First Time? Sign Up or Login to your My Jobing Account
|
Nevada
Change Location
|
|
Home > Jobing Community Blogs > Blog Post: No - No - No - How Do I ...
Blog Post: No - No - No - How Do I Handle Job Rejection?
posted Saturday, January 5, 2008 7:27 PM
It is a fact, job seekers experience a high level of No’s - Rejections – either directly with a “No Thanks” letter or email, but more often than not with a “No Response” – you apply on-line and then never hear anything. Sometimes you get an interview, and then never hear anything. You send follow-up emails or letters and you get no response. It is as if your cover letter and resume went into a black hole! As if you were not even present at the interview. This is called “Rejection” With rare exception, every job seeker experiences some rejection – some more than others. It is the reality of the job market.
Following are 10 Tips to help you manage Rejection and Enhance your job search: 1. Learn to accept “No” and move forward. – Mentally prepare yourself for rejection – understand and acknowledge: You will get rejected! Whether highly qualified or a novice, you will experience a heavy dose of rejection. Rejection will come in two primary ways – “a courteous No Thank” and “No Response”, and in fact you will find that probably 90% will be in the no response category – never hearing another word – seems strange, but true. Realize you will get many many no’s before you get a “yes”. 2. Recognize the greater your job search efforts, the greater your level of no’s and no responses. You make many applications and you get many “No’s” or “No Responses”. 3. Understand - It is not personal – a No or a No Response is not a statement about you or your capability, it simply means the hiring authority has someone else that in his or her view is a better fit for their needs. It could also mean you did not do present yourself as well as you might have. 4. Learn and follow-up on every “No” – Obviously this is difficult with “No Responses”, but with a response that says No Thank you for applying, especially where you established some contact with an interviewer or hiring manager – Send a thank you note and ask for feedback on what you might do differently to be a better candidate. How could you improve your opportunities? Learn from every rejection – how can you make your future applications and interviews more effective? Most applicants don’t do this, so you may actually better position yourself for future opportunities by taking this action. You may get a recruiter or hiring manager’s attention. For every “No Response” – review your application, resume, and cover letter – What could you have done differently? 5. Debrief every rejection with a friend or confidant. Express your frustration, disappointment, anger, all of that – and ask for guidance, ideas, what might you have done differently? You will not only get some good ideas and feedback, but also this discussion will help you reenergize to move forward. 6. Take a Break! Being diligent, continuously working on your job search is hard work! Hard work and a high level of rejection can lead to frustration, anger, disillusionment, burnout, and self doubt, possibly even quitting or a tendency to lower your standards – going for jobs that you really don’t want. A break will help you refocus, reenergize and place you in a more relaxed and confident mode going forward. 7. Strengthen your Self Confidence – Use “self coaching” and conversations with your close friends and confidants to continuously reaffirm and enhance your self-confidence. Whenever you have self-doubt, even a little, explain it, understand it, and find ways to turn any negatives into positives. Take time to reflect on your past accomplishments – acknowledge yourself – recognize what you accomplished in the past, and that you have the experience, the skills and knowledge to be successful. Be willing to accept the fact that you are very capable and qualified. – You can compete very well for the job you want. 8. Keep a sense of humor – Job search is hard serious work – sometimes frustrating – doesn’t always make sense, and there are many opportunities for humor – you may experience silly or crazy interview situations or questions, a great variety of personalities, – Relax and enjoy the journey – Find the humor and laugh. Finding that next job is important for you and your career, it may even be critical to your life style, but have some fun along the way, maintaining a sense of humor will go along way to helping you be successful. 9. Turn “No” to Yes” Build on tips 1 through 8. Take every point of rejection and find ways to turn negatives into positives – Pay close attention to tips 1-8 and work to improve on each area – Think of Job Search as a Continuous Improvement Effort – you start as a novice – you end up as a Job Search Professional and more importantly with the job you want. 10. Persist – Do it again, and again, and again – Don’t Quit! Continuously improve on how you find, apply for, interview, follow-up, and ultimately accept your new position. When all else fails – when you get discouraged – when you get another rejection – when you question your capability – Persist! -- Work to keep your level of confidence, but most all Persist – You will be successful! In my experience over many years in the business world, the factors that have consistently shown up as the critical factors for obtaining a position are two -- Confidence & Persistence! Obviously it helps to be very well qualified, but without confidence and persistence your qualifications likely won’t matter.
Community Comments
There are no comments for this post yet.
|
About This Author
Recent posts by Erika Dixon
Erika Dixon Blog Archive
Bookmark & Share This Page
|
|
