You're not as qualified as you think you are

I got a call yesterday from a very attractive company that they made an offer to another candidate. Here's the feedback, paraphrased and condensed.

• We need someone who can hit the ground running. The candidate we selected had more years hands-on experience doing ... [insert two common training design, project management tasks]
• We think that your skills are best suited to a role called [job title]. I had asked what skills I should practice to be better suited to the job that I'd not won; that answer was, start lower and show us what you've got.
• We can't recommend a better way to establish a relationship with this company when it comes to hiring for that role; keep an eye on the web site. I had asked, what's the best way to uncover new opportunities when there are job openings by that name.
  

To give the company its due, this is more complete and concrete feedback than I've received from any of those I've interviewed with. The sting of not being chosen was softened by the knowledge, implied in the discussion above, that interviewers force ranked candidates' capabilities.

Even if I had been nominally qualified, I lost the horse race at a time when a lot of strong horses are in the recession - oh, did I say "recession?" - I meant "race." And the candidate horse race is the black box of the interview process. It's fast moving, difficult to learn about, and difficult to influence.

Lessons

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..."

• Job experience is limiting. Even CEOs must accept this truism.
• Big companies approach many decisions as an opportunity to mitigate risk, making hiring an exercise in seeking the sure thing. Experience proves, they're right to do so.

"...the courage to change the things I can..."

• Determine whether the message of the stories of your experience fits your job search goals (individual contributor, creative force, expert practitioner, strategic and forward thinker?)
• Review and refine the stories of your accomplishments.
• Identify, and learn enough to speak confidently about, the expertise you anticipate needing for particular roles. If you can't be experienced, you can master the knowledge.
• Pick some area of weakness and invest in your own development.
  

"...and the wisdom to know the difference."

• It's human nature to lean toward those things we want, and when they're pulled out from under us, that pratfall stings.
• Jobs are best seen as serving instrumental goals - learning, acquiring broader scope of responsibility, linking one's actions to business results, doing incremental good.
  
• Jobs are best not seen as serving fundamental goals - making one happy, saving the world, providing social support.