Software Engineering Interviews: Reasons you might got rejected early in the process but they didn’t tell you.

You should always know why you were rejected.

Agencies, recruiters or HR teams often don’t tell you when you have been rejected. It is hard to say whether they blame it on “too much work” or don’t care, but it leads to the same results. They forgot what the word “respect” means and don’t give a shit about you. You are just another stat, another number and another CV to them that won’t make any money or solve any problem, so why bother?

How many jobs have you applied for on platforms that promote active and more friendly communication and not even got a “declined” message? It gets even worse when you apply for a role directly, usually via email. They all land in a black hole, and nothing knows what happens there.

I applied for a few roles back in 2021. A few days ago, I got an email saying, “Sorry, but I won’t invite you to the next stage”… two years later. I figured this out long ago, but thanks for reminding me how I dodged a bullet.

Once in a while, you will find this one recruiter who is transparent about the role from the beginning, explain the whole interview process, and all communication will feel genuine and honest. It just feels right, and you enjoy it. No stress, no BS. You learn something new about yourself even if you don’t get the role.

Got rejected without a reason or never received any response?
Maybe that’s better for you…

Unfortunately, some candidates are equally horrible when they randomly stop to communicate, do not give any feedback or, worse, accept an offer and week before starting and say they changed their mind. That’s equally disrespectful and annoying. The actual chicken-egg situation — Who started it?

So why you get rejected?

Here are a few typical reasons why you might get rejected in the early stages, likely only after one chat, sometimes even before any conversation occurs.

You are spamming.

You just applied for a role that is absolutely out of your reach, and this is considered spam. Maybe your CV is exceptionally bad with many mistakes or spans 10 pages. So many times, I saw people applying from Asia for positions which clearly stated “UK Only”. None of those things is acceptable, and it feels more like a joke than a real job application.

Poor technical knowledge.

Holding a senior role in your current workplace and having been coding for 5 years says nothing about your fundamental technical skills. This is one of the most common problems I face during the hiring process where engineers know libraries, they can code some features. Still, it’s more like they are only capable of building from Lego blocks, and whilst they are good enough at putting them together, they are not the right people to come up with new Lego ideas. How you answer simple screening questions, which you might even consider irrelevant, is one of the most crucial parts of the interview. A good interview process will filter out “feature coders” during the first conversation and you might be one of them.

Communication problems.

This is an interview killer, and rarely is it a silent one. When you overcommunicate and talk too much, it often signals a lack of confidence (which is not a biggie) and a lack of knowledge. The most important thing to remember — answer the question first. Add something from yourself and ask if the other side wants to hear examples or, ideally, your experience working with the particular topic and challenges you faced.
When you under-communicate with short answers that don’t cover the whole topic, at least they save time, as the interview usually ends halfway. There is a middle ground somewhere between these two.

Failed to introduce yourself.

You really failed to sell yourself. This is usually one of the first things you will be asked to do, and it is often done wrong. Your answer should be well formulated with a logical flow. This is when you can make a difference and tell a captivating story. CVs rarely do that. 3–5 minutes journey focused on who you are, what you are good at, what you achieved, and what you are looking or next.

Be more creative and genuine than:
“I’m ready for another challenge”.

Previous experience.

You can’t articulate what you did in the past. You don’t sell yourself by discussing “we” and “team”. You do it by talking about your contributions, effort and ideas. The interview is about YOU, and you need to be slightly more selfish. Nobody really cares what you did as a team, as it’s very easy to hide behind people doing the whole job and imply it is all thanks to you.

Lack of passion.

If you are as passionate as a log of wood when you talk about your work, challenges and achievements, this will signal that you don’t care about what you do. When humans speak about stuff they genuinely enjoy and are passionate about, they always convey that through their words and behaviour during a conversation.

Unrealistic expectations.

It puts off recruiters when a person asks for 90k and needs help answering basic technical questions. It happens way more often than you can imagine. This is usually a red flag and very hard to convey in constructive feedback except “you are not a good match”. If you have 2–3 years of experience, believing you are already a senior engineer, it should be a red flag to you, too (5–6 years is still not very senior, to be honest). Be realistic, humble, and you will quickly get what you want if you are as good as you claim.

Big ego.

Chase for big brands sometimes is a reason for ego overinflation. It doesn’t define or kill your chances, but it says something about you. Unfortunately, a CV full of brands often comes with an “I’m the best, and I know everything” attitude, which is the biggest obstacle.

I talked to candidates like that. They were laughing at technical questions — yet they couldn’t answer most of them correctly. I worked with people like that, and finding agreement and getting stuff done was hard, sometimes impossible.

One-library developer.

If you know only one framework (like React) and have no clue how to develop code without it, nor you’re interested in exploring anything else, you are a “feature coder”, not a software engineer. A signal that, most likely, you never really had a chance to learn the language you are using. That happens in the JavaScript (and not only) world very often.

When you get to a point where you receive no response from anywhere, please don’t feel intimidated to reach out and ask. Sometimes it might be you — one of the reasons I mentioned earlier. Sometimes it’s the recruiter — they just don’t care. If you don’t ask, you won’t know.

• Keep track of where you applied so you don’t send your details twice for the same job.
• Don’t “spray and pray” for all possible open positions, hoping something will happen.
• Put effort into the process, and you will likely receive the effort back.
• Make sure your CV is relevant, the introduction message is short and solid (no, don’t use chartgpt to write it for you! It stinks from a distance)
• Stay professional throughout the process.

And you won’t be one of those job seekers who never receive any answers.