how do I accept I'll never know why any employer rejected me?

There are thousands of possible reasons and many of them won't have anything to do with you. There are fake job postings. There are many jobs where the hiring manager already has someone in mind for the job (but they have to check the required boxes and pretend to open the position to any candidate). Another candidate may have gone to the same school or been in a frat with the hiring manager. The list goes on and on.
- This is a good list. Another, often overlooked is:
  Sometimes we just get incredibly unlucky and interview at the same time as someone wildly unusually more qualified.
  
  someone wildly unusually more qualified.
  Or at least someone who lied big enough on their resume to pretend that they're wildly more qualified.
  In my experience the people who do the hiring can't fucking tell the difference.
  I really hate the whole "you need to inflate what you did on your resume" because it's just fucking lying.
  You know what's a fucking really valuable thing in this world that gets shit on: Having a fucking sense of humility and of a keen knowledge of your own limitations. Having that being viewed as a negative is fuck stupid and how we get fuck stupid people running the show.
  EDIT: I accidentally the whole word
- There are fake job postings.
  IIRC, there was one very recent (mid-2024) study of job ads that strongly suggested that 60-75% of them were never meant to be filled. As in, the company posted them for entirely unrelated reasons.
  It’s why these are called “ghost jobs”: they don’t exist.
  
  I haven't seen the numbers. I have read that they do this for a few evil reasons.
  It makes their business look like it's thriving.
  They can gather intel on who's job hunting.
  They can use job application tasks to get free work out of candidates.
  
  Recruiters are essentially salesmen. They want to have a full dossier of product (you) when they talk to a potential client. They might also job hop among agencies, and bringing a full dossier of product helps them get their new job. It’s much easier to build that product inventory with ghost jobs than it is to actually work directly with someone looking for a job.
  Maybe it’s my limited experience, but I’ve never worked for an employer that did this, as far as I know. Any opening was real at the time it was posted. However we’ve held onto people if we expect another opening or we like them even though they don’t fit but can’t promise a new opening until we get it approved …… or maybe we got the ok to hire and started the process but were shut down by bad numbers somewhere but hope that will change again
- There are many jobs where the hiring manager already has someone in mind for the job (but they have to check the required boxes and pretend to open the position to any candidate).
  I had a manager who offered a promotion to our department and went through the whole process of interviewing and whatnot before giving it to someone outside of the department who had no idea what he was doing and had to be trained by us on how to be a manager. It was really cool to find out after I bailed that he had the job before we even knew about the possible promotion. Glad I bailed on that asshole, that was the same manager who was buddy buddy with the office diddler and tried to run interference for him around the office when he got a new set of bracelets.

There are a few benign-ish ways this happens, based on my experience from working on "the other side". They reflect shittily on the hiring manager, but not on you:
You got no immediate rejection because they did consider you valid for the position, just not first place. Then they got a match on the first place and stopped giving a shit about the applicant backlog.
They got too many applicants and threw half in the garbage.
Upper management put a freeze, or reduction, on hiring right as they put an ad out.
They have a person already picked for the position, but they will get in legal or corporate or PR trouble if they don't pretend to do a proper hiring process.
Their application process, human or computer, lost your CV.
- I have never once been told I wasn't hired, let alone told why.
  I've been to probably a thousand interviews.
  No one has time for that.
  Imagine as a manager, you interview 100 people. Now you expect them to write a rejection letter, pass it through HR and the lawyers, for 99 people?
  Imagine the time that would take, and what does the company get for that time? Nothing but risk.
  
  As a hiring manager for nearly 4 years straight, dealing with way way more than 100 applicants for some positions, I know it takes minutes at most.
  All hiring systems have ways to send batch emails to rejected candidates.
  If you don't have a hiring system for some reason, it's still just hitting reply/ctrl-v/send to each applicant you move out of the "possible candidate" inbox.
  Giving a reason "why" tends to hit people badly if they didn't specifically ask, so a stock response is not only easy to give, but the best response. Whether and how to respond in more detail to people asking for "why", is a less easy decision but good if you are able to.
  
  Not OP, but just a boiler plate response would be fine for me. "Sorry [insert name here]. You are no longer being considered for this position. (Optional) Good luck on other applications". Could even have it set up to sends those out automatically.

Giving you feedback opens them up to liability if you sue.
- Not being dickheads when hiring people makes suing unnecessary
  
  You’re assuming no candidates are dickheads.
  Company has to watch out for
  maybe a candidate was a dickhead
  maybe one of the interviewers was a dickhead
  maybe something changed so it looks misrepresented
  
  You think people only sue when necessary?

You don’t get “rejected”, they just hire someone who isn’t you.
- New stratagy.......apply to the same company 400 times. With 400 different aliases. With 400 different disguises.
  Exaust them with competition all looking for the same job. Which drowns out the 20 or so candidates. And then you just need to start a new life under your new name. Easy peasy.
  Except not easy at all. It's actually incredibly complicated keeping each character seperate, and remembering which accients to use, and then commiting to the bit for the next 60 years.

It really doesn't hurt to keep asking. Nobody that matters is going to be offended by it. Eventually someone will tell you, but just be aware that different people may have different reasons so don't assume feedback from one employer applies to all employers.
- At the end of my interviews, before saying bye,I ask what I could have done better. Almost always received constructive criticism. I highly recommend it.
  
  This is a seriously good idea! Employers want employees that are looking to improve themselves.
  Either you fucked up and they'll tell you so you can improve next time, or they'll just be impressed at your desire to grow.
  
  Whenever I've been on the hiring side of an interview, the people seated in the interview aren't given any special "Keep the company safe" training, but the HR person coordinating always have been. I suspect that's why it works much better to ask in the interview than after it.

I’d like to know how close I was and in what ways I can become a more interesting candidate, but nobody is going to give me a realistic answer.
I can tell you from the employer side there is nothing to gain by answering this question asked by a candidate, and everything to lose which is why you the candidate almost never hear a response.
There are some legally protected reasons you cannot be turned down for a job. Its all the stuff you'd think of: race, religion, marital status, sex, age, etc. The likelihood you were turned down because of one of these illegal reasons is usually very low in the USA. I'm proud to say for the hiring efforts I've been a part of, these have never been considered criteria for disqualifying a candidate. Its always been for things like lack of knowledge/education, criminal history (example multi-DUI for a job that requires driving or conviction of embezzling when put in charge of company finances ), etc.
However, any documented reason a prospective employer gives back to a candidate becomes a liability. Will that candidate sue the company claiming that they weren't hired because they think the position required some not married, which would be a crime of the employer?
- Legally they cannot. Also, domestic violence happens to men too.
- And now with AI it’s even worse …… how do I respond that when i asked a technical question, it was suspicious that you looked down, paused several seconds, then appeared to be reading an answer? While being able to use the tools is a prerequisite, that’s not what the interview is for …… but I have to make a judgement call with no proof

I make sure to always assume it was nepotism and my confidence remains sky high no matter how long I stay unemployed. It just works.
- Until you get rejected for a job at your own dad's company.
  
  I still attest that to nepotism. Lousy older brother.

sometimes even if you had the best application in the world you’d get ignored. Lets say HR has limited resources, X work hours to find a suitable candidate. They post an add and get 400 replies. After reading 100 of those, they are running out of work hours, and have already shortlisted a bunch of good candidates. So they toss the 300 others in the bin.
This happens all the time sadly.

Answering you is a liability to them. They have no incentive to do so and legal liability if they do.

I used to work in sales and I did a lot of cold calls. The world-weary senior sales guy would always just shake his head at me when I got frustrated. "It's a numbers game," he would say. "It's just a numbers game." In the beginning I would waste a lot of time researching each individual call, but that didn't help me make sales. The truth was a certain percentage of people that I could call would have a need for the product I was offering. Of those people who had a need, a certain percentage would choose us over a competitor, because we were the best fit.
Looking for a job is the same as sales. Your product is your labor. It can feel personal, as though the product is you, yourself. But you're not selling yourself, you're selling your work product. A certain percentage of buyers (employers) will need the labor that you can provide. A certain percentage of those will choose you over a competitor because you are the best fit. It's a numbers game. It's not personal, it's just a numbers game.

Since the answer is unknowable, you might as well assume the best for yourself. Imagine that the job would have sucked anyway.
For example, I once interviewed for a job, was accepted, then showed up on my first day only to find out that the position had been given to someone else. Was I angry and disappointed? Of course. I made myself feel better by deciding I was better off not working for someone so untrustworthy.
- I once interviewed for a job, was accepted, then showed up on my first day only to find out that the position had been given to someone else.
  And with written proof of acceptance, any employment lawyer worth their degree could have gotten you a healthy amount of compensation even after their cut. Behaviour like this by any company is illegal in almost all jurisdictions, and should never be tolerated.
  
  I didn’t have anything in writing. That’s what stopped me from taking it further. You’re completely right, though.

Because employers are opaque and their evaluation of you isn't something that should be important to you. They're not giving you a clear response oftentimes because they want to avoid legal issues.

I straight up ask any job I apply and interview with why they didn't proceed. One time they were actually taken back and ended up hiring me (after some convo).
If a company cannot communicate to you why you didn't make the cut, they're a shitty company and not worth working for. I realize that's easier said than done to swallow, but it's true.

Some people fell better when they find fault in others. So blame them for being too stupid to see your worth and be thankful you don’t have to work somewhere with people like that. It’s their loss. You’re waiting a company worthy of your talents finds you.
- So blame them for being too stupid to see your worth...You’re waiting a company worthy of your talents finds you.
  Careful with this. If you legitimately feel you are entitled to be hired by a specific employer, you are almost certainly less likely to get the job. Nobody wants to deal with entitled people.
  
  Yeah, during the interview, realistically you’re looking to see if it’s a good fit.
  But after the fact, feel free to cheer yourself up by blaming their incompetence.
  
  There's a balance though. Not a specific company, but with a company who sees my needs and value, and meets or exceeds that, with appreciation.

I think your expectations are too high. They DO indeed care nothing for you, EVEN if they DO hire you.
You cope with this by understanding that and doing your best to make sure you NEVER need them more than they need you.

All there is to accept is the knowledge that the vast majority of employers, the wealth holding members of society, do not actually care about anyone that won't earn them more money.
And then also that not all, but most of society will also tell you that you must be doing something wrong, it must be your fault.
- "The wealth holding members of society"
  Hahaha, every hiring manager I've worked for (you know, someone looking to fill a spot on our team) wasn't exactly what I'd call "a wealth holder".
  They're middle-to-senior management, making anywhere from 100k to 300k, at most. Sometimes quite a bit less.
  We're talking people who are a good 3 levels away from the C class. Meaning they'd be competing with everyone at their level, and above, to get to those higher seats in the pyramid.
  Hiring managers are rarely farther up the food chain, unless they're hiring for those seats farther up the food chain - which isn't any of us here.
  It's It like there's a team of managers who just do hiring/interviews. HR handles the initial stages, and the actual "hiring manager" is the person who's looking to add someone to their team, someone they'll be managing.
  
  Well, I'd say 100k to 300k qualifies as more money than I've ever made in a single year of my life, more than I've made in my entire life if we go closer to 300k...
  But what I meant was that the ultimate hiring process is dictated, signed off on or altered, all the way down, by the wealth holding members of society. The top execs, the board.
  And that the society created, and largely owned, by their policies is essentially gaslighting us every day.
  Have you ever spent an entire year applying to jobs... as a full time job? After having had a career, losing it to a disability, then trying to go back after years of recovery?
  With maybe one reply every few months, despite being qualified for everything you are applying to?
  Becoming depressed as everyone around you spends the first month giving you mindless cheery platitudes, then forgetting you exist, then becoming angry when you tell them you can't afford to do anything that involves money?
  Then when you finally cave and go work some bullshit job you are immensely overqualified for, everyone blames you for not living up to your potential?
  They made it, it worked out for them, why didn't it work out for you?
  Even though it never once occured to them to maybe help you out monetarily and avoid going into massive debt, or by putting in a good word for you with their network of contacts.

This is something that, as long as you ended up getting a job, you should really just not give a fuck about.
They probably had 1 position to fill, but got many times more applications than that, maybe 10, maybe 20, maybe 50, maybe 100. That means that they had to reject 9 or 19 or 49 or 99 people and they have better things to do with their time than to explain this to all these people, however many they may be.

My current company makes the effort to at least tell whether you’re still under consideration but I don’t think they’re allowed by legal to give any details.
At least in the US, it’s fine to not give a reason but if you do give a reason you’re liable for it. What company wants to risk that?
- Looks like a major loophole to me haha

Employment is like dating, there are frequently things that happen outside of the process that impact the process and there are often reasons to avoid direct rejection even if the reasons are different.
Jobs might be posted and then the position itself is made redundant during the interviews, so they are no longer hiring. Or they liked your interview, but want to offer you something else and have to do the HR circus to make that offer happen and the whole thing falls through. Or during the interviews they decide they want to change the position into something else. Orbthey are incompetent and HR forgot to follow up on the job offer. I have seen all of these happen!
Then there is the all too common scenario of finding out the candidate is a woman or a minority and sone jerk killing the process. Can't admit that so they ghost. They might have a valid reason not to hire, but don't want to be sued for giving a reason. They might also have posted the thing to meet a requirement although they know who they were going to hire from the start. I have seen all of those as well.
Or they don't want to tell a candidate they didn't meet the position for fear of violence. This is likely being over cautious and not specific to the applicant!
Or the applicant reminded an interviewer of someone they don't like.
These often line up with dating because they are all things that have no real specific explanation that can be given as what the csndidate can even do to change. Knowing they are possible won't really impact how the interview/dating should go in the future either, because they are all external to the interview or dating process.
So the best way is to come to terms with the fact that there is likely to be someone who is a better fit, or the position wasn't really stable, or you didn't want to work or date them anyway if they didn't follow up.
- Shit man, you forgot someone else was just better suited for the job.
  Even though you might be 97% perfect for the job, if they find 98% you’re done and it’s not your fault. Hell you were an excellent candidate for the job and just got unlucky enough to happen to be in the same pool as them.
  
  The final decision on who to hire never comes down to who is the 'most qualified'. There will almost always be multiple people who are qualified and the tiebreaker is interpersonal stuff like a matching sense of humor, attractiveness, and not reminding the interviewer of someone they don't like.
  Someone might be told it is based on the most qualified, but working well with others is part of a job and not in the written qualifications. It is also a subjective determination and varies wildly depending on the job and who is interviewing.

Don't take it personally, applying for a job is a game of chance as much as a game of merits. It's simply a numbers game and luck whether your resume even gets looked at in the first place, even if you're résumé how all their keywords. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of other resumes also hit their keywords.
If you're lucky enough to get through the first sifting and get an interview with the hiring person (not an HR screener who doesn't know anything about the job), then you can ask and maybe get a response on how you could have improved. (Don't ask why you weren't hired.)

You should send them one of those annoying feedback surveys.
1. On a scale from 1 to 10, how do you rate the overall quality of my application?
2. How well did my qualifications match the requirements for the position?
Very well matched
Somewhat matched
Not well matched
3. On a scale from 1 to 10, how would you rate the clarity of my resume/CV?
4. Was there any specific skill or experience you felt was missing from my application?
Yes (please specify)
No
5. On a scale from 1 to 10, how effectively did my cover letter convey my interest in the position?
6. Were there any areas in which my application could have been improved? (e.g., resume formatting, better alignment with job requirements, etc.)
7. On a scale from 1 to 10, how well did I communicate my strengths during any interviews or communications?
8. Would you consider my application for future opportunities within your organization?
Yes
Maybe, depending on the role
No
9. On a scale from 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend me to another employer?

I just was rejected from 5 jobs in a row. I straight up asked how I could have been a more competitive candidate. I got some specific feedback about software I didn't know (fair), an answer on a questionnaire that was milquetoast (also fair), but mostly kind things said. They're not going to drag you but it can be a productive conversation.

As someone who's been on the hiring side there are some legalities involved on what to answer here. But I've always made a point of telling people who asked why. However I'm not in HR, so lots of people might get filtered before I even got a chance to interview them.
Also we asked candidates to do a take home and we talked about their solution during the interview, so most people got a good understanding of why they were rejected, but a couple of times people asked afterwards and I replied to them with the reasons we considered they were not at the level we were looking for, but that we would keep them in consideration for a more junior role if there ever was an opening.

Life is all about probabilities, you can do everything right and still lose (however doing everything"right" is nigh impossible). You lose if they have a better candidate, you lose if their department is suddenly not in need of the position, etc.
With that mentality, I don't bother with CVs, and just use the time saved to apply to more jobs or maybe some kind of relevant project.

I had applied for a job in a busy area a long time ago. I followed up a week later, nothing. I called a few days later. Nothing. I went to the office in person and *spoke to the receptionist, who was pre-screening resumes. She picked up a box the size of a case of paper, and showed me another, half full. The full one were resumes she'd not looked at yet; the half full was what she had.

Send out so many applications and keep busy, so that every response is a surprise. Only after a response can you set a reminder to reach out after a week. After a reminder, send a message and do not set a reminder. Keep applying to other jobs.
I just lose track of jobs I applied to in my head. If they aren't responding, they don't care and neither should you.

Oh God it was such an onslaught on my self image and psychology. I believe humans aren't equipped to handle the amount of rejection you have to receive during that grind. I certainly wasn't.

There’s actually multiple questions here.
The hiring process has an application “filter” layer, a candidate selection layer, and THEN the interview with the person/people who actually want to hire you. Sometimes there’s an extra technical interview after that.
These days, the filter layer is mostly automated. Asking the filter why it didn’t select you is like asking a Machine Learning model why it chose to do something a certain way — you aren’t going to get a useful response.
So the only way to figure it out is trial and error: vary your application in terms of structure and content until you find the combination that makes it last the current batch of filters.
OR
Find a way to skip the filters altogether by finding someone on the inside of the company to flag up your CV to the people looking to fill the position.
Once past the filter, you get to HR, and if you get this far, asking questions about why you didn’t get selected to continue will actually be met with a useful response (unless it’s a company you don’t want to work for). HR will tell you the basic things they’re looking for in an application, and possibly how you compared in certain criteria to the stronger candidates.
Next you get to the manager. If you get this far, you can usually have this discussion at the end of your interview. They’re looking for fit for the role, and you can ask questions about fit as part of the interview process.
And finally you get to the technical interview. If you get this far and don’t get the job, the reason why is usually fairly obvious: either they had someone who was both a better fit AND understood the problem domain / demonstrated an ability to learn and reflect the team culture better, or you failed to prove technical ability in a key area.

Something I picked up over the years. The reasons are potentially personal or emotional.
Skills, experience and education are important.
But they are also concerned with cohesion.
"Is this someone I can have a beer with and have a good time"
"Will this person enjoy the company of the staff under my charge"
"That guy drove in with a insert political message on their bumper sticker. :/"
"Gross they used random font"
"We got too many Marks at this company"
- Reminds me of one team I was on that had Karthic, Karthik, and Karthick. THEY JUST KEPT HIRING THEM.
  
  HR is playing pokemon trying to catch em all

I mean what else can you do?

The same way you get over not knowing just about anything else.
Let it go.
Does it serve you in any way to continue to be bothered by not knowing?
You are irrelevant to them. Just like I'm irrelevant to you. That's life.

how do I accept I'll never know why any employer rejected me?
Ask yourself if it was ever a real job offer to begin with. Did you have the required skills? Were your pay requirements reasonable? (For YOU not them). Then you did fine.

try a DBT program xd

the good news is it's very easy to get some practice

Shiit so many comments here.
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment

If you are based in Europe you could always try a GDPR subject access request to see the notes they've taken. Not sure if you can try something like that wherever you are though!

Lol why would anyone fuckin hire someone that bitches about the basics of finding, applying and following up on new job interviews.
"I feel for those who have to do this without stable income or a family that offers them a place to stay..."
It's common sense to most non-pampered people who don't expect people to wait on every one of their super bitchy complaints to just take a job beneath their qualification as a bridge the gap income while putting in the work to find their right employer to build their career with.
- I'd like to know ... how to be a more interesting candidate
  Homie is just trying to be better and being frustrated they aren't getting feedback on how to be better
- You're out of touch. Employers don't want overqualified people. They are the ones that decide for you that you can't possibly be motivated for such a job. You'll only leave when you find something better they think, which is definitely true when you claim to just "bridge the gap".
  
  Lol I am currently working at a job that is my fill the gap job. I left because I didn't like the direction they were going so I left and took a job as a laborer for a contractor. When I find the right fit I'll move on from this job.