Would you feel frustrated in this situation at work?

I went on an internal secondment into a really complex team for 12 months. During that time I basically had to learn the role with very little formal training and the team went through three different leaders while I was there.

The role itself is pretty high pressure — complex work, tough customers, and a lot of interaction with internal stakeholders. Despite that, I felt like I did really well. I received good feedback from customers and colleagues, and quite a few people internally actually vouched for me and supported my application when a permanent role opened up.

The permanent role that opened was literally the exact job I had been doing during the secondment, so I applied. I went through the full interview process but was unsuccessful.

The feedback I got was:

• There were a lot of applicants so it was hard to narrow down

• My interview was strong but they wanted more detail in some answers

This confused me because I was already doing the role in one of the most complex teams, so I felt like my examples were pretty detailed.

Then I later found out that no one actually got the role and the job was reposted online.

Another part of this situation: the person whose role I was covering had been on maternity leave. She was always fully entitled to return to her full-time role that I had been covering, so that part was never in question. However I did ask the manager last year “should we maybe reach out and see if she wants to be part time since she has a newborn?” I was told no.

However, during my secondment another vacancy opened in the same team when a part-time colleague moved roles. That role ended up being filled by an external hire, even though I was already internal and doing the job. Business couldn’t make the role full-time, which I accepted.

Then a couple months later management told me that the colleague on maternity leave had reached out and would be returning part-time. Because they had already hired the external person, they ended up offering her the full-time role I had been covering, which she accepted.

So in the end:

• I did the role for almost a year

• Didn’t get any permanent position

• The role was reposted after interviews

• An external hire was brought in my role I was covering

• The returning employee took the part-time role I’d mentioned

• I went back to my original team

I completely respect maternity leave rights and her entitlement to her role — that’s not the issue for me.

But I can’t help feeling like the outcome doesn’t really add up and maybe something behind the scenes was personal.

Am I overthinking this, or would you also feel a bit off about how this played out?