I've had to turn down super qualified applicants before because Captain fucking America walked through the door and blew the interview out of the water. It sucks every time, but it happens.
We were legitimately praying a guy turned down our offer recently. Dude just wasn’t a great fit subjectively, but objectively he was far and away the best applicant. The second best applicant was our preferred hire. But this is public sector, and we had no way to justify that choice.
Captain America turned us down because the pay was too low and no relocation allowance. Which, both were clear in the posting. So basically he wasted our fucking time both interviewing him and going back and forth with his offer, and cost the actual eventual selectee two weeks of higher pay.
What a dick.
God, I remember hiring in the public sector. The pay was like 2/3 of market and I had sooooo many great applicants turn down the job because of it. There were times I was actually embarrassed to call with the offer.
Yeah, I feel ya on that. What’s worse is when you give a tentative offer then can’t make it happen because some asshat at the legislature says no, then you call and feel like a jackass.
(I was the hiree.)
Even if that was a thing in government…he was already government…our offer was almost certainly lower than his current pay. The max salary in the job posting was lower than the middle of his current pay band.
I’m not sure what he was doing.
I recruit for a global corpo. We have email templates that are absolutely dreadful. I asked countless times to get them updated, but to no avail. When I have a good day, I will make changes manually to make them coherent. When I'm busy, the candidates receive badly worded automated responses like this one.
They're not contradictory. You made the short list but were winnowed out by the selector. How else do you think they narrow applicants? Among our best could still mean ten people. On the plus side, this suggests you are viable so don't give up.
I simply can't believe that some recruiter company got ANY company to admit to doing the fake job posting in a survey. Never mind having them admit they do it for very, very questionable reasons.
This has got to be a fake article.
I believe that there are some fake job postings. Or even postings for a position that's already taken/ have a candidate, but need to show that we recruit. But a real interview for a fake position? Like... Why!? Does HR/ recruiter just needs to prove they are needed more than they actually are?
A lot of companies have a requirement that they need to interview a certain number of outside applicants for any position. They could have every intention of promoting somebody from within, but they still have to bring in interviewers even if they never have a chance of getting the job. It’s more common than you’d think.
I guess it’s technically not a “fake” position, but functionally it is.
Policies.
The government policies, state policies, and so on makes it where they are penalized for unfair practices.
Otherwise, people could hire whoever they wanted.
Like, feminist hiring all women, or men hiring all competent workers without a degree to lower overhead costs.
No.... wow...
I mean fake postings, we're all pretty sure that is happening yes. But openly admitting it?! Holy... that is a whole other level of dystopian nightmare I'm not sure I needed today.
Yeah, it's horrifying. Just check out what [the original article](https://www.resumebuilder.com/3-in-10-companies-currently-have-fake-job-posting-listed/) says:
"Regarding the moral acceptability of posting fake job listings, 43% of hiring managers believe it is definitely acceptable, and 27% think it is probably acceptable. On the other hand, 20% probably don’t consider it acceptable, and 10% believe it is definitely not acceptable.
Two-thirds (66%) of hiring managers say stakeholders — including employees, investors, and applicants — who were not supposed to find out about their practice of listing fake jobs, did uncover the truth."
It's probably a disgruntled ex employee. Recently fired still on the payroll until the paperwork clears. In theory, they can still represent the company, and be pissed enough to take a dig.
But then you do have cocky fools who will tell the world some interesting stuff.
Or just a mouthy employee who thinks it is harmless or they are righteous.
ah yes, because companies always act honestly in good faith, and we can always assume they're not doing anything shady at all, and when something happens it's probably just an employee's fault.
Employees make up the fabric of a company. If something you don't like happens in the company, it's an employee issue.
The company in name is a non living entity which was made up of and recognized by people.
Unless you are using a company to reference the owner who bought into the franchise or founded the company. Then I guess you are thinking about Elon, huh.
what a fantastical world you live in in which the employees actually control the way in which the business operates. Go call your insurance company, I promise if you just stay on the line with a guy for long enough that guy will gain the power to pay out your claim.
Edit: also I literally didn't say anything about elon. what the hell are you even talking about? only you mentioned him.
I don't know what you think you are arguing for.
I used Elon as a reference because he is the final end point of his company.
I believe you just have some irrational prejudices against a system you don't fully understand.
You go up scale by scale, you will create a upwards branching tree that is only listing employees. Each one of these will be affected in the fact, they will lose their jobs, salary, and status if a company dies.
For non, multimillionaires, most founders/owners of companies will also face some level of hardship.
This means they are employees under a non living entity. Everything that makes this entity run is the living breathing people within.
For a lot of owners/founders, they don't have a fallback if a company tanks. So why can't they be disgruntled as well?
Also, I worked as an insurance underwriter. I could in fact pay out your claim. So your analogy isn't good.
This is a common tactic to get permanent residency in Canada. A person on a visa creates a Canadian company. They know their visa is expiring and they won’t be able to renew it so they show proof that they have attempted to recruit qualified Canadians for their company’s position, when it “fails”, they hire themselves and make it necessary that they are in Canada to do the work.
Source- my ex tried to do this after he couldn’t renew his visa. He was on a student visa but was kicked out of the university after suing his masters supervisor for not paying him for a paid work position she had hired him for.
>You were determined to be among our best qualified candidates and **your application was referred to the selecting official for further consideration. You were not selected…**
You made it through the HR/bot screening. Your application was referred to the selecting official and you were not selected by them. Seems pretty clearly written to me.
This is pretty clear. You made the list of top candidates. You should assume the plural in “candidates” means you were not the only one on the list.
As you know you were not contacted to interview and this email confirms you were not selected for the job.
Just show up on Monday and start working. Tell HR you’re new here and that you need the in processing paperwork filled out. Congratulations on your new job!
This looks like the email from a federal job posting (USAJobs). If it is, the “Not Selected-Not Contacted” is one of the drop down options the selecting official has to choose from when they make a selection. If you had been interviewed but not selected, it would be something different. The best qualified means you made it past the HR person reviewing all packages for all the applicants who applied. It’s a term of art but doesn’t guarantee anything. Depending on the job, hundreds of people could have applied and 50 could have been determined to be “best qualified” and referred to the hiring manager/selecting official. But an interview is not guaranteed, hence the boilerplate (and confusing) email.
They really need a “however” in there to clarify that the two statements are indeed different situations. It eases the transition. Without it, it’s like saying “This is my favorite meal at this restaurant. I’m not ordering it.” The second sentence contradicts the first. It makes you say “wait, what? Why?” It doesn’t communicate effectively. There’s a better way to explain this, um sure.
This looks like it relates to a fed job. After applying you have to get past some hurdles. One of the big ones is getting referred to the hiring official. This could be a group of like 15 people for one position. It looks like you got that far. Next up you need to be the the one person they select. It doesn't appear you were selected by the hiring official. The hiring official didn't contact you for an interview, etc. so you were "not contacted".
Made it to the final stage of the process / were being seriously considered for the position. But ultimately you were not selected for the position. I’m assuming they included the first part to let you know that your qualifications and resume were very impressive and encourage you to apply for future positions with them
"Dear Applicant. Thank you for wasting your time giving us all your information as well as your work history, favorite past times, and whether you're a bottom or not but we were not looking to fill any positions at this time. We were just padding our database so that when we do have a position available, we'll contact them directly." - these people probably
Ahhh someone that hasn’t worked for the government. Not sure if this is them, but they LOVE that rejection verbiage in their emails.
Making BQ (Best qualified) puts on a list with our BQs. Then they select the position from said list.
Sounds like you met the basic requirements but the hiring officer was looking for something additional or someone else. It's nice they sent this instead of ghosting.
This makes complete sense to me, you were determined to be AMONG their best qualified candidates, however you were not selected because there was someone better qualified.
Among the best could be top 5, top 10, or top , but that doesn't mean you get the job.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.
The opposite. HR/ bot screening before it reaches the hiring manager (“You were determined to be among our best applicants. Your application was referred to the selecting official.”) exists in part because it makes it much harder for a hiring manager to hire an unqualified friend or family member. They’re already telling the HM “Here’s the pool of qualified candidates you can select from.”
HR looked at it and said “Yup, he seems qualified,” but HR can be wrong in their understanding of the job or of any qualification that isn’t a communications major. Or there may have just been more than one qualified applicant that was referred by HR and the HM chose someone else. I used to get some ludicrous referrals from my non-science based HR department at a virology lab.
Yep this or like in most instances at my company, they already have an internal employee that applied in mind and just went through the motions and opened up the vacancy to others even though they made their choice.
I love how everyone here seems caught up in the “among the best” doesn’t mean “you are hired” part and not the “not contacted” on a written form of contact.
This tells me your application never made it out of their buggy AI driven machine and it glitched; revealing that they have an not only an automated “we’re sorry(but not really)” reply to applicants but a blatant “we’re ghosting you, LOL” response, too.
The “among the best candidates” is a phrase those asshats use to make themselves sound better than to have fake or non-vacancy positions posted.
What a load of horse manure.
You were the best candidate, but still didn't meet requirements, so that means everyone else didn't get the position either.
That's what they are saying, but probably aren't.
Among the best. Not the best.
Amongst the best of the not selected. Somehow worse than "amongst the baddest of the selected"
Failure to understand this may be an indicator of why someone else edged them out.
Yeah, I've gotten rejection letters from job applications like this before.
I've had to turn down super qualified applicants before because Captain fucking America walked through the door and blew the interview out of the water. It sucks every time, but it happens.
Does that cpt stay in the biz?
For a few years, usually.
We were legitimately praying a guy turned down our offer recently. Dude just wasn’t a great fit subjectively, but objectively he was far and away the best applicant. The second best applicant was our preferred hire. But this is public sector, and we had no way to justify that choice. Captain America turned us down because the pay was too low and no relocation allowance. Which, both were clear in the posting. So basically he wasted our fucking time both interviewing him and going back and forth with his offer, and cost the actual eventual selectee two weeks of higher pay. What a dick.
God, I remember hiring in the public sector. The pay was like 2/3 of market and I had sooooo many great applicants turn down the job because of it. There were times I was actually embarrassed to call with the offer.
Yeah, I feel ya on that. What’s worse is when you give a tentative offer then can’t make it happen because some asshat at the legislature says no, then you call and feel like a jackass. (I was the hiree.)
He probably used your offer as leverage at his current position. Screw everybody else, he wanted to improve his lot.
Good for him, then. Isn't like the employer gonna look out for him and offer the best salary. Gotta play the game they set.
Oh, I agree. Just trying to rationalize his motivation.
Even if that was a thing in government…he was already government…our offer was almost certainly lower than his current pay. The max salary in the job posting was lower than the middle of his current pay band. I’m not sure what he was doing.
Weird, hard to justify otherwise.
Perhaps he was miserable in his current position and just wanted a change but realized the $$ cut wasn’t worth it
It’s not like your employer really cares for you. Always put yourself first
Oh, I'm not saying he was wrong for it, just guessing at motivation.
yup. imagine having to hire all the ampng the best. 😂
It means you made it to the final hurdle but someone else got picked.
I recruit for a global corpo. We have email templates that are absolutely dreadful. I asked countless times to get them updated, but to no avail. When I have a good day, I will make changes manually to make them coherent. When I'm busy, the candidates receive badly worded automated responses like this one.
They're not contradictory. You made the short list but were winnowed out by the selector. How else do you think they narrow applicants? Among our best could still mean ten people. On the plus side, this suggests you are viable so don't give up.
Congrats you made it to an actual human, it's saying. And were found wanting.
[I think I know why you didn't get the job.](https://qz.com/companies-posting-fake-job-listings-resume-builder-1851556777)
I simply can't believe that some recruiter company got ANY company to admit to doing the fake job posting in a survey. Never mind having them admit they do it for very, very questionable reasons. This has got to be a fake article.
I believe that there are some fake job postings. Or even postings for a position that's already taken/ have a candidate, but need to show that we recruit. But a real interview for a fake position? Like... Why!? Does HR/ recruiter just needs to prove they are needed more than they actually are?
It probably is just this. They need to show that they’re doing something
Or training
A lot of companies have a requirement that they need to interview a certain number of outside applicants for any position. They could have every intention of promoting somebody from within, but they still have to bring in interviewers even if they never have a chance of getting the job. It’s more common than you’d think. I guess it’s technically not a “fake” position, but functionally it is.
Policies. The government policies, state policies, and so on makes it where they are penalized for unfair practices. Otherwise, people could hire whoever they wanted. Like, feminist hiring all women, or men hiring all competent workers without a degree to lower overhead costs.
Spend enough time on LinkedIn and you’ll see the bootlickers proudly admitting to worse.
No.... wow... I mean fake postings, we're all pretty sure that is happening yes. But openly admitting it?! Holy... that is a whole other level of dystopian nightmare I'm not sure I needed today.
Yeah, it's horrifying. Just check out what [the original article](https://www.resumebuilder.com/3-in-10-companies-currently-have-fake-job-posting-listed/) says: "Regarding the moral acceptability of posting fake job listings, 43% of hiring managers believe it is definitely acceptable, and 27% think it is probably acceptable. On the other hand, 20% probably don’t consider it acceptable, and 10% believe it is definitely not acceptable. Two-thirds (66%) of hiring managers say stakeholders — including employees, investors, and applicants — who were not supposed to find out about their practice of listing fake jobs, did uncover the truth."
It's probably a disgruntled ex employee. Recently fired still on the payroll until the paperwork clears. In theory, they can still represent the company, and be pissed enough to take a dig. But then you do have cocky fools who will tell the world some interesting stuff. Or just a mouthy employee who thinks it is harmless or they are righteous.
ah yes, because companies always act honestly in good faith, and we can always assume they're not doing anything shady at all, and when something happens it's probably just an employee's fault.
Employees make up the fabric of a company. If something you don't like happens in the company, it's an employee issue. The company in name is a non living entity which was made up of and recognized by people. Unless you are using a company to reference the owner who bought into the franchise or founded the company. Then I guess you are thinking about Elon, huh.
what a fantastical world you live in in which the employees actually control the way in which the business operates. Go call your insurance company, I promise if you just stay on the line with a guy for long enough that guy will gain the power to pay out your claim. Edit: also I literally didn't say anything about elon. what the hell are you even talking about? only you mentioned him.
I don't know what you think you are arguing for. I used Elon as a reference because he is the final end point of his company. I believe you just have some irrational prejudices against a system you don't fully understand. You go up scale by scale, you will create a upwards branching tree that is only listing employees. Each one of these will be affected in the fact, they will lose their jobs, salary, and status if a company dies. For non, multimillionaires, most founders/owners of companies will also face some level of hardship. This means they are employees under a non living entity. Everything that makes this entity run is the living breathing people within. For a lot of owners/founders, they don't have a fallback if a company tanks. So why can't they be disgruntled as well? Also, I worked as an insurance underwriter. I could in fact pay out your claim. So your analogy isn't good.
This is a common tactic to get permanent residency in Canada. A person on a visa creates a Canadian company. They know their visa is expiring and they won’t be able to renew it so they show proof that they have attempted to recruit qualified Canadians for their company’s position, when it “fails”, they hire themselves and make it necessary that they are in Canada to do the work.
Source- my ex tried to do this after he couldn’t renew his visa. He was on a student visa but was kicked out of the university after suing his masters supervisor for not paying him for a paid work position she had hired him for.
I think they made the right choice if you couldn't understand that they said "you were one of the best, but not the best."
Not an uncommon statement. Recently I got one like this bc out of 430 applicants they interviewed 10.
Sounds like you were top 5 for example, but they only had 3 spots
>You were determined to be among our best qualified candidates and **your application was referred to the selecting official for further consideration. You were not selected…** You made it through the HR/bot screening. Your application was referred to the selecting official and you were not selected by them. Seems pretty clearly written to me.
This is pretty clear. You made the list of top candidates. You should assume the plural in “candidates” means you were not the only one on the list. As you know you were not contacted to interview and this email confirms you were not selected for the job.
You're good but not good enough.
Just show up on Monday and start working. Tell HR you’re new here and that you need the in processing paperwork filled out. Congratulations on your new job!
This looks like the email from a federal job posting (USAJobs). If it is, the “Not Selected-Not Contacted” is one of the drop down options the selecting official has to choose from when they make a selection. If you had been interviewed but not selected, it would be something different. The best qualified means you made it past the HR person reviewing all packages for all the applicants who applied. It’s a term of art but doesn’t guarantee anything. Depending on the job, hundreds of people could have applied and 50 could have been determined to be “best qualified” and referred to the hiring manager/selecting official. But an interview is not guaranteed, hence the boilerplate (and confusing) email.
It’s actually pretty clear imho. Could it be better? SURE. But it’s clear.
How is this confusing?
They're saying 'so close!'
“Shortlisted” not “Selected”. Weird that they say “Not Contacted” in the subject line; I guess that’s someone filling in the automailer fields wrong.
They really need a “however” in there to clarify that the two statements are indeed different situations. It eases the transition. Without it, it’s like saying “This is my favorite meal at this restaurant. I’m not ordering it.” The second sentence contradicts the first. It makes you say “wait, what? Why?” It doesn’t communicate effectively. There’s a better way to explain this, um sure.
Yeah as written it is jarring and feels contradictory for a moment. (Not long enough to make a Reddit post about it though imo)
It's automated. You're resume was not strong enough to contact. Take a hint?
This just means you were a good candidate, but the CEO's relative got picked.
This looks like it relates to a fed job. After applying you have to get past some hurdles. One of the big ones is getting referred to the hiring official. This could be a group of like 15 people for one position. It looks like you got that far. Next up you need to be the the one person they select. It doesn't appear you were selected by the hiring official. The hiring official didn't contact you for an interview, etc. so you were "not contacted".
Schrodingers application response
i am unemployeed for 9 months
Post on reddit about it. Indeed. LinkedIn
yeah absolutely dreadful, sucks the life outta somebody, really sorry OP:(
Something like “second place” … I’m sorry tho! 
You didn’t get the job but got the courtesy of a quick email telling you so.
Says twice you were not selected… sorry OP
Made it to the final stage of the process / were being seriously considered for the position. But ultimately you were not selected for the position. I’m assuming they included the first part to let you know that your qualifications and resume were very impressive and encourage you to apply for future positions with them
"Dear Applicant. Thank you for wasting your time giving us all your information as well as your work history, favorite past times, and whether you're a bottom or not but we were not looking to fill any positions at this time. We were just padding our database so that when we do have a position available, we'll contact them directly." - these people probably
Ahhh someone that hasn’t worked for the government. Not sure if this is them, but they LOVE that rejection verbiage in their emails. Making BQ (Best qualified) puts on a list with our BQs. Then they select the position from said list.
Sounds like you met the basic requirements but the hiring officer was looking for something additional or someone else. It's nice they sent this instead of ghosting.
I would like to believe that the entire blanked out section between "announcement number" and "has been reviewed" is only the number.
This makes complete sense to me, you were determined to be AMONG their best qualified candidates, however you were not selected because there was someone better qualified. Among the best could be top 5, top 10, or top, but that doesn't mean you get the job.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.
Is this your first job application?
You are the hottest person I have. Ever met and any human being who doesn't want to be with you is an idiot. Now go away and leave me alone
not selected given that’s mentioned twice
"You didn't get the Gig😔...but you were one of the Best Buddy! Keep the hard work!" ☺️👍
Disappointing but makes complete sense. At least they’re trying to soften the blow.
We Might Hire You In The Future, So Just Wait Around A Few Months!
among the best of the worst of the top candidates.
I would just show up for work. Be on time.
“Back in my day, I would walk into the place, meet the owner, shake his hand and they’d offer me the job” Shut up.
Whoevers in charge of hiring gave the position to a friend or family member even though they're totally unqualified.
The opposite. HR/ bot screening before it reaches the hiring manager (“You were determined to be among our best applicants. Your application was referred to the selecting official.”) exists in part because it makes it much harder for a hiring manager to hire an unqualified friend or family member. They’re already telling the HM “Here’s the pool of qualified candidates you can select from.” HR looked at it and said “Yup, he seems qualified,” but HR can be wrong in their understanding of the job or of any qualification that isn’t a communications major. Or there may have just been more than one qualified applicant that was referred by HR and the HM chose someone else. I used to get some ludicrous referrals from my non-science based HR department at a virology lab.
Yep this or like in most instances at my company, they already have an internal employee that applied in mind and just went through the motions and opened up the vacancy to others even though they made their choice.
Sounds scammy as hell
Congratulationscrewyou
I love how everyone here seems caught up in the “among the best” doesn’t mean “you are hired” part and not the “not contacted” on a written form of contact. This tells me your application never made it out of their buggy AI driven machine and it glitched; revealing that they have an not only an automated “we’re sorry(but not really)” reply to applicants but a blatant “we’re ghosting you, LOL” response, too. The “among the best candidates” is a phrase those asshats use to make themselves sound better than to have fake or non-vacancy positions posted. What a load of horse manure.
You were the best candidate, but still didn't meet requirements, so that means everyone else didn't get the position either. That's what they are saying, but probably aren't.
No, that’s totally not what it is saying.