Strange reason for being turned down. Any other good ones?
After a few days, I got an email, and while it was very positive on my technical/engineering abilities, ultimately they thought I was "too mature" for the team and might not be a good fit. I was somewhat disappointed, as I liked these guys and thought they had an idea that I could really dig deep into, but I can understand the need to make sure the team is clicking at close to optimal efficiency as possible. I just have never had the "too mature" reason used before. My thoughts at this point are that either:
A) They felt that was an easy way to say they weren't really interested. Strange, but that's ok.
B) They were not happy with the potential for me to leave after a few months. Very legitimate, but there's always some flexibility and we could have talked some more about it and changed plans.
C) I just was too serious during the interview process, and didn't seem like I could work comfortably with the team. I think this is very possible, but usually when interviewing it seems hard to get too comfortable. There's a lot of evaluation going on from both sides, and you want to put your best face forward. For me that usually means trying to look capable and professional.
Anyway, I think they're a great company and will blow up in the next few years, but this just struck me as a strange one, so I thought I would cheer myself up and see if anyone else had any funny or weird stories about interviews.
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It's sort of the reason why I found it to be such a weird response, only because it seems an interview is not necessarily the best place to judge how someone acts personality-wise once they've integrated into a team and become comfortable.
Someone else brought up the age discrimination thing to me, but honestly even if that was the case these are good people and I think as a founder of a company you do need to make the best decision you can for the well-being of the business.
But long story short, they probably didn't hire you because of some shallow first impression (which doesn't automatically make them jerks since we're all guilty of this), but there was probably nothing you could have done so you shouldn't feel bad about it. It's just the way the world works sometimes.
I've had to turn down several otherwise-qualified candidates recently for culture fit reasons. While it would be awesome if all qualified candidates were created equal, their technical qualifications are only one piece of the puzzle.
In reality, the culture fit and the ability to work with the rest of the team is key in a small company. Everybody has to deal with everybody, so if anybody has issues dealing with anybody you can run into some major friction that'll cost you more than you gain.
At the end of the day, the way to look at it isn't "they're qualified but they don't fit the culture", but rather "they're not qualified because they don't fit the culture". It goes a long way toward eliminating the mixed feelings.
The first is my own experience of being turned down for a part-time engineering role because the company didn't think it was safe or good for me to travel so much. From where i stayed at that time, it would have taken me roughly 90 minutes to get there and another 90 minutes to get back if i got the job. To be fair to them, I honestly felt they were concerned for my well being.
The second is from a previous company I worked for and I was asked to temporarily join a hiring team that were bringing in new recruits (mostly uni grads) to evaluate their technical abilities. There was a really young candidate whom I felt stood out but he had a quirkiness of pulling out a sesame street soft toy from his bag and stroking it every time he faced a "challenging" question. I had absolutely no issues with that but HR apparently felt that was too weird for them.
The first one seemed pretty decent of them. It would have at least given me a warm feeling about not getting an offer based on concern for my well-being.