I have never been the top candidate for a role, I only get hired when there are multiple positions. Help please!!

This is a throwaway account.

Hi everyone, I hope this is useful for someone else as I'm hoping I'm not the only one that has gone through this.

I want advice as to how to become the top candidate to get the roles I really want. I have had 3 roles in my career. The first was an intake of 50+ employees, the second was an intake of about 10-15 employees and the third was an intake of 3 employees. I have never ever been hired as the one and only candidate to a company.

I just got rejected from a job I felt really confident about my chances for and really wanted, I was qualified and the interview went well. When they called me they said that they were sure it wouldn't take long for me to find a position because I'm fabulous. I had another interview last week for a role I wasn't too fussed about and the manager there said that I interviewed so well and have a lovely personality but I was unsuccessful. I figure if I'm truly terrible they'll just say I was unsuccessful and not waste their time being nice. I'm a super social and bubbly person, I make sure to smile a lot and make good eye contact and I dress really nice and do my hair and makeup but something is not clicking.

My background: I started in a call centre role, after 6 months promoted to QA, after 3 months promoted to content specialist and stayed in that role for nearly 2 years - this was all at the same company. From there I moved into government in a statistical role where I finished earlier this year. I left government to work somewhere else but quit after a month because it wasn't the right fit, I've left this off my resume. So my resume says I worked at a government org for 6 months after I left my original company where I stayed for nearly 3 years, that's 2 companies. Where I live it is very common to go to government on a short term contract so I don't think this is raising any particular red flags. I also have my manager from there as my referee.

I also have an undergrad degree in psych which I did use at my government job. I know all those office project things like software testing, agile, kanbans etc.

I just got an offer from a role that I don't really want so I declined it but they were hiring around 34 people.

I'm not having too much trouble getting interviews, I usually tailor my resume and cover letter for each individual role. I feel like I'm really connecting with recruiters but there's something that's not allowing me to be the top candidate and get hired. Do I just need more experience, which is honestly a bit hard to get when no one will hire me individually lol. Am I just a bit unlucky? Any advice?

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