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Majority of job seekers have received a regret letter at one time or the other. Usually, these regret letters are received with feelings of derision and disgust, then discarded.

However, it is of great benefit if you know why you received a regret letter rather than an invitation to come resume work. You would be able to succeed in subsequent recruitment processes if you know what went wrong in the previous one.

Since many companies don’t offer much feedback, we have decided to provide you with the most common reasons why people don’t get jobs.

YOU DID NOT FIT IN

It is becoming common nowadays for hiring managers to “hire for fit”. In other words, they try to find an answer to the question; would existing employees get along with this guy? If the answer is no, then you won’t get that job.

So when interviewing with any company, try to project positive values and show that you are an easy-to-get-along-with team playing kind of person.

OTHER PEOPLE WERE MORE QUALIFIED

Given the slow growth in jobs in the present economy, most companies have very few openings with lots of applicants. So, sometimes a regret letter might not be due to a poor interview but because other people were more qualified than you are.

When you apply to a company, always make sure that you have the required education, skills and experiences for the job. If you are lacking in any aspect of the qualifications, then you need to put in extra effort into your interview to show the employer you would be a better choice over someone else who is marginally more qualified than you are.

YOU DID NOT PREPARE FOR THE INTERVIEW

If you did not put effort into preparing for an interview, it would show. You can not expect to go into an interview without adequate preparation and still get the job. It is important to know about the company, the job description,. The position and the required skills, knowledge and competencies associated with that role.

When you spend time to prepare for your interview, you would be sound, more confident and display a more positive attitude to the recruiter.

YOU WERE OVERQUALIFIED/YOU PRICED YOURSELF OUT OF THE JOB

“How much would you like us to pay you?”

The above question is not harmless. Many people fail to get jobs because they give an inappropriate answer to the question. When you ask for a salary way above the company’s budget and you are not offering anything extra-ordinary, what do you expect?

The proper way to go about the salary issue is to research and find the salary range that is going to be within the company’s budget for that role.

Similarly if you are overqualified (applying with a college degree to a job that calls for high school graduates, for example), the employer won’t hire you because he is not sure if you would be committed to the company on a long term basis. You may be using the company as a stop gap pending when you get better opportunities.

By reading this post, you would have gotten tips that would help you avoid a regret letter. Do you have anything to add to our list of reasons why people don’t get jobs? Let us know in the comments.