Fierce Competition Has Defeated Me Again

“Although we were impressed with your application, competition was fierce, and we have decided to move forward with other candidates for this role.”

This was my fifteenth rejection.

Not my fifteenth rejection in a lifetime. My fifteenth variation on precisely the same paragraph during this particular expedition into the Israeli employment market. By now, “fierce competition” has become a recurring character in my life. We have never met, but it follows me everywhere, stealing jobs for which employers insist I was exceptionally impressive.

Apparently, I am one of the most impressive unemployable people in Israel.

Dear Hiring Team,

Thank you for your message. I am delighted to learn that you were impressed with my application. This places you in excellent company. Fourteen other organisations have also been impressed by me recently, although none have been reckless enough to employ me.

My ability to impress employers while remaining safely outside their organisations is becoming a professional specialty. Perhaps I should add it to my CV:

2026–present: Independent Corporate Impresser

Produced strong initial admiration across multiple sectors.

Generated no measurable disruption to payroll.

Maintained a 100 percent record of not requiring a desk, salary, or security clearance.

I am sorry to hear that the competition was fierce. It always is. I picture the other candidates entering the interview room in full combat gear, armed with fluent Hebrew, advanced Excel skills, three postgraduate degrees, and the metabolism of a 24-year-old.

I do not begrudge them their success. I merely wish Fierce Competition would occasionally apply for a position somewhere else.

I also appreciate your decision to “move forward”. Forward is extremely popular in recruitment. Companies are constantly moving forward, while unsuccessful applicants remain behind, staring at an automated email sent from an address that cannot receive replies.

(There is something almost biblical about it. The employer proceeds towards the Promised Land with the Chosen Candidate, while the rest of us wander through LinkedIn for another forty years.)

Before applying, I read the job description. I researched the organisation. I adjusted my CV. I rewrote my cover letter to demonstrate enthusiasm without desperation, confidence without arrogance, and personality without suggesting I possessed one.

I explained how decades spent in public relations, fundraising, sales, hospitality, writing, business ownership, and legal administration had equipped me to answer emails, organize meetings, and communicate with human beings. I removed older experience so my CV wouldn’t resemble the Dead Sea Scrolls. I have enough experience to be competent, but not so much that anyone might suspect I remember how fax machines work. (I happen to remember, but… whatever).

Then I pressed “submit” and entered the ancient ritual known as Waiting to Hear Back.

Sometimes, an employer rejects me within hours. This is efficient and saves me from forming an emotional attachment to the coffee machine I saw on the company website. Others wait several weeks, presumably to allow hope to mature fully before slaughtering it.

Of course, I cannot claim that age played any role in these decisions. That is the beauty of the modern rejection letter: it reveals absolutely nothing. It does not tell you whether you lacked a particular skill, wanted too much money, had too much experience, had the wrong experience, or were defeated by an applicant who already knew someone in the building.

Nevertheless, Nefesh B’Nefesh acknowledges that job seekers over 50—particularly new immigrants—can face special difficulties entering the Israeli workforce. I am 57, an olah, and not yet fluent in Hebrew. I therefore approach every vacancy carrying three delightful little disadvantages before anyone reaches the section describing what I can actually do.

Meanwhile, Israel’s unemployment rate remains remarkably low—2.9 percent in June 2026. This is encouraging news for the country and slightly confusing news for those of us personally attempting to maintain the statistic.

The truth, stripped of sarcasm, is that repeated rejection does damage. Not because every applicant believes she deserves every position, but because generic praise offers no information with which to improve. “We were impressed” sounds kind, yet after the fifteenth repetition it becomes corporate bubble wrap: soft, protective and entirely empty.

Was I underqualified? Say so. Was I overqualified? Say so. Did the successful candidate have stronger Hebrew, more recent industry experience, or a particular technical skill? One honest sentence would be more useful than being told yet again that I was marvellous but mysteriously unsuitable.

Still, thank you for considering my application. I wish the successful candidate every success. I hope they are talented, hardworking, and appropriately fierce.

As for me, I shall continue moving forward too. Admittedly, my version of moving forward involves another coffee, several inventive uses of profanity, and Application Number Sixteen.

Fierce Competition should be getting nervous.