What To Do When You Aren’t Hired

Rejection Stinks  - What To Do When You Aren’t Hired   

What To Do When You Aren’t Hired 

TravelObserver - The perfect job is out there.  You know it is.  You have the skills and the resume to prove it.  You have filled out countless applications and submitted hundreds of resumes but still…the phone is silent.  Not one interview offer.  Rejection is bad enough; but even worse; being deemed irrelevant.   At least losing a job to someone else hired means that someone thought you might be good enough for it.  If it is becoming more and more difficult to stay positive in the midst of the deafening silence from potential employers, it is imperative to take some corrective actions.  Don’t allow yourself to give in to the feelings of rejections.  The negativity you feel can become a self-fulfilling prophesy and your job hunt will never be successful.  There are a few things you can do to keep that positive outlook and believe that the perfect job will be yours.

Choose Someone as a Mentor

If you don’t already have one, find a mentor.  Choose someone who you admire and works at a job you respect.  It doesn’t have to be in the same field as you are looking.  More importantly, you need to find someone who can spot your strengths and help you capitalize on them.  A mentor can provide that confidence boost and encouragement that you sometimes need from someone else.  Your mentor also needs to be someone who can be brutally honest.  Just pumping up your self-esteem isn’t going to help you land a job if you are making some common mistakes on your resume or are leaving gaps in your job hunting process.  You need help.  Accept it from someone who has more experience and knowledge and has most likely, once been exactly where you are now.

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Polish your resume and you will feel confident

Don’t take the rejection personally.  Employers get mountains of applications and resumes for every job they need to fill.  And here is a secret—the hiring manager often has no idea what to look for in a resume or application.  Managers are sometimes simply doing the best they can to sort out the papers and figure out who would be best for the job.  Sometimes they use totally arbitrary screening methods that have nothing to do with the qualifications of the applicants.  Keep your confidence and remember that you know your stuff. 

Try to do something every day towards getting your dream job.  Polish your resume, make a phone call, attend a networking event, read an article that pertains to your field.  It can be anything.  Just do something.  You will gain fresh perspectives and new outlooks on the market.  You will remain current and feel confident that you are improving yourself constantly.  

At some point, you may need to take a job that isn’t exactly what you wanted.  That is ok.  It is much easier to find meaningful work from a position of employment than from the couch.  You don’t know who you might meet or what opportunities might pop up while you are working at a less than perfect job.  Keep in mind that everything you do and learn gives you one more marketable skill for that perfect job.  The right person will recognize your positive attitude, outlook and skills at the right time.