Deal With Rejection With These 5 Tips

Nancy Anderson
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Dealing with rejection after a job interview is tough, especially if you had high hopes for a specific opportunity. However, you should never simply move forward while pretending the rejection never happened. Processing the negative thoughts and feelings that come with rejection is essential for your confidence and mental well-being. Here are five key tips to help you get through even the worst rejection so you can quickly get back into your job search.

1. Change the Way You See Rejection

Instead of seeing rejection as failure or a missed opportunity, just view it as another step on the path to your future job. No matter how qualified you are, how well you've perfected your resume, or how well you prepared for an interview, getting turned down for a job is something you're bound to face. Every job seeker faces rejection. Choose to give your best without getting too attached to a particular opportunity, seeing rejection as a learning experience instead of getting overly worked up about the outcome.

2. Dealing with Rejection by Rewiring Your Thoughts

Negative thoughts can kill your confidence and drain your motivation. While you may be tempted to think about why you didn't get the job as you're dealing with rejection, this can lead to negative assumptions that only make you feel worse. Since you don't know for sure why you were turned down, simply focus your thoughts on your next job interview.

3. Work Through Your Feelings

Dwelling on the situation isn't helpful, but it's okay to work through your initial emotions when dealing with rejection. This might mean shedding a few tears, talking about your disappointment with a friend or family member, or even exercising to work through your anger or anxiety. Yoga, meditation and journaling can also be helpful.

4. Find Ways to Improve

After a few days of processing your thoughts and emotions, take a hard look at your interview arsenal, from your outfit to your resume, and determine whether you can make any improvements. This could mean choosing a more professional wardrobe, formatting your resume to meet interviewer expectations, or even learning a valuable skill that you can add to your resume.

5. Get Back into the Game

Dealing with rejection is essential, but once you're ready, don't hesitate to hop back on the horse. Treat the job hunt like a regular job, spending 30 to 40 hours a week applying and interviewing for openings. If you're already employed, that number can be as low as eight hours. The important thing is that you rebound and keep your momentum.

There's no magic cure when dealing with rejection, but these simple tips can help you process and overcome negative thoughts in a healthy way. Do you have any other tips for working through rejection?


Photo courtesy of pakorn at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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  • Nancy Anderson
    Nancy Anderson

    @Keith E. thanks for your comment and sorry you are having such a tough time. It is truly unfortunate that companies don't reign these managers in. You know you can always go to HR about the manager but, sadly, there would probably be consequences to that. You could have a sit down with your manager and explain how you feel and how it's detrimental to the performance of the whole team. Of course you always have the option of finding a different job. I don't know what field you are in but, hopefully, your current manager is the exception, not the rule.

  • Keith E.
    Keith E.

    These are all nice tips and convenient advice in a normal job market; but how does one deal with managers who are rude, crude, boorish; and even bigoted? When one is in desperate need of a paycheck most would overlook such indecencies; however, given the current state of affairs when the amount of ill-mannered, uncouth; and blatantly bigoted in places of hiring authority? When you area forced to deal with incompetent ill-mannered hiring managers how does one even begin to try to make some real headway toward meaningful employment? This ain’t your parents’ jobmarket! Under “normal” conditions this was a meaningful piece. However, under the present state of affairs this advice might actually be plausible; even sensible; but in today’s frenetic and chaotic job market this advice seems paltry, even feeble and insipid.

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