Facing Rejection

One of my favorite professors at Villanova is my sales professor. He once told us (okay a few times) that you were meant for sales if you could face rejection and have persistence, and would demonstrate this with the following story:

You walk into Brownies (a local bar), and you see the significant other of your dreams. She is good-looking, nice smile, and you really want to get to know her. When you finally catch her eye, she is horrified by you. She loses eye-contact quickly, rolls her eyes, and does her best to avoid you. IF you’re ready for a career in sales, you think to yourself: I still have a shot!

Now I’m not saying that’s the best dating advice, but it says a lot about what you need to do to get a job (especially your dream job) at a time like this: persistence. Rejection will always be around you, but you have to endure.

What do you do when your best friend gets three offers in one week? Tell her congratulations, do your best to be TRULY happy for her, and get to work applying for jobs you want. For me, I had to realize that the jobs she was applying for weren’t the kinds of jobs I had even considered. THOSE jobs were hiring early, the jobs I want were hiring later.

What do you do when the slackers around you have jobs? Keep working hard. Someone will eventually notice. It’s hard to say what interviewers see in different students. Some are just more charismatic, or have different personality traits than you do. You don’t know what exactly the interviewer was looking for.

What if all of your professional contacts are optimistic about your success but you keep getting rejection letter after rejection letter? Do your best to stay optimistic, and try to feed off of their positive energy. If these other people believe you can do it, someone else, who can hire you, will realize it, too.

I’ve had many friends go through periods of unemployment, soul searching, and finally landing their perfect job. That can happen for me too!

Do note, that I was applying for jobs when I received a rejection e-mail and decided to write this post. A few hours later, I received a call for an interview. Doors open when others close!