Why wasn’t I selected for a job, yet I did well?

I recently applied for an editing job but didn’t make it to the oral interview. I am confident I answered the written interview questions well. Could the job have been advertised for formality? Joy

Dear Joy,
Resourcing or recruiting for vacant positions in organisations that invest in effective gatekeeping systems most times is a lengthy process because these companies are always wary of getting it wrong at entry.
It is always costly to put right what went wrong at recruitment when you have ended up with a person who would do very well in another organisation or in a different environment altogether. If it is an IT system or a workflow process that the organisation invested in and it went wrong, the only cost incurred is in switching the system off and its back to business as usual.
However, recruiting a wrong person for the job, if not handled carefully, could turn out to be a costly and messy affair when disengaging the nonperformer or the misfit and, instances are abound where organisations have been dragged to the Industrial Court by former employees where they have ended up paying hefty court awards. This is not to say that some organisations do not abuse their own resourcing processes and end up appointing people through the back door. The examples are again all around us.
My advice to Joy though, is that it pays to seek feedback on where you went wrong during the interview. You can get in touch with the orgnaisation’s HR Manager and request for feedback on how you performed during the interview. This is important for you to learn from your mistakes and also perform better at the next opportunity.

Moses Ssesanga
Head Human Resource
NMG - Uganda
[email protected]