When The Employer Says No: Dealing With Rejection In The Job Search

You interview. You do all you know how.

The hiring committee closes the doors and you wait. The answer is…no.

NO?!

Sorry. Somebody else was chosen. How will you deal with the sting of rejection?

First will come stunned disbelief , then burning shame, then anger.

Dealing with the “no”, unlike some may tell you, is not to be casually brushed aside. Dealing with the “no” is the process of  grieving–handling loss.  A job hunter needs to handle rejection efficiently and quickly.

Deep down, nobody wants to go job hunting because it is by nature a soul-crushing situation where you hear “no” over and over again.  Fear of rejection keeps many chained to jobs they hate. Nobody likes rejection. What is even worse is that  as you deal with the latest insult to your ego, you may at the same time be in some stage of dealing with the original pain of being terminated. 

When  an employer says no it feels like your heart has been torn out and trampled.  Every “no” strikes like a bullet and you stagger around emotionally wounded. Do not make the mistake of attempting to ignore your feelings.  Own your sadness. Own your anger. Something in your life is dead. You are suffering the effect of loss. You are grieving. What you are going through is so similar to what a person who has lost a loved one through death experiences. it may be beneficial to learn some lessons from handling death in the family. Study grieving. Check this out:

http://www.memorialhospital.org/library/general/stress-THE-3.html 

If you are beginning to self-medicate to dull the pain please seek help. There may be free or low cost counseling services in your neighborhood even in these times when social services are getting huge cutbacks. Patch into your house of worship. Find positive association while you are seeking work. Read inspirational literature. Be aware of  depression  Whatever you do,  do not attempt this journey alone. Loneliness is deadly.

The Interview From Hell

Somehow, if the head is not occasionaly  lifted out of the PC screen, it seems that the job search lasts forever. You feel you’re the only person on earth without a job. Surely, everybody and her sister knows your shame as if you were branded with a big, fat red “U” (and it’s not for university) on your shirt. Then the eyes sorrow over and suddenly you hear the voice of the strawberry ice cream in the refrigerator.

One of the good things about networking and doing the odd “walk about” in the good, open air outside the house is that you hear stories…heart whapping  tales of how somebody messed up an interview; the kind of tales that find their way into books with “what NOT to”  do in the title.  Well, it’s a drippy enough day in Northern Virginia today; ’tis a fine day for a tale.

My family moved here Christmas week past from Prince George’s County, Maryland: miserable place somewhere near DC–especially for the particular sector of the economy I was mining for work in. Before we relocated I thought I had done all the  necessary pre-job search planning to ease the transition into my new area. What I didn’t count on is my 50+ body’s being so beat from days of  intense setting up house and fighting with the cable company(name withheld for decency’s sake).

 When I got to my very first interview in Virginia at The Temporary Employment Agency,  it was a nightmare.  After handing back a form full of white spaces where I could not give a current phone number or address, I sat down before screens of questions about jobs I could not remember when I held them, how much they paid me, or who supervised me. Phone numbers? Addresses? Fuggeddabowdit!

 After that, I was summoned into an office hardly big enough to breathe in to be further interrogated by a woman I was sure had not yet been born  when I finished my bachelor’s.  The test had taken the entire morning. Now, half the day later, I had not eaten since 7:30a.m.  That proved to be my undoing. I had forgotten to prepare against the possibility of  a missed meal and medicine. By the time I saw the interviewer, the medical condition I live with had me light headed, confused, and slightly slurring my speech.  The employment counselor  glanced at my resume and surmised I wanted a job located in Maryland.  I stammered with righteous indignation that I did not. 

After it was over,  I looked again at that resume and realized that I had given the lady an incomplete and inappropriate resume with an old address on it.  Little Miss Employment Counselor advised me, a 15-year professional, that they did not handle retail assignments and to “Google, ‘ resume templates’ ” (like, what are you doing here, granny?). Embarrassed, feeling old, and angry, I thanked her and left to coast into the break down lane.  In the mirror over the sink in the ladies’ room I caught sight, for the first time in many days, of the bland face with the dark eye circles below a head of hair with over half its perm grown out: Grandmother Death warmed over.

Now, brothers and sisters, what did we learn from this?

1. Never, ever, even go “application surfing” when you’re not physically “at the top of your game”.
2. Make sure your resume is updated, clean, critiqued and ready before you go out.
3. Remember job hunting is a marketing campaign at heart and all the rules apply (more later!).
4. Do the research on the company before you get to the interview.
5. Promise yourself that you will do no interview before it’s time.

 Of course, a letter of thanks followed, but in my mind, I credited that interview as “the going price of wisdom”. It was, “the one that got away”. There really is not a second chance to make a first impression.

My First Pink Slip

My career chose me long before high school and it was dead on correct. My heart made no mistake in answering the call of pen and paper. (The only thing I regret is not attending a University with a Journalism School like Columbia:  connections I could hook into and ride to Mars; good mentors; chances to breathe the same air with the profession’s greats, like Walter Cronkite…

I was about 23 and just got my  shiny new BA. My first job was as an advertising copywriter at a radio station that was changing formats from all news to top 40 rock and roll. I started work in this old New England city far away from home  in the waning days of a brilliant autumn. I was the last person served in the  unemployment filing line on the third of July half  a year later.

The station manager and the sales manager called me into the office, discussed my “failure to fulfil the expectations of the job” and gave me the option of signing a letter of resignation. At the end, with a little offhanded laugh, they said, “maybe it’s because you’re from the south”.

The school transcripts were stellar, but my work was less than expected. Without a clue why I failed I collected my stuff from all the desks I borrowed (can you imagine a writer never having her own desk?) and departed. Behind the door of my first apartment on the second floor I screamed so loudly, the neighbors thought they were audio witnesses to murder. Thus ended my first professional job where I got my very first pink slip.

Now as I hear the stories of the job losses, I relive the pain. Thoughts come in the night about how much damage my supervisors’ derisive giggles and that first pink slip did over thirty years ago –not only to my career but also to my soul.  To you who have just lost your job today: be very gentle with yourself. May you be comforted in your grief and come through stronger and wiser.

-Victoree

Get A Freelance Gig

In the search for information, a job seeker will encounter articles (bloggers and columnists!) that advise about surviving between jobs. They will toss “get a freelance gig” over their shoulder as if jobs of the kind lie on the ground like fallen leaves in October.
“I will not have you ignorant brethren”. Freelance “gigs” (term borrowed from the music world) don’t happen that way.

There seems to be a whiff of disdain for freelancers as if they are somehow lower in the table of occupations than people who hold so-called “real jobs”. Definitions run like this: Real Jobs: held by employees–35-40 hours per week/at corporation owned by somebody else/salary and benefits-9-to-5. Freelance: former employee who is only “on her own” a little while and is doing this to make some money until another “real job” comes along.

Before you take to heart any advice from these articles about freelancing or any of its sisters including consulting, have this basic understanding: freelancers are enterpreneures. They are independent service providers who contract with other businesses by the project or by term. This is not a lark. This is very hard work.

A freelancer procures business, markets services, and negotiates fair prices herself. A freelancer keeps books, makes collections, pays taxes, and makes her own Social Security contributions. A freelancer researches and buys the best health insurance plan for herself. The cost of vacations and rest days are at her own expense, so when she is just too tired and sick to work, she makes her own chicken soup. Some freelancers would swear that it is much like art: you do not choose it, it chooses you. Freelancers are business organization model “sole proprietor”. They may do business under their own name or a business name– a “d.b.a.”, “doing business as”. They may work out of an office carved out of a space in the home or another rented space.

In other words, freelancing is a viable way to make a living but only for they who have the self discipline, tenacity, dedication and patience. As the Gatorade ad says, “is it in you?”

Unemployed 6 Months Plus? Take A Holiday!

Articles about caring for the body, soul and spirit while unemployed are becoming more plentiful as the current economic crisis drags on. More people seem to need counseling for depression, anxiety, and general illness at a time when work-associated health insurance may be no longer available and funds for services like community mental health clinics have been severely cut.

The longer the time of unemployment, the greater the danger that  job hunting will overrun your life like English ivy. Recognize the symptoms: meals forgotten; sleep ignored; worship neglected; relaxation–what’s that?!  Then one day, while shouting at your spouse or throwing something or weeping for no reason, you realize that job hunting has been allowed to suck the joy out of living.

It’s time to seek out sources of encouragement: find motivational books at the local library; see the sky at least once per day; do something that is just plain fun. Since looking for work is a job, may I suggest taking the occasional “sick day”?  It is  important to mental health to “take a vacation” from job hunting occasionally. Give yourself a gift:  permission to go window shopping, to take a long, hot bath, or read something else beside another book about resumes. You will come back sharper, more refreshed and more able to focus on the task.

Stupid Things To Say In an Interview

If you read enough books about interviewing, you will acquire quite a collection of stellar “Stupid Things Candidates Say At Interviews” stories. (If you’re shaking your head or covering a smirk you just have not been through enough humiliating bombs of interviews.) Of course, fearing you will bomb at an interview because you have no clue how to prepare insures that you will–lesson #1. You will have a mighty harvest of your own stories to tell. Believe that. Before you say something stupid, may I recommend something from Drs. Ron and C. Krannich, folk who have with Nelson Bolles and John Crystal become favorite authors of mine. It’s called,”Nail The Interview”. They handle the subject of interviewing from a victorious mindset in a straightforward, deadly honest, shoot from the hip style with surprisingly classy dry humor. You may just love it so much as to wander over to some of their other books about career choice and handling “red flag issues” in your experience like “job hopping” and “been fired”. If nothing else, it will knock out some of the fear of the unknown. If  extended unemployment has you in the place where buying books is a no-no or you’re just plain frugal, borrow this gem at your local public library.

Looking For Work At Chain Stores?

In 2003, having just recently arrived in the state of Maryland, the most pressing need, of course, was for income. I love to shop, therefore the first thing I do upon arriving in a new town is seek work at places where I am inclined to do business. So, I cruised the shopping mall nearest to home looking for “help wanted” signs to answer. To distill my experience for anyone approaching temporary employment this way, allow me to warn you about certain practices in retailing: Many chain outlets including Rite Aid Drugstores, CVS Drugstores,and Card and Party Outlets always seem have “help wanted” signs posted as a matter of practice. The store may or may not have any immediate interest in hiring at that specific location. The parent corporation uses their stores to harvest applications unto a time when a store needs to hire. Then, they dip into their “barns”. I went to one store, just knowing I could have been hired immediately only to have the personnel tell me point blank that the available position will most likely be filled by one of the staffers who was at that very moment unpacking merchandise on the floor! Cruise the malls, my unemployed brothers and sisters, but take some announcements you will see with a pinch, or you will be in for a lot of heartbreak.