What are you being told you are too old or too new for?

Both ends of this room hear a version of the same sentence.

At one end: you do not have the experience, so we cannot give you the job that would give you the experience. At the other: you have too much experience, which gets called overqualified because the honest word is expensive.

Both are a way of saying no without saying why. Sometimes there is a real objection underneath and it can be answered. Sometimes there is nothing underneath at all and you are polishing a rejection that was never about you.

Telling those apart alone is very hard. Telling them apart with three other people looking at the exact words is not.

So put yours here. What was the door, what were the exact words, and what do you suspect is really behind it?