REJECTION IS FOR WINNERS

how to benefit from disappointment

Years ago I met the girl of my dreams. I was 100% certain she was the one. We went on a couple dates, and then she pulled back. “I’m not ready to be in a relationship.”

I was an immature idiot and a bad communicator, so what happened next can only be explained as divine intervention. I summoned some “no worries, I always get the girl” energy, and calmly replied “Cool. But I like you. I want to know you in whatever capacity you’re willing. We can take it as slow as you like.”

Weeks later we were a couple for life.

Later, she told me that how I handled the rejection was a huge part of what drew her to me. I had (somehow) removed awkwardness / pressure / desperation, and left the door open.

I learned that rejection is an opportunity to show who you are, and that’s true in the professional space too.

Last year my recruiting team presented a candidate to our client. We’ll call the candidate Sharon. Sharon interviewed so incredibly well that she brought the interviewer to tears. (Not all of our placements involve crying, but we’ve seen everything.)

Sharon was a slam dunk; the perfect fit for the role and the company. At least we thought so… but the client dismissed her and made the offer to one of our other candidates. Sharon was surprised (as were we), and a little hurt, but took it like a pro.

Two days later the client reversed the decision and came back to Sharon. Without ego, Sharon said yes. She’s still thriving in that job to this day.

So much of our self image is tied to decisions that are out of our control, many of those ending in rejection. It’s normal. Everyone — winners and losers — gets rejected. But winners win anyway, and losers complain on Linkedin. I want to encourage you to be the former, because it’s much better for your career and your happiness.

There are different types of rejection. Most of them are not personal, and some of them aren’t rejection at all. Let me explain that.

For example, if you don’t get the first interview, it could be a (slight) reflection on you. Maybe you didn’t have a personal connection, you didn’t impress the recruiter, you didn’t position yourself as the answer to their problem.

If you don’t get a second interview, that may be a reflection on you as well. You didn’t make the right impression, haven’t managed the right size business, didn’t give a confidence-inspiring answer to a key question, etc.

These types of rejections are not a final verdict on you.

They’re observations made by a busy person in a hurry.

You have the power to use that rejection to upgrade yourself and make a better impression next time.

So that’s early-phase rejection. What about being rejected after rounds and rounds of interviews? Most people take late-phase rejection even more personally, because after investing that much time (and truly feeling that things were going well) it feels like a much bigger letdown.

But late-phase rejection is NOT a negative reflection on you. You did GREAT.

You made it to the finals. Not the NBA finals where you got beaten by a better team; the job interview finals, where hiring decisions are nuanced, multi-faceted, sometimes a little bit arbitrary, and often made by committee.

Making it to the finals is an achievement. It means you made an excellent impression on MANY different decision makers who could (and likely WILL) re-enter your professional life at some point… if you handle the dismissal well.

Any time you’re a finalist in a hiring process, you’re up against 2-3 other finalists. These candidates are great, in many of the same ways that YOU are great. But you don’t realize this in the moment, because you haven’t met those people. You’re absorbed in your own situations and outcomes. You’re thinking of your own qualifications for the role, and your desire to “win” it.

We see this all the time in our recruiting work. The hiring manager is forced to choose one candidate out of a pool of A-players. The criteria for this choice is complex: There are other stakeholders weighing in, and a lot of competing factors and opinions. It’s a big decision, and getting it wrong is expensive, so they’re incentivized to make the safest choice.

Whatever the scenario, you can flip it to your advantage, simply by knowing you did your best, and then letting go. This is exactly what our candidate Sharon did. Nobody knew more than she that this opportunity was the one for her. What she had to face was: Maybe it wasn’t.

As soon as she became ok with that, the opportunity came back to her.

You will never fully understand the reasons for rejection. The decision maker themselves might not even fully understand why they subconsciously went the direction they did. Feedback or no feedback; it doesn’t matter to you anyway.

What matters is how you handle the decision.

“I get it. Congrats on your new hire, and here’s my number. I bet we’ll find a way to collaborate in the future.” (*smile*)

After all:

If you’ve just done 3-4 rounds of interviews, you’ve just made connections with 3-4 big players at a company you admire. Don’t dismiss those connections, nurture them. Over time you can offer future introductions to high caliber people. Send articles that remind you of them. Check in periodically regarding topics you discussed. Position yourself as someone who can help them, instead of vice versa. Keep it short and keep it upbeat.

When you take rejection in stride, you demonstrate strength and self assuredness. These are qualities that decision makers like to see. Why does that matter to someone who didn’t get the job?

Because there might be a better job. Or a different job. A job with deferred timing. A recommendation for a job at a different company. Or maybe they’ll just create a separate job just for you (another thing our clients do often).

I cannot tell you how many times we have seen a short-term rejection turn into a long-term win.

Every encounter, every introduction, every interview is a chance to make a great impression on someone who could impact your future. You cannot predict or control the outcomes, but you can handle them with grace.

Being unfazed by rejection is a power move.

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