But the things that lead to success or failure have a large random factor to them (in other words, it may have nothing to do with what you did or didn't do). You may have been unlucky enough to be the second most qualified candidate on everything, or an idiot may have been too embarassed to admit to spilling coffee on your application on a job where you were clearly the best. You just don't know. The bright side is that successes can be just as arbitrary.