Perhaps it's not the rejection, but the energy in creating the next steps I need to take (more resumes, taking classes, new career, therapy, etc).
Sounds extreme. Were you applying to random jobs?
For example: As a candidate you might submit a resume and get an automated "Thank you, we'll be in touch". There's a large variety of reasons why you might face a very low probability that someone will indeed be in touch that have nothing to do with you.
The most common is that you're just too late in the process. They might already have dozens of viable candidates in later stages. They are being economical about their interviewers' time, thinking: Well, the probability that all of those later-stage candidates will end up getting terminated is low, so we're not doing first-round interviews for now. But they are not being economical about expectations created in candidates' minds about the likelihood of getting an offer. They've simply defined the process to say: We pull the advertising after the role has been filled, because there is always the chance that we will have to go back to candidates in earlier rounds.
There might be even more extreme cases. Not saying that this is particularly common, but imagine a company has decided they need a diversity hire, say hiring a woman to an all-male tech team. All applications by men may be dead on arrival. They may not want to send out rejection letters so as not to establish the pattern.
Or the role may have already been filled and there may simply be clerical error or clerical laziness to blame about why the advertising hasn't been pulled yet.
So, from a candidate's point of view: "We will be in touch" means almost nothing. Having come across a job ad means less than nothing. Your calculation is simply going to be: I get one human contact out of every ten times I submit a resume. I get one firm offer out of every ten times I get a human contact. I'm shooting for three firm offers to choose from. So that means I have to submit my resume 300 times. Consequently you can't afford to be all too picky. You just submit to everything that could even remotely be a match. You only start putting real brain power into thinking about whether you actually want to work there in later stages of the process.
It's a sad state of affairs, but it's just the world we live in now.
The whole point of web-based application process is to weed out as many candidates as possible. If you can skip that step and first make contact with a human, the odds are much better and it's less work and stress for everyone.
Tailoring resumes to specific postings, and trying to find someone at the company you have some sort of connection with, are both pretty damn important unless, as you say, you're shot-gunning an identical resume to every company within 50 miles.
Luckely my experience in job searching has not involved ghosting or spamming. Is that an US thing? Or is "job dating" less parallell in smaller cities or countries?
I would recommend that you attend local user group meetings and talk to people. Weak social connections are an excellent source of referrals.
At the very basic level you should understand what are the expectations of the employer and whether you can fill those expectations. Try to find and talk to people at those positions you are applying to. Try to understand where you fall short.
I interviewed for a position that I am way qualified for. I check every box, in terms of skills and abilities and experience. I'm essentially doing the job right now, just with a different title.
And I was passed over for a less qualified, less experienced candidate. The reason I was given, as I dove through the organization (it's where I work now) to ask for feedback to improve myself professionally, was that there wasn't really anything I can get better at, it was just 'fit'.
I was able to ask probing questions to get to the root of that, and it turns out that, outside of the folks I work with daily, people outside of my division don't necessarily know my leadership abilities. But tell me, how would you even go about quantifying that for an external candidate, other than saying the, very safe, 'we found a better candidate'?
Honest feedback hurts but it’s how you grow.
And if people cared at all about interviewees they’d give some semblance of honest feedback rather than “no thanks.”
A former Apple architect once gave me "honest feedback" about the languages I work with. It was his opinion about industry direction, that 8 years later, was 100% wrong. (Although I don't think I was a good match for his startup.)
That's why I consider honest feedback flame bait.
If you get similar pieces of feedback from 3 people, you now likely know what you need to do differently to get hired, period.
It’s not about getting specific, individual pieces of feedback. It’s about being able to triangulate toward what you need to do differently.
And maybe you get 3 pieces of feedback that are all completely contradictory. That tells you that what you need to do is keep trying.
This is a non-helpful statement. Humans are bias machines. We function based on our collective experience or in some cases differed experience. Saying there is systemic bias doesn't really add anything other than saying exploit what ever bias you can find to your advantage.
If he had said, "I need someone with more experience in language XXX," it would have been 100% true for his case, and 100% appropriate for me. I can read the market for technology.
Instead, he basically said, "you have a lot of experience in language YYY, which isn't going anywhere." That was quite subjective, as language YYY has significantly more use and investment since our conversation.
It also isn't really appropriate, because the job was in language XXX, not language YYY. Assuming he hired me, we'd have to agree that my learning curve in language XXX was appropriate for his needs in a developer. (He clearly needed someone who could hop in without much of a learning curve.)
(Remember, sometimes you hire the candidate and expect them to learn the stack on the job, other times you hire someone because they are already an expert in the stack.)
Debates on languages like this are really just pissing matches. IMO, dressing up the debate as "constructive feedback on my merit as a candidate" hurt his credibility in his leadership role.
It may be not your fault. Or, it might have been your lucky day, not getting that job. In any case, you need to make damn sure that you know your trade.
You can categorize some cases into these:
1) Someone has observed something you do that you're unaware of, and could work on.
2) Someone has misinterpreted something you do, and now you know they have, but can be glad they told you so you know where they stand, and/or clear the confusion by explaining what really happened.
3) Someone doesn't like something you do, but you are already aware of you doing it, but think your way is better, for reasons X, Y and Z, and if you feel like it you can explain that.
4) Someone who has more experience than you recognizes a behavior from their earlier selves, and points this out so that you get a head start at learning their lesson.
Regardless of the merit of the feedback, you can't process it and deal (or not deal) with it until you hear it.
If you can step away from yourself and just observe and reflect, there are so many things you can learn that I wish I could imprint on a younger me. But at least I'm trying to catch up as a 30-something now.
It's always easier to hear "I'm breaking up with you because I'm moving for a new job and want to concentrate on my career" than "I'm breaking up with you because you're awkward around my friends and aren't interesting".