He is a freelancer and small-business owner of sixteen years, dipping into bigger companies for the first time. The interviews kept going well.
The first phase: he was told he was exactly who they were looking for. Within thirty minutes they scheduled the next round with the CTO. The CTO told him his ideas were exactly what they needed, that he usually set homework but had no questions for him, and that he probably knew more than the CTO did. Only the CEO interview remained — “more like a formality that everyone does.”
Four days later: an email. They had decided to move forward with another candidate. It had now happened twice in a row. He wondered whether something on his CV — the businesses, the founder-level titles — was the thing the CEOs disliked, or whether it was simply luck.