Ever since I joined LinkedIn, I've been receiving emails from Google recruiters. I replied to the first one, stating that as I'm an established contractor with my own company, it's difficult to switch to permanent employment. The emails kept coming in monthly.

After around a year, I was looking for something different, so I decided to investigate further. The job description looked interesting and matched the work I'd been involved with in previous years.

I had the initial pre-screening, which included technical questions, and we discussed the role a little.

A week later, I was offered a technical phone interview. It started with one question, which kept expanding until it covered a wide range of topics. It was clear they were after someone who knew how to approach a new problem, rather than someone who had memorized a bunch of commands suitable only for a particular situation.

I felt it went really well, except at the end when I made some silly mistakes. However, it was 10 p.m. on a Friday, so I'm sure most people wouldn't be completely switched on at that point. Overall, the interview was positive – it was relevant to my skills, and the questions were fair.

A few more days passed, and I got an email saying they don't have any jobs that match my qualifications, with the usual "thank you for your interest in our company, etc." Not knowing what that really meant, I wrote back asking for a reason and feedback on the technical interview. I explained where I thought I went wrong and asked if that was the issue. I only received another email thanking me for my interest in the company and suggesting I try again in a few months.

As I only had the technical interview, I was expecting something like, "We need someone with more experience/knowledge in X," or "someone who has used X for X years." I did get the impression from the emails that there actually was no job available waiting to be filled, but that they are constantly on the lookout – in the same way that job agencies sometimes post bogus jobs on job boards to gather candidate information and identify gaps in the job market.

I fail to see how applying again in a few months will change things, as I'm not sure what went wrong. I will probably make the same mistake again unless asked exactly the same questions.

Topics:

• Filesystems
• Networking
• Scripting

I will not write the question.