Ouch! Rejection hurts. No-one ever likes
to hear the words "You aren't the one." However, rejection is a regular and normal part of the job search process.
There is the "I'm sorry, we went with someone else" message you receive after a set of really good interviews. Or how about the "I'm sorry, after reviewing your resume, we have decided to not pursue you as a candidate" automated email message. And of course the ever prevalent no response at all. However, just because you can expect it, it doesn't make rejection any easier to receive.
When I started my efforts to get back into the working world, I thought it would be a breeze. Yes, I thought my break would probably slow the process down. I told myself that I had a very successful career before my break, of course a company would love to hire someone with my skillset. Boy, DID I HAVE NO IDEA. I figured it would take a few weeks maybe a month or two max.
As weeks stretched into a month, I started to become discouraged. As one month became two and then three and the no responses were adding up, I became downright depressed about the process. Michael Singer, in his book The Untethered Soul refers to your inner-voice as your inner roommate. By this time, my inner roommate was going into overdrive. I started doubting myself. I started thinking that this mountain was just too big to climb. My inner roommate was filling me full of thoughts about how I was not going to be a worthy candidate for this job or that job. My inner roommate was really quite unhelpful.
One of the things that helped me during this time was the support of my back-to-work group. Yes, these women gave me encouragement to continue to move forward but it was more than that. I had a good time with them. We laughed a lot at ourselves and at life. I always came away from our meetings happier and more motivated than before I came into the meeting.
Another thing that I did was to change my perception of the process. I stopped thinking about the end result and focused on making personal growth my expectation. So after the third month of no success, I started looking to see what I could learn. Even if I was not gaining traction in getting a job interview, I was succeeding because I was improving in an area that needed growth. It became an exercise in things like improving my cover letter approach or spending more time on polishing my story for interviewers.
I set a goal to do just one thing to further my job hunt every day. Sometimes it was as simple as check a job board for any positions. Other times, it was refining my resume or reading a book that would help me get up to speed on a topic that I needed to learn. By doing this, I felt that I was making a positive contribution to my job search effort. That in turn, helped to keep me motivated and moving forward instead of giving up.
At some point, I realized that I no longer cared about the lack of response and rejection I was getting. While yes, the rejection still hurt, I was able to move through it quicker. I started to trust that I would find a job. Everyone is different and you will need to find what works best for your personality, but to help remain positive try some of these ideas.
There is the "I'm sorry, we went with someone else" message you receive after a set of really good interviews. Or how about the "I'm sorry, after reviewing your resume, we have decided to not pursue you as a candidate" automated email message. And of course the ever prevalent no response at all. However, just because you can expect it, it doesn't make rejection any easier to receive.
When I started my efforts to get back into the working world, I thought it would be a breeze. Yes, I thought my break would probably slow the process down. I told myself that I had a very successful career before my break, of course a company would love to hire someone with my skillset. Boy, DID I HAVE NO IDEA. I figured it would take a few weeks maybe a month or two max.
As weeks stretched into a month, I started to become discouraged. As one month became two and then three and the no responses were adding up, I became downright depressed about the process. Michael Singer, in his book The Untethered Soul refers to your inner-voice as your inner roommate. By this time, my inner roommate was going into overdrive. I started doubting myself. I started thinking that this mountain was just too big to climb. My inner roommate was filling me full of thoughts about how I was not going to be a worthy candidate for this job or that job. My inner roommate was really quite unhelpful.
One of the things that helped me during this time was the support of my back-to-work group. Yes, these women gave me encouragement to continue to move forward but it was more than that. I had a good time with them. We laughed a lot at ourselves and at life. I always came away from our meetings happier and more motivated than before I came into the meeting.
Another thing that I did was to change my perception of the process. I stopped thinking about the end result and focused on making personal growth my expectation. So after the third month of no success, I started looking to see what I could learn. Even if I was not gaining traction in getting a job interview, I was succeeding because I was improving in an area that needed growth. It became an exercise in things like improving my cover letter approach or spending more time on polishing my story for interviewers.
I set a goal to do just one thing to further my job hunt every day. Sometimes it was as simple as check a job board for any positions. Other times, it was refining my resume or reading a book that would help me get up to speed on a topic that I needed to learn. By doing this, I felt that I was making a positive contribution to my job search effort. That in turn, helped to keep me motivated and moving forward instead of giving up.
At some point, I realized that I no longer cared about the lack of response and rejection I was getting. While yes, the rejection still hurt, I was able to move through it quicker. I started to trust that I would find a job. Everyone is different and you will need to find what works best for your personality, but to help remain positive try some of these ideas.
- Make sure you have a good support mechanism with friends and family to help you remain encouraged. If you can, find other women trying to return to the workforce.
- Keep your inner roommate in check. Remind yourself daily "I am enough." Make time every day to quiet your mind.
- Find ways to give yourself incremental successes that you can work on to keep you focused on the positive steps you are taking in moving forward.
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