Originally Posted by Unregistered

I assume that you had less industry experience than others who might had been applying for the same position (I apologize if I'm mistaken). My guess is that at your first round, the course manager and senior manager(s) recognized that while you were disadvantaged in this area, they may have found other qualities to consider and thus gave your application the benefit of the doubt and cleared you at this round. At your second round, the Directors' panel may had been interviewing more than one candidate for the same position, and in the final reckoning, felt that someone else was more qualified with equivalent qualifications, maybe again because of directly relevant experience.

Either way, if you made it to the second round and didn't get the offer, my sense of it was that it was probably a tough decision made on a small number of shortlisted applicants.