Yesterday I got an email saying that the interview team associated with a job I applied for was "uniformly impressed by your experience and accomplishments," but I did not get the job. And neither did the other two second-round candidates. The interview team is starting over in their search process.
My initial reaction was that I couldn't possibly give up--if I wrote something compelling enough, they'd see just how passionate and smart I was and reconsider. I wrote a long email that discussed the flaws inherent in the traditional interview process and recounted all the ways the interview team had said I was a fit for the position. But I didn't click send. Thankfully. I called to talk a friend, who is also a life coach, about nonprofit issues and ended up telling her about said email.
The conversation went something like this:
Her: It sounds like you're really attached to this.
Me: YES! Even if I don't get the job, I don't want them to repeat the same process and end up in the same place.
Her: What are you going to get out of telling them they're wrong?
Me: Hmm... probably not a whole lot.
Her: What is the likelihood that they'll reconsider you as a candidate or change their hiring process?
Me: Practically nonexistent.
Her: So is that really what you want to do?
Me: No. It's not a very gracious way to end the relationship.
With a few well chosen words and questions, Laurie helped me realize that my need to be right was going to cause me to give away my power and make me look like an idiot. I deleted the entire email except the part that said thank you and good luck. My power returned. My positive energy returned.
Effective coaching packs one heck of a wallop--I had a complete change of perspective in under two minutes. Wow.
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