Advice Needed RE: Future Job Opportunities after being rejected

If the hiring managers are going to push for you, I don't see why it would be bad to keep your options open.

It's unlikely you'll hear back from the company, but you never know. Doesn't hurt to keep in touch with the folks who liked you. Generally speaking, if you made it to the final round and then didn't quite make it over the finish line, you're not dead to the company. Certainly not as dead as someone who didn't even make it past the first round or resume screen would be. The company very well might keep you in mind if something else pops up for which they think you're a better fit. Case in point: one of my best friends at business school interviewed for a corp dev job at a well known and hot tech company. He made it to the last round, but he wasn't a former consultant or banker, so someone with the ultimate decisionmaking power nixed him. But the folks he met really liked him. A month later, he got a call from a different group in the same firm, who'd been passed his resume by the corp dev folks. It wasn't the exact group or role he'd initially interviewed for, but it was very similar, and again, he made it all the way to the dance, but wasn't chosen in the end. He wrote off the company at that point and kept recruiting. Two months later, a different strategy group within the same company contacted him. Again, he'd been referred by some folks who liked him. This time he made it and got the job. The lesson is, you never really know why you don't make the final cut sometimes. Sometimes it really does just come down to the fact that they like you, but they like someone else a fraction of a bit better. Don't take every single rejection as a dead-in-the-water, wholesale, final rejection of you as a person. If a firm really loves you, they'll keep trying to make it work until it either does or you somehow fuck up completely.

I think sometimes HR departments say they'll hold onto your resume simply because there's less potential legal blowback in saying that versus saying you've been rejected outright, but I could be wrong. If an individual says they'll keep your resume around, they well may.

^^^ Agreed. I wouldn't count on an HR rep remembering you, but if there is an individual at the company you made a connection with it would probably be worth following up with them from time to time.

I have been in this position before, and in my experience its the line they feed you when they don't want to let you down too badly. Most of the time its nothing more than lip service.

In all honesty, I would forget about it and move along.

If they call you later and you are still looking for a job then good, if you score another job then its their loss.

Sounds to me like a good plan. Good luck!

I have my current position after being fed this line. Eventually, they asked me back for an interview, and then hired me. I ended up getting more hours than the person they hired originally.

My office still shops around some of the resumes of rejected interviewees from a position that was filled a month ago.