Let’s face it. Professional rejection (and personal, I might add) is and will be part of your life as an employee. Whether it’s on the micro-level where you overhear someone talking smack behind your back, or on the macro level where you receive a letter of rejection – that emotional sting we’re all petrified of experiencing is an inescapable aspect of our reality.
So, if rejection cannot be avoided, no matter how calculated our steps and how preventive our measures are, what can we do about it?
Well, for starters, we can accept it and see it for what it is. Like people, not every job opportunity you run into is meant to be a part of your life; some will be your closest comrades, others are just meant to bring pain (within which is enwrapped a lesson) into your life.
If you can make peace with that – which is easier said than done, believe you me – then you’re already most of the way there. That said, let’s dive into the technical aspects of handling rejection for when it rears its head in our lives.
Rejection is a part of life, but it’s not the end of the world. It might feel tempting to catastrophize and convince yourself that you’ll never get hired, but realize it’s only your emotions making you believe that to be the case; the reality is, everybody goes through the same experience, even though it might not feel like it at the time.
Bear in mind this is not me saying to dismiss your emotions or deem them invalid, because that only serves to exacerbate the “distortion,” if you will. What I am saying is to realize that even though your emotions are valid and should be treated as such, they’re not necessarily the best representation of what’s going on – not least when you’re down in the dumps.
In a nutshell: care about how you feel (and let yourself feel it), but don’t forget about the bigger picture.
Depending on how much you’re affected by the rejection, you might feel like taking a break from the job hunt and letting yourself off the hook for a while. Do it. Give your nervous system the break it deserves. Take a couple of days off and simply disconnect. Go for a walk. Treat yourself to an amazing dinner with your friends. Play video games. Watch movies. Anything to take your mind off of the self-esteem hit that you just received.
You might be anxious to get back to the job hunt, but you probably won’t be in the right headspace if you’re not feeling emotionally sound. Sure, you might spend more time than you’d planned to find a new opportunity, but at least you’ll be able to do it more objectively this way.
The moment you feel particularly prepared to go over what happened (and why), is the time for you to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth; it’s time to ask for feedback. As I said, emotions can be the greatest deceiver and make you buy into something that’s literally of your own imagination.
I’m going to repeat that, bolded, because this is so important to understand (even so, most people reading this are not going to internalize what I’m really saying, but nevertheless).
Your emotions can and will make you believe something that’s not real.
And this happens under our noses all the time.
Here’s why:
When we’re caught in the grip of intense negative emotion, we tend to also feel discombobulated. Thus, we start groping for an explanation to make sense of what’s going on – no matter how detrimental. And once we grab hold of something that’s remotely feasible… Well, we hold on for dear life. Without ever questioning the validity of the narrative we just conjured up in our minds.
Hence why asking for feedback is crucial for you to get back in touch with what really happened, and not stay lost in your own downward spiral. Self-analysis in trying times just isn’t going to cut it.
So don’t be afraid to ask for a detailed assessment. And at this point I wouldn’t worry too much about your emotional state; if you managed to get through that initial phase, the stages following are always less difficult to handle.
Cliched as this might sound, there’s always a learning experience inherent in every undesirable situation; we often simply can’t be bothered to look for it.
But you know better than to write off a job rejection as a purely negative event that you hope will never happen again. You know, there’s a reason a saying that goes “Hope is not a strategy” exists, and I like to think I’ll forever stand by that.
That means once you’ve got past the initial shock, you’ve received the feedback, and now it’s all you and your thoughts... It's time to sit down and reflect.
(Speaking of shocks, you’ll be shocked to learn about all the career greatness found herein.)
Ask yourself: What things could I have done differently? Were the interviews too clunky and lacking rapport? Was a presentation too rushed? Could you have answered some questions more thoroughly? Put your mind on a scavenger hunt and see where you could have done something differently.
Also, don’t take this as a chance to self-attack or criticize yourself. This is constructive feedback and nothing else. Never accept from yourself what you would not accept from others.
Now it’s time to resume your search. Ideally, you’ve extracted enough information from everything that occurred since the fateful day (that you were rejected as a candidate) that you feel confident to start sending out applications.
With more experience (and wisdom) under your belt, you’ll know what to do in a more refined and efficient manner – and more importantly, what not to do as well. Perhaps even you’ll be finetuning your search and looking elsewhere for a job because you realized it’s not what you wanted after all.
The biggest lesson of them all
You know, the funny thing about pain is that it actually makes you see things more clearly – your career, your relationship, and heck, even yourself.
But, whatever new perspective or awareness you’ve gained, at this point in time only one thing’s for certain: It’s time to get back in the ring. And what better way to prepare for the next round than to consume tons of Bayt.com-backed teachings? Click here to start feeding your brain now!
