I was rejected from a role I did not applied for

When I was open to new job opportunities, I was prepared to face any oddities out there on the market. But the harsh reality is that I cannot be prepared to anything. I can encounter some common scenarios and know how to deal with them, but crazy things can happen at any time.

This story started when I noticed an open position in a start up that was well rooted into its market. Their AI integration was something meant to stay and brought a lot of value to their customers, increasing their income of something around 30%. That is a lot. They were searching for a Senior Front End Engineer, so I decided to apply.

A couple of days after, I received an email from them, saying that they were interested in my profile, but instead of start a hiring process for a Senior Front End Engineer, they wanted to undertake a process for Head of Front End Development.

Sounds great? Well, not exactly. Titles are very liquid and the duties associated with them changes according to the company. A Lead Developer role in a global company is very different from a Lead Developer on a start up, and there are slightly differences in every company. In the end, titles are just labels.

So I decided to clarify what they actually meant by Head and what the duties actually were. We scheduled a first interview with HR a few days after, and turned out the role was 70% hands on and 30% on the managerial side. I am not on the managerial side of the job, but had some experience onboarding and mentoring people on Front End development, even senior ones. Those were the experiences I tried to sell them when they wanted to check my skills as a manager, even if I made clear since the beginning that I am not a manager, but a hands on guy.

The conversation was kind, and even if it contained some weird thing, like a live coding session supervised by HR, I thought it was overall fine: I showcased my past experiences, what I achieved, described why I wanted to change. Standard stuff. They concluded saying they would reach back in a few days.

And they did.

They said I was rejected from the Head position, but no mention of my application as a Senior whatsoever. That is: I applied to a Senior Engineer position, got redirected to a role that I was not fitting and then was rejected.

It took me a while to realize I was rejected from a position I did not applied for. How did I felt? A rejection is always bitter, but on the other hand I told to me once again: I was rejected from a position I did not applied for.

How funny is it?

Conclusions

Tech job market can be odd, sometimes weird things happen. My takeaway is to get the most out of every experience and this was definitely a funny experience. I was rejected from a position I did not applied for. Do you see me smile?