Resilience in Rejection.
It’s nearing the end of the year, 2020, and it’s been an extremely difficult year for many of us. Besides everything else that has been going on at a global level, you’re also extremely unhappy in your current role and organization.
You have made your mind up. Your decision is final. You want to start hunting for a new opportunity!
But wait. You do not just want ANY opportunity. You long for a position within an organization whereby it’s not just a “job” to you. You yearn for the understanding of the quote “Love what you do, and you’ll never work a day in your life”.
You know exactly what you are passionate about, where your strengths lie and what your END BUSINESS GOAL is. You are aware of your personal values and you make the decision to find an organization that aligns with these values enabling the empowerment of your business mind!
These passions, goals and aspirations are then assimilated into your BIGGER PICTURE – your complete career vision.
You’ve now taken all the first steps of updating your resume which is now tailored accordingly, fixing up your LinkedIn profile, and ensuring that your Social Media platforms are squeaky clean. You’ve started connecting with old colleagues and friends, and you’ve engaged with individuals applicable to your goal within your network.
You start searching for open opportunities and available jobs. You start sharing your resume to your network, to companies, to old colleagues, and to any contact you can find! You’re confident and you’re excited.
Then, you WAIT.
You wait even longer.
It’s been hours, or even days and you haven’t had any responses. You remember why you hated job hunting in the first place.
You then receive an email, finally a response! You eagerly stumble through your phone, open your inbox and click on the mail…
REJECTED.
Let’s face it – we all know job hunting can be extremely difficult and draining for the job seeker. Rejection is also an extremely hard pill to swallow and can completely throw you off course.
It is extremely important to be mindful of the difficulties in job searching and to ensure that your mind is in the right place before starting. Ensure that you are mentally strong, and that you have the ability to see rejection from a different perspective.
Reach success through rejection, and become more resilient through consideration of the following tips:
1. Tune into your emotions in order to gain resilience in rejection
In order to cope with rejection, it is essential to face your emotions. Admit to feelings of sadness, embarrassment, disappointment and feelings of discouragement. Allow for yourself to feel this instead of suppressing your emotions. Suppressing your feelings will only prolong the negativity and will take-away from your path to reach your goal.
2. Re-engineer your view of rejection
Rejection does not need to be seen negatively. Acknowledge that you are stepping out of your comfort zone and pushing yourself to go beyond the personal limitations you have previously drawn up for yourself.
3. Be constructive & learn from rejection
Do not take rejection personally. There are many factors that could have contributed to the rejection being made in the first place!
Ask for feedback. Constructively criticise the feedback and determine how you can better or improve upon these factors.
If you are able to understand where you have potentially gone wrong, you can enhance your skills and abilities in order to increase or better your chances of getting this right the next time!
Perhaps you need to brush up on your interpersonal skills, your job interview skills or even the ability to remain calm and relaxed in stressful situations?
Enable yourself to grow, learn and expand your knowledge about yourself so that you can achieve a more positive outcome when you apply for the next opportunity. Allow for personal development as it could influence your career development.
4. Do not allow for rejection to consume & define you – review & move on otherwise you will not gain resilience in rejection
Do not dwell and focus only on this specific situation. It is temporary.
“When one door closes, another one opens, but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.” – Alexander Graham Bell.
If you spend too much time fixating on opportunity lost, you could potentially miss out on other opportunities that could be an opportunity gained.
5. Remember that you are not alone
Many of us go through rejection, but those with strong minds and determination are destined to succeed.
Many of the most successful entrepreneurs and business leaders faced rejection BUT continued irrespectively: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/311319.
6. Reassess
Where are you going wrong?
Perhaps you are applying for jobs that are not suitable to your experience and skills at all!
We all have dreams, goals and career aspirations that we would like to achieve BUT it is important to be honest with yourself and know your abilities. Applying for positions that you do not qualify for will more often than not lead to rejection.
If you do not have the degree or qualification the job description entails, but you have many years of experience in the field – back this up in your application. Explain this in your opening letter and give the evidence that is needed! Those reviewing your CV are human too, connect and be personal in your approach. Just as recruiters should not be robotic in their approach, so should the job seeker!
Perhaps your CV does not demonstrate your abilities and you are not selling yourself in the correct manner. See your CV as your one time only sales pitch about yourself! Reach out to Talent experts or those in the recruitment industry for advice or pointers on how you can improve your CV.
7. Continue & expand – you will reach resilience in rejection
There’s the old saying – “Do not put all of your eggs in one basket”. This is extremely true to job seekers too. Keep going, keep applying and keep putting yourself out there!
