A post by Nikhil Sharma

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

At one end: you do not have experience, so we cannot give you the job that would give you 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 it is not.

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