Job 4: There are no prizes for your hoop jumping (With Sequel)

Job 4: There are no prizes for your hoop jumping

The job: working with company K's corporate finance advisory as a consultant to the Australian Government on major infrastructure projects

Process: Screening -> Phone Interview with Canberra Manager -> Interview with Senior Manager from Sydney -> Exam -> Interview with Director of Division -> Offer

The fat: I passed through all stages and was left without an offer despite being given a verbal assurance by the director of the division that I had interviewed brilliantly and that by the time you get to him it is all about dotting i's and crossing t's.

The skinny: I noticed that company K started advertising the job again after I had completed my final interview. Even for someone with my seemingly omnipotent powers of positivity in the face of adversity, the writing on the wall did appear to be hand smudged in a poo-like lacquer. Having convinced myself that my final interview had been flawless (with the same buckets of humility i approach all things big and small), I made the monumental decision to contact HR on a stealth raid to find out how deeply my application was being undermined. My stealth phone call was met with a flat out lie, or so I thought.
HR: "Oh (an Oh that better signaled a, "fuck, I was totally unexpecting you of all people to call right now), I'm sorry, we have had trouble tracking down the Director of Corporate Finance who you interviewed with last week. When we track him down we will get back to you."
Me: I understand, please get back to me with some feedback (all the while thinking, then that explains why you have readvertised the position, because you have not been able to track down the Corporate Finance Director - oh yes. Great. That makes complete and perfect sense).

One week later I received a phone call from HR, which was steeped in Feedback, but very little else: "The feedback we have received is that you were a brilliant candidate, your experience is very impressive, and you couldn't have been any more impressive nor any closer to landing the job... you were THAT close, so you shouldn't feel bad, BUT... we have decided to go with someone who has experience working in Canberra."

What does one do from here?
It is not like I am of the age where I can fool myself into believing that when you fail to get the job that the interview experience alone is a valuable commodity with the liquid properties of a gold bar in a Saudi Arabian vending machine.
It is not like I enjoyed the stress of a timed verbal and numerical exam any more than a 90 year old geriatric would enjoy having to resit a driving test just in order to hang onto their license...
Its not like I am overwhelmed by a feeling of joy and satisfaction for having been able to jump through many hoops.
To sum up, being THAT close is very nice, if you actually get the job... and absolutely awful Fucking awful if like in my case, you fail, considering the time and stress they have put you through... is it possible that being screened out at stage one, whilst not necessarily nice, is much less taxing on your morale?

But is it that bad or that good? I mean, what could be worse than working in Canberra? So, other than providing for a particularly bland entry into this blog, not all is bad with Company K,. I mean, kudos to the girl in HR who was very lovely with her kind words of failure, which is much nicer than an automated email. And also, for rolling my application through to the Brisbane team (much nicer place to live), I am very thankful. Hopefully my hoop jumping in this case can be utilized in another instance.

Addition:
If there is one aside that ever I would like to add, it is this one. If ever there is a good time to be looking for work, it is this last month. We have had the World Cup football to gorge ourselves on, and last night, we had a mountain stage in the Tour de France starting at 10pm, the Silverstone motor GP and the World Cup Final that finished at 7am. Apologies to Dave for cutting short our night on the ambers in order to get back to watch the Tour; it could have been that sports events have become a quasi salvation for some of us, somehow recreating a synchronization treaty that remotely reconnects a shine of a shared humanity, if only as an imagined community said Benedict Anderson... and just then my handset starts ringing, starchy eye grit welding my lids in a semi-permanent state of closure. It started softly buzzing just as I had drifted off into a contented hibernation having gorged on Cadel taking the yellow in France, Mark sticking it up Red Bull in England and Spain cementing Holland's bridesmaid status for another 40 years in South Africa. Much like a gorged lion, unable to muster a coherent thought, I answered. The Company K job in Brisbane came and went in the same fleeting moment that it took Iniesta to smash home the winning volley that resigned Holland to defeat. And how in hindsight I wish I had wanted to argue with the ferocity of Mathijsen, and vent my spleen as had done Sneider at the injustice of Company K's decision to not consider my application for the Brisbane job...

I calmly interjected once, pointed out that although this lady did not merit my application worthy of an initial interview, that this was the very same team who had progressed me through 3 interviews and an exam already... but then I decided that sleep was much more important. Just like Holland, I had done my best... and if karma is a dragon worth its weight in fire and brimstone, this lady will have terrible, terrible sex for the rest of her life. The End.