Today I got rejected for a contract job, because “the clients think [I’m] too experienced for what they’re after.”
So what does “too experienced” mean? I can think of several possible meanings.
- “too experienced” means “too old”. Not the case in this situation as my CV doesn’t include my date of birth or even the date I left university.
- “too experienced” means “too expensive”. Possible. I quoted a rate as an opening position in negotiations but maybe it was just too high for them to even consider haggling.
- “too experienced” means “too experienced”. They think that I’d leave before the end of the contract as soon as a more senior position opened up elsewhere. I don’t know about this, the description of the role seemed to match my skills quite well – they wanted decent technical skills and client facing experience. Indeed the job description used the word “experience” twice, so this wasn’t an entry level position.
- “too experienced” means “too opinionated”. Maybe they were looking for someone who would just do the job and not ask questions or make suggestions. In which case, they were probably right. But they would have had to reach this conclusion based solely on my CV, as they didn’t even interview me.
I’m 30 years old. Do I have three decades of this to look forward to?
Oh, the clients in question are a large, very well known, firm of management consultants. So they’re wankers anyway.