very good at memorizing it all yet so I didn’t really have a good foundation to start with. And yeah, people don’t like it.
So I can tell you right now, if that’s what you’re doing, then you need to build up your confidence to know, “I know my stuff. I don’t need to have a practice or rehearse a script because I’m having a conversation as a human, right? So that’s the first reason. Second, there was no opportunity for them to connect with you in the form of a story where you could have talked about a failure or a mistake or somewhere where they could see your vulnerable side, your humility, like the fact that you’re a real person who has made mistakes before. And as I talked to hiring managers, they often tell me that they love hearing about the candidate’s mistakes. Not because they want to hear about you failing, but they want to hear about how you handled it, about who you are in a tough situation, about what you did in a tough situation, right? Because that’s a really good insight in how you’re going to be when they start working with you.
Another reason could be there wasn’t any commonalities. They just were kind of feeling, “Ah, this isn’t really my type of person. We don’t have anything in common” and you just maybe seem too professional, right? And they didn’t get to know you outside the professional front. That’s something that really adds to that experience for them. Secondly, they found you difficult to connect with. Too polished, too, perfect, too stoic, lack of imperfections. This often happens when people are trying to cover their imperfections when they don’t want to let anybody know they’re human. So when they’re asked to talk about weaknesses or mistakes, they feel like they shouldn’t be talking about those because that might hurt them. And so they try to make them sound strengths. And it’s very obvious when they do that, right? And then they don’t really give anybody anything real, right?
And then the person walks away from that interaction thinking, “I felt like that was disingenuous for some reason.” Nobody’s that perfect, right? And if they are, maybe they don’t want to work with someone that perfect. Because as they say, if you’re not making, you’re not doing enough or you’re not
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trying hard enough. Whatever the thing is, right? So the mistakes actually help you sell yourself. They help you offer up the entire version of you and it gives people a sense of who you really are. So those are actually necessary in the interview. Next thing, yeah, if they thought you were too perfect, they probably felt that was disingenuous, right? So if you don’t tell any stories about anything you did wrong, ever, never made any mistakes, never failed ever, then that doesn’t come across as human.
And then number 8 is it happens, it didn’t have anything to do with you, and anything could happen. And a lot of the times we’ll be able to tell on the outside, like if something was off on the inside of the organization, so there was nothing different that you could have done. Or there was nothing different that you would’ve wanted to have done, right? Because if you showed up and you were happy with how you showed up, you offered the best you could and they didn’t want to hire you, then they probably were not the right fit, right? But lots of things can happen where it actually really has nothing to do with you.
So here’s some examples. They could have restructured and abandoned hiring for the position. Maybe they put it on hold temporarily or permanently and either they didn’t tell you so they didn’t get back to you, they ghosted you. Or they told you they hired someone else and that you just weren’t the right fit. Sometimes that happens. Secondly, maybe they were dealing with an internal issue that was more important than hiring, or things completely changed on the inside. So hiring budgets could have changed. The company could be in trouble financially or legally. There could have been lawsuits or miscommunications internally, because yeah, if you showed up as your very best self and even though you gave a great interview and maybe you felt “This is right. This is the right fit. They’re totally going to call me” and they didn’t, if they didn’t, it wasn’t the right match.
It’s like, if you go on a date with someone and you really, really like them but they are not calling you, it means that you are not the right match, right? It doesn’t mean you did anything wrong. Because if you go by that, if you think you did something wrong, it means you would have to change who you are in order to do something right and then get the job, then you’re not being hired for the real person that you are. Same on a date. You don’t want to change who you are on a date so that you can be accepted because you’re going to have to keep that up your whole life, and that’s going to be a drag and really hard to do. So yeah, it’s totally possible that you did nothing wrong.
And I’ve heard lots of clients tell me, “Yeah, it was a bit weird. They communicated in this weird way. This person messaged me back, but this other person said this other thing.” Something was off, right? And so there’s no point in taking those situations as rejections, because it sounds like that it had nothing to do with you, right? So that’s always a possibility. So all the above reasons are the most common, right? And the safest feedback that they can give to all these reasons are things like “You were great. Thank you so much. We love meeting you, but we went with someone who had more experience. We went with someone who was a better fit.” Sometimes candidates will get feedback like, “Your stories were not strong enough.” That’s probably the “You’re not being specific enough. You didn’t have enough of X, Y, Z type of experience,” right? Whatever reason they give you. These are not the real reasons. The real reasons are the ones that I just said, right? And they’re going to take a deeper look from you at how you are going to troubleshoot these reasons.
The good news is I can help you do that. I’ve helped hundreds of people do it. I get better and better at it every day. And we work through them so quickly that when you go back out to that interview, it’s going to be a whole new, different experience for you, right? You’ll have clarity, confidence, you’ll know exactly what it is that’s happening, you go to engage people in a new way, take what you learn and just genuinely go through this process in a completely different way as a completely different person, right? Because if you’re like any of my clients, you know how to deliver results, you’re very good at what you
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do, this is just the missing link, because otherwise you wouldn’t be getting those interviews in the first place, right?
So that’s what I have for you today. And like I said, there’s a downloadable PDF with this information. The link will be in the show notes where you can grab that freebie, just enter your name and email and I’ll send it to you.
All right. Well, I hope you enjoyed today’s podcast episode. And I will talk to you next week. Don’t forget to join us inside the curriculum. If you need any support with us at all, we will get you going and you’ll have your new premium job offer within a month or two. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
Everything that you were offering and all the services and just the advice, sometimes all that whole mentality like, oh, something could be too good to be true kind of thing, that was really the only reservation I had. But after we had that one-on-one meeting and everything where you discussed everything with me, I could tell, you were very frank, very earnest, it wasn’t a show you were putting up, like this is how you are in person one-on-one. And that’s really what sold me on wanting to work alongside you.
If I were to sum it up, I would say the most common thing people come to me with is, “I’m going on interview after interview, after interview, and I’m not getting the offer. What am I doing wrong?” So I’ve put together a freebie where you can get this download completely free. It has the 8 reasons that this is happening. And I break down each reason very specifically and how to fix it. So to grab that download, the link is in the show notes. You can click on that link. You just have to enter your information. It’s called the 8 Reasons You’re Not Getting Hired. And I will help you figure that out. I will see you in the freebie. Okay talk to you soon.