I'm Not Everyone's Cup of Tea

There is someone out there for everyone.

It sounds simple. It is simple. But most people do not actually believe it when they are in the middle of a job search, because rejection does not feel like a matching problem. It feels personal.

You prepared well. The conversation went somewhere real. You left thinking it had gone well. And then the call came, or more often did not come, and the story you told yourself had nothing to do with fit and everything to do with what you must have got wrong.

I have had that conversation with clients more times than I can count. Capable, experienced people who made it to final rounds and were not selected, and who arrived at the next interview carrying the previous one with them. Slightly less certain. Slightly more performative. Trying, this time, to be whoever the panel wanted rather than being clear about who they actually were.

Which is precisely when it starts to go wrong.

Selection has never been about being the best person in the room. It is about being the right fit for this organisation, at this moment, with this particular team and this particular gap. Those are not the same thing. A brilliant candidate in the wrong context will lose to a less experienced one who fits better. That is not a flaw in the process. That is the process working as it should.

The organisations that passed on you were not wrong about your ability. They were making a judgment about fit, in a context you may not have had full visibility of. A budget about to be frozen. An internal candidate who surfaced late. A leadership team that needed a specific style of person right now, and yours was not it. None of that is a verdict on what you are worth.

When I launched my own practice, I had to make peace with a version of this myself. Some discovery calls end with a clear sense of connection and a conversation that continues. Others end politely and go nowhere. Early on, I found the second kind harder than I expected. Not because the work felt wrong, but because I had not yet fully internalised what I tell clients all the time: the goal is not to be right for everyone. The goal is to be genuinely right for the people you are right for.

Once you believe that, the game changes. A conversation that does not progress is not a loss. It is the process doing its job, for both parties. The right fit on the wrong side of the table is still the wrong fit.

There is an abundance in that, if you can get to it. Not everyone will want what you bring. Some organisations will look at your experience and your approach and decide they need something different. That is fine. The ones that do want it will be better for the match, and so will you.

The energy spent trying to become whoever the room wants, rather than being clear about who you are and what you offer, tends to produce one of two outcomes. You do not get the role, because people sense the performance. Or you get it, and spend the next year trying to maintain the version of yourself you presented in the interview.

Neither is a good deal.

Win some, lose some. Not everyone is your cup of tea either.