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How New Grads Can Take Charge of Job Search Rejection

Handle Your Head

You may feel stunned at your first rejection. You’ll deny the implication. It must be a mistake or due to some quirk. When a few more rejections roll in, you may even get mad. Over time, you may begin to lump all the rejections into a pot and draw (inaccurate) catastrophic conclusions, such as: I’m a loser. I’ll never get a job. It will never work out. I’ll be stuck at home, working part-time in a lousy job for minimum wage. This cascading negative self-talk gradually leads to feeling down, losing confidence and wanting to avoid your job search altogether.

Quiz: The Healthcare Interview Quiz

1. It's interview time! You arrive at your interview:

30 minutes early - you want to show your dedication to the job.
10 minutes early - But you were actually parked and ready to go in 20 minutes ago.
5 minutes late - You don't want to seem too eager.

Remember: Finding a job is a numbers game. The more opportunities you pursue, the probability of success increases, but so does the frequency of rejection. And you are more likely to experience rejection (or no response at all) in a soft economy than in a robust job market.

First, understand that the final decision may have nothing to do with your capabilities. Many factors play into the hiring process, over which the candidate has no control. A position may be cut due to budget, or a resume may be improperly screened due to limited company resources. A resume can even get misplaced. Or, the job just may not have been the right fit for you. The key is to treat each rejection as a unique event to be dissected and learned from.