Failure
I just got word that I failed another job interview.
After completing a screening call, coding challenge, and follow up discussion, the company decided they are not interested in moving forward with me. Only a couple months ago, I had a very similar experience with another potential employer. At that time, I also participated in several rounds of interviews, technical and non-technical. I spent many hours studying and preparing to the best of my ability. I made it to the final round. Ultimately, I was rejected.
Between those attempts were all the smaller rejections that never even amounted to an interview. All the carefully written cover letters and introductory emails that never received a reply. The ones that left me wondering: "did I enter their email address correctly?" or "was that even a legitimate job posting?" At least the automated replies let me know that my application was received, even if it never landed in front of human. Even if a real person took one look at my resume and said, "Ew, no."
But the long interview processes are the most devastating. They are glimmers of hope that I might one day be accepted, be valued. Spending several hours speaking with recruiters and other engineers, allowing them to get to know me, and demonstrating my technical ability, means that I cannot blame my failure on an automated system or the lack of a chance to prove myself. It means I showed others who I am and they said, definitively, "You are not capable. You are not enough."
I have been wrestling with these failures, over and over again. A sense of doubt has crept in. Maybe despite my best efforts, I will never be enough. It becomes attractive to stop trying. To be vulnerable is difficult. There is a part of me that wants to settle, to accept that I am never going to be welcomed by others. I should be realistic and stop wasting my time.
But if I cannot believe in myself, who else will ever believe in me?