{
  "registry_version": "2026.08.2",
  "data": {
    "title": "Rejection naming a specific industry sector as required",
    "status": "active",
    "evidence_ids": [],
    "content": "# Rejection naming a specific industry sector as required\n\nThe stated reason is the absence of experience in one named sector, rather than the depth or correctness of the work assessed.\n\n### Diagnostic Non-Inferences\n- Does not establish that the sector was irrelevant to the work.\n- Does not establish that the assessed work fell short in any respect.",
    "id": "A-018",
    "type": "artifact",
    "summary": "The stated reason is the absence of experience in one named sector, rather than the depth or correctness of the work assessed.",
    "stages": [
      "recruiter",
      "technical"
    ],
    "evidence_level": "hypothesis",
    "probes": [
      {
        "id": "PROBE-A-018-1",
        "action": "Compare the sector named in the message against the requirements section of the posting as it stood on the day of application.",
        "expected_signal": "Establishes whether the sector was listed as required, listed as preferred, or absent.",
        "cost": "low",
        "outcomes": [
          {
            "id": "listed-as-required",
            "label": "The posting named the sector among the requirements.",
            "excludes": [],
            "because": ""
          },
          {
            "id": "listed-as-preferred",
            "label": "The posting named the sector, among preferences or nice-to-haves rather than requirements.",
            "excludes": [],
            "because": ""
          },
          {
            "id": "absent-from-the-posting",
            "label": "The posting did not mention the sector at all.",
            "excludes": [],
            "because": ""
          },
          {
            "id": "no-saved-copy",
            "label": "No copy of the posting as applied to was kept.",
            "excludes": [],
            "because": ""
          }
        ]
      }
    ],
    "specimens": [
      {
        "kind": "email",
        "label": "Feedback after the technical round",
        "subject": "Following your technical session",
        "lines": [
          {
            "text": "The exercise was solid and the reasoning about failure modes was strong.",
            "tell": false
          },
          {
            "text": "The team decided to go with someone who has already worked in the payments domain.",
            "tell": true
          },
          {
            "text": "We would be happy to talk again for a role where that is less central.",
            "tell": false
          }
        ],
        "reading": "The work is assessed positively and the ground for the decision is elsewhere. That combination is what makes the sector legible as the operative line — and leaves open how heavily it was weighed."
      }
    ],
    "perspectives": [
      {
        "actor": "candidate",
        "sees": "A reason that names an industry rather than a capability: payments, health, advertising, trading — a sector the candidate has not worked in, stated as the thing that was missing.",
        "reads": "The sector is a real difference. Whether it is a difference in what the work requires, or a proxy standing in for that, the message does not distinguish — and the two look identical from outside.",
        "does": "Compares the sector named against the requirements the posting listed, because a requirement that appears only in the closing message appeared somewhere between the two."
      },
      {
        "actor": "hiring-manager",
        "sees": "Two candidates who can both build the system, one of whom has already met the constraints this sector imposes and will not spend the first quarter discovering them.",
        "reads": "Sector context is a real cost, paid in ramp-up time that the team carries. Weighing it is judgement, not a rule, and nothing in the process asks how much of it was weighed.",
        "does": "States the difference plainly, because it is the most concrete thing that separated two people who both passed."
      },
      {
        "actor": "recruiter",
        "sees": "A requirement that was written into the search brief as a preference and is now being applied as a threshold.",
        "reads": "Preferences and thresholds are recorded in the same field. Which one a line was is decided when it is used, not when it is written.",
        "does": "Passes the reason on in the manager's words, because it is specific enough to send and not attributable to anything the recruiter assessed."
      }
    ],
    "non_inferences": [
      "Does not establish that the sector was irrelevant to the work.",
      "Does not establish that the assessed work fell short in any respect."
    ]
  }
}