Dealing with Rejection
Written on July 20, 2009 by Will Irvin
Filed Under: Job Hunting
You’re not going to get every job you apply for. That’s a fact of job searching (and of life in general) that is unavoidable. How you deal with each rejection will go a long way in determining how successful you are in your continuing job search.
The Scathing Rejection
Occasionally, you will receive a letter, email, or phone call from a company you’ve applied to work for berating you for wasting their time when you are obviously unqualified. Though rare, it does happen. The only way to deal with these responses is to promptly delete them and realize that they aren’t the type of company you want to work for anyway.
The No-Response Rejection
In my experience, the majority of jobs you apply to will not reply to you at all. I guess they think that if they ignore you long enough, you will eventually go away. I recently had a prospective client like this. I would go days (weeks at one point) without hearing from him, so I decided to light a fire under him, so to speak. I sent him an email stating that I understood that he was busy, but that if I did not hear from him via telephone, he would receive no further emails from me. He sent me an email reply minutes later with a proposed appointment time for us to speak on the phone. You shouldn’t necessarily send them an email every day asking them what the status of the job is, but keeping yourself in their minds can sometimes help you get the job after all.
The Encouraging Rejection
There are occasionally rejections that leave the door open for future opportunities. I recently received one such email from a company for which I had applied to work on a project. I didn’t quite fit the project they were currently working on, but they were pleased with my qualifications, and said they would like to work with me on future projects. They may have just been blowing smoke up my you-know-what, but at least I didn’t feel belittled or ignored by them.
Rejection is part of job hunting. How you deal with it is too. How do you deal with rejection in your job search? And, what are some of the best and worst ways you’ve been told “Thanks, but no thanks”?
Comments (2)
Anne Wayman says:
2009-07-20 12:25:27
Ah rejection… and the flaming rejection. I usually just send a ‘thanks for your email’ response… just that, so they can’t accuse me of not responding or they don’t’ send it again thinking it got lost.
As you know, occasionally I engage – but I really try to get a dialog going rather than escalate a flame war.
Thanks for your kind comments on my blog… I’ve now subscribed to yours.
A
Will Irvin says:
2009-07-20 04:26:03
The fact that you reply, even when the answer is “thanks, but no thanks”, puts you in the minority, but it’s good to know that you take the small amount of time it takes to let someone know you at least gave them a look.
As for the comments on your blog, I’m happy to leave them. All writers like to know that their words are getting through to someone, so I thought I’d let you know that yours help me each day.
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