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Worklife: Let's talk about rejection |
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Written by asap
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Tuesday, 20 March 2007 |
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Let’s talk about the R-word. Rejection. March is as good a time as any to face the topic we usually hide from. Colleges and grad schools are sending out hundreds of thousands of rejection notices as we speak. Hot summer internships for law and business students are practically gone.
Industries have already chosen the few graduating students who will actually get jobs and dumped zillions of other hopefuls they toyed with.
On the work front, it’s been nothing but a bloodbath of layoffs for those in the auto and mortgage industries. Even white-collar jobs have taken a hard hit, with Broadcasting and Cable reporting that 18,000 media jobs were lost in 2006.
Auch, what’s a person to do?
Grab the coffee, put on some music. It’s time to figure out why you were rejected.
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SHOOTING FOR THE STARS:
No one says you shouldn’t aim high, but when you aim for the stars you need to understand that odds are whopping that you will fail. In this sense, you should not take the rejection so personally, because you have lots of company.
Let’s look at some numbers:
— Over 100,000 people tried out for “American Idol” this year. Only 24 made it to the televised semifinal round.
— Harvard acceptance rates hover about 9 percent, which means they reject 91% of applicants — who tend to be among the smartest high school students in the United States and around the world.
— According to the NCAA, only about 3 percent of high school athletes become college athletes. Don’t even try to calculate the odds of getting into the NBA or the NFL.
— How many drop-dead gorgeous would-be actresses are hitting Hollywood this year? Exact number unknown. Estimated number: 50 states x 202 countries x hundreds. And the A-list adds only a few new members each year.
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SWEPT UP IN EVENTS
Sometimes you are rejected not for your individual skills but because of your place in history. You are a petrochemical engineer in a bust cycle, a car salesman as gas prices soar, a real estate agent amid the biggest housing depression in 16 years.
You face bigger questions than just where your next job lies. You need to determine whether you can ride out the cycle or whether it’s time to ditch your industry.
Thousands of auto industry workers, airline employees, defense contractors and energy specialists have been laid off only to be called back in boom times.
Thousands of others have waited for a callback that never came.
The most important thing to recognize is that you are caught up in events way beyond your control. The only choice you have is how you will react to them.
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LACKS THE NECESSARY SKILLS
Then again, you might have been rejected from a job or school for a specific reason. Maybe your writing was bad, your experience spotty, your design skills immature, your GPA weak. Maybe you needed a better background in accounting, marketing, computers, foreign language.
“It’s simple,” said Marie Lorenzo, an operating room nurse whose husband was just transferred from Paris to Zurich. “I’m not going to get a job here until I speak German better. All the hospitals demand it.”
At least she knows what she has to do.
When you do get turned down for a job, always ask why (calmly now, hold that anger in check). Some people will tell you, many won’t. But even one or two comments could help you unearth a flaw you never saw before. Conversely, finding out information about the person who did get the job could help you see what the company was looking for.
In the long term, you might have to acquire new skills: a law degree, an MBA, a CPA, a master’s. Bite the bullet, get the education you need while you are still relatively young. Your later career choices will be more limited without it.
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NO GOOD REASON
No one wants to admit that people are rejected for no good reason — or even bad reasons — because it ruins our belief in the American meritocracy system. But they are — all the time.
Carole Hyatt and Linda Gottlieb, authors of “When Smart People Fail,” list sexism, ageism, racism, wrong fit and just plain bad luck among their top reasons for being rejected at work, along with more traditional explanations like poor interpersonal skills, self-destructive behavior and lack of commitment.
Employers know that sending a person with a family overseas is more expensive than sending a single person. They fear that new mothers might have a second baby on their watch. They may want to even out their gender/racial imbalance and you don’t fit, or think that someone over 35 can’t possibly understand a hip young industry. Or they might even be pressured to hire someone with connections.
Of course they won’t breathe a word of this to you for fear of lawsuits. Just the way the world works.
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BUCK UP
So after you’ve been rejected, spend the weekend mourning and get over it.
Actually, it will take longer — Hyatt and Gottlieb say you need to pass through six stages: shock, fear, anger, blame, shame and despair. Other experts suggest thinking like a professional athlete and dismissing the rejection as a bad inning or a bad game — and then moving forward as quickly as possible.
Fact is, there are 3 billion people on Earth, it’s a rough marketplace out there. You need to get your head out of the sand and evaluate your skills. Listen to the professional criticism and evaluate it — it could be dead-on or hogwash. Move on to Plan B and find a company that values your strengths as you work to improve your weaknesses.
With an attitude like that, you are on the comeback trail already.
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When Sheila Norman-Culp was 21 she was rejected from the Radcliffe Writing Institute and told she should seek employment in fields other than writing. She didn’t listen. | Only registered users can write comments.
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