Applying for a job, whether first appointment, move or promotion can be very stressful but the hardest part is saved for the end. The “sudden death” approach means that a rainbow of emotions have to be managed in front of a group of comparative strangers.

How do you deal with it. Burst into tears? Get angry? Laugh it off? Individuals will react differently and it may also depend on how well the interviews have gone. Sometimes performing satisfactorily without actually getting the job will make the failure more bearable. At other times, nothing will soften the rejection.

And that’s what it feels like. However dressed up or rationalised by the candidates or the appointment panel, in the end not being offered a job you’ve set your hopes on is a major slap in the face. Some people are so put off they don’t want to try again. Even candidates with another interview lined up elsewhere may wonder whether they can face the trauma again.

It may even be worse in those jobs - usually fairly senior - where an original long list of six or eight is reduced to three or four for the “formal” interviews.

Everyone will have been interviewed several times already - usually by panels looking at special aspects of the job. The interviewing panels will have tried hard to remain inscrutable and give no indication of how well or badly they think of the candidate but each individual will have picked up some vibes.

Then there’s the wait. All candidates together, trying to make small talk and not show their confidence or trepidation. Again the door opens, only this time, instead of one individual being taken to receive an offer of the post, there’s a list to be read: “We should like the following to stay for the formal interviews this afternoon.”

At that stage, if you’re not among the chosen, everything that’s gone before - hours spent on the application, the tension of performing for panels - seems a complete waste. You’ve been dismissed before the serious part of the process has even begun.

And it’s not just a problem for the candidates. Whoever is running the appointment will also have the difficult task of consoling the interviewees who are rejected for the job.

They will usually offer “feedback” or “de-briefing”. This may be done sensitively or badly. Either way it is unlikely to be of much help, first because almost inevitably it concentrates on the trivia of interview “performance” and second because the candidate is in a state of shock and unlikely to be properly receptive or capable of asking serious questions.

There is also the embarrassment of the “de-briefer”. However it is explained - and most will try hard to be as positive and sensitive as possible - the plain fact is that a qualified professional has just been told in the starkest possible terms that they are not as good as they thought themselves.

The de-briefing, supposedly a serious professional development experience, is actually part of a grieving process and puts the de-briefer in the role of priest or social worker. Failing to recognise this or inability to deal with it is usually the cause of the kind of insensitive feedback that makes candidates write angry letters when they get back to base.

But what of the successful candidate or, when there’s a cut, those going to the second round? Interviews generate a curious camaraderie. Strangers can become remarkably intimate - particularly when it’s a two-day process.

Consequently managing your own success without exacerbating the others’ sense of inadequacy requires care. Sympathy may sound insincere, self deprecation arrogant. Mostly, people wish each other good luck for the future and disappear as quickly as possible.

For the unsuccessful candidate two further hurdles remain: when to tell the partner waiting at home and what to tell friends and colleagues.

Phoning on the way home gives the partner time to adjust but also forces him or her to face the initial disappointment alone and with few facts. The alternative is a longer period of speculation.

Friends and colleagues who know about the interview will want reassurance that the candidate has not been damaged by the process as well as information about what happened. Talking it through is part of coming to terms with the loss.

Any appointment process involves stress but, in the education service, success and failure are immediate and very public. It’s a procedure aimed at the convenience of the interviewers and born of local authority commitment to openness and fair play. But for all but one candidate the swiftness with which the axe falls can be devastating.

For the winner of course the immediacy is a bonus. No going home to await a letter or phone call; no speculation about who the other candidates might have been; no time to worry whether right or wrong answers were given. Being awarded the prize immediately brings the same overwhelming relief as that of a sprinter at the tape or a cup-winner when the final whistle blows.

At that moment who would want job selection to be done any other way? Perhaps the losers as they traipse off empty handed and wonder whether they’ll get another chance to shine.