Originally Posted by
wanttobehealthy 
I got a nice reply saying there were so many candidates all so highly qualified and it was very hard to narrow it down due to the limited positions for start up....
The woman I emailed who interviewed me told me she encouraged me to keep in touch as the next (this coming fall) school year approaches and they may need to hire more staff and will keep my resume on file.
I'm assuming she's just being nice bc the initial email just said we can't offer you a position at this time and good luck in your search.
It just sucks.
I would not assume that she's just being nice. I've interviewed and hired my fair share of employees. If a candidate makes it to a callback interview & the final 3, I would absolutely keep the candidate on file for future hiring. Also, we've had more than once that a newly hired candidate hasn't worked out very shortly after being hired. In that case, I would always go back to the other top candidates unless some red flag came up during the interview process which excluded one of them. Based on what she said, I would assume you'd be in the former rather than the latter category. The initial contact sounded like the standard rejection but the response to your email sounds very positive.
As for the silver linings, the two I see are: 1- you had a great interview experience which will just help with future interviews plus will give you confidence (making it to a 2nd interview is a BIG thing.) 2- your response to the "rejection" likely created an ally for you. If you never end up at that school, you could end up with a reference to another school because of it. I have absolutely been in the position where someone was not the right fit for
our company but
was an exceptional candidate. In those cases, if another company mentions hiring, I mention the candidate & provide contact info if they're interested. It's happened once or twice.
Congrats on the 2nd interview and I'm sorry it didn't work out for you.