HOW TO HANDLE REJECTION WHEN IT COMES TO JOBS INTERSHIPS AND POTENTIAL OPPORTUNITIES
PREFACE
Ah, yes. Rejection. My favorite word!
I’m joking. But seriously, rejection is NOT my favorite word, and it’s not a word that most people are very pleased to hear. Some even run for rejection. We hate rejection, no one wants to be rejected. It plays with us, our mental, our confidence—-it messes with us and can cause a spiral. How do we get past that?
Well, the bad news is rejection is a part of life and something that we all will all experience, whether once or multiple times—-rejection is normal. We can’t control rejection, but the good news is we can control how we handle it to turn it into something motivational rather than self-destructive.
Welcome, to a step in the right direction. Here are some things to remember when going through that season of life.
Imagine you just got rejected before stumbling upon this blog. Now What?
NUMBER ONE: KEEP CONNECTING WITH ALUMNI IN YOUR COLLEGE
First, breathe. When you feel yourself about to spiral, give yourself the space to feel those feelings and then pull yourself out of the spiral. Listen to calm music, embrace the feeling, and get back up. Regardless, we must get back up. Change your perspective, think of it as rejection therapy.
Now, it’s time for the start of the get back. Use this rejection as fuel to keep connecting with alumni in your college. Whether through LinkedIn or handshake use this as motivation to create even more opportunities for yourself as a student and future alumni. E-mail your professors acts to get in contact with some of their previous students. Go to networking events to speak to alumni to get even more contacts just use this as motivation to increase your opportunities more and more and more and more. The alumni network is your friend and sometimes your greatest resource and tool don’t be afraid to use it after rejection instead excited to use those resources.
The alumni network at colleges are some of the greatest, greatest resources that that college can have offer I know there’s hundreds of thousands dare I say millions of people in the alumni network for the University of Alabama so I can just imagine how many resources are out there waiting for you to take advantage of. This rejection isn’t the end it’s only the beginning especially with such a tool out there as the alumni network ready for you to use. Keep connecting!
NUMBER TWO: FOLLOW UPS
So, one of the rules of thumbs that we are given as students is to follow up after the interview and thank them once again for the opportunity to be interviewed. But they never really give us any more advice for what to send after we get rejected. Follow up emails after rejection can be insightful and very informative for us. We’re never really taught to follow up after rejection but that can be a great reset and way to get quality information.
Follow up with the hiring team and ask how you could improve and ask if they have any other opportunities available or anything that you should be aware of that you might be able to be a part of. Take advantage of every opportunity in every piece of information we thank them for the interview, but we don’t ask them if they have any other opportunities available or how to improve after the rejection this can be very useful and very vital in getting information to be better for the next interview that you’ll have. It will also show them how determined you are in passionate to get better which could be remembered and they may just e-mail you back about other opportunities as well you never know.
NUMBER THREE: MOCK INTERVIEWS
skills. Take advantage of mock interview events at your college. Not only will you get the practice and experience to mess up and try new techniques, but you will also get feedback from professionals who are meant to help develop you professionally. Mock interview events should not be intimidating if anything it should be a place where you feel comfortable to try new things and try new techniques because it is a low stakes environment it is an environment where you should feel comfortable learning and getting better, not a place where you should feel intimidated to try.
Along with the going to mock interview events hosted by your college, you can also have mock interviews with your family and friends just ask them. It is quite hard to have mock interviews with your family and friends because you know them, and you might start to laugh or goof around but if you really are serious about wanting to get better you can use your family and friends around you as people to practice with if you’re focused.
They may not be able to give as much valuable feedback as the professionals at our schools who are mint to help develop us professionally, they will still be a great tool to help practice on. Sometimes we just need to practice on people. The more we do it the better we get so why not take advantage of everybody that’s around you and use it as a tool to get better. You could even return the favor by offering to be the person that helps with their mock interviews as well. We never really stopped learning.
TWO ROADS
In conclusion the point is when we are facing rejection, we are often in the middle of two roads. One road, being the road to self-destruction and getting in our heads about the rejection or the other road is choosing to get better and use it as fuel to lead you to something greater. The choice is ours. Ultimately the choice is yours. At the end of the day, we are humans. Feel those feelings. View those emotions. But don’t let it destroy you. Let it build you. Let it make you greater. So many legendary people have had to face rejection head on, and they had to choose to be better regardless. We must choose to be better regardless. We must get up. And we must do it for ourselves.
When feeling those emotions listen to calm music go for a walk look at inspirational quotes. You must find yourself again do not let it destroy you it’s so much harder to get back up if you let it win. Below are some of my favorite rejection therapy quotes:
“Rejection is a common occurrence. Learning that early and often will help you build up the tolerance and resistance to keep going and keep trying.” – Kevin Fiege
“Remember the pain of rejection is nothing compared to the pain of regret” -unknown
“Rejection doesn’t mean you aren’t good enough; it means the other person failed to notice what you have to offer.” – mark amend
“A rejection is nothing more than a necessary step in the pursuit of success” – Bo Bennett
Keep Calm and Carry On
I mean think about it, even musically, everyone faces rejection at one point. Michael Jackson, arguably the greatest artist of all time, did not win album of the year for his critically acclaimed Off the Wall album. Instead of wallowing in the disrespect, he used it as fuel to make Thriller. Thriller ended up breaking records and is still breaking records to this day. Thriller went on to not only win album of the year but a record-breaking amount of eight total Grammys. And, 14 additional awards from other award shows. Beyonce once said in a speech that although she has received 24 Grammy’s she’s also lost 46 times. But she kept going and encouraged everyone in her speech to keep working harder, regardless.
One thing she said that resonated with me in her speech was that when it comes to rejection, she encouraged the audience not to take it personally. She said that rejection is “..something that comes along with success” and I feel like that’s such a profound statement. So many successful people had to face rejection, but what separated them from the rest is that they didn’t stay down, they kept getting back up. And that’s what I encourage you to do when faced with rejection during the job and internship search of a college student. Change your mindset. Consider it rejection therapy, or even exposure therapy.
Think of it as you’re one “no” closer to your “yes”. It’s just building you up and leading you closer to your yes. Don’t give up. I can’t stress that enough. Everybody deals with rejection, but the difference between the successful people and the rest of the population is that the successful people keep going. They keep going despite the frustration, despite the doubt, despite the feelings of insecurity that may arise. They keep going regardless. And that is something that we must do too, as college students. Were only in college, we have so much more life to live. So just breathe and live it. Keep going.
