Rejection never comes easy for anyone and yet it comes for us all. It hits us right in the face when we consider ourselves qualified for a job and realise that the person sitting on the other side of the table does not think so. But it may not be such a bad thing, after all. Here’s how you can take rejection and turn it into an opportunity…
1. Rejection Makes You Introspect
When we get acceptance from people around us, we overlook our weaknesses and believe that we deserve this respect and stature in society. But only rejection can force us to look within and seek our flaws to see what’s lacking in us professionally. This introspection proves to be constructive in working upon our shortcomings and coming out stronger than before.
2. It Helps You Crack Interviews Better
Even if you get rejected at a job interview, you don’t leave the place without any learning. You experience what an interview feels like and you understand the kind of questions that an interviewer frames. Once you get a hang of it, you start feeling more comfortable in similar stressful moments and you end up answering better and acting more effectively. These are life lessons that only rejection can teach you.
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3. You Get Good Feedback
Professionals spend a precious and large amount of their time in the day interviewing and analysing people like you for roles in the workplace. Whether they consider you suitable for the position or not, they develop an opinion about you. This opinion is what you must extract from them, for it can give you direct insight into what is it that you’re doing wrong so you can work upon it.
4. It Puts You On The Recruiter’s Radar
A rejection mail, text or call is heartbreaking for we have many hopes pinned on it. But, you can turn destiny around in this disappointing moment by choosing to reply back formally to your employers – asking them to consider you when any other suitable vacancy opens up. Companies constantly need responsible people to help run things and therefore, maintain a log of interested candidates. It’d do you good to be remembered as one such candidate in the future.
5. It Helps You Understand The Workings Of A New Place Better
Unless your interview gets scheduled at a particular place, you don’t really spend much time researching and studying it. So, even if you don’t get selected, you get an idea of how that place functions, how it earns its revenue and what it expects of its employees. This understanding proves to be of much more value when you’re trying to make a place in the industry.
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6. It Forces You To Work Harder
Rejection leaves you feeling like a failure and in order to prove to yourself that you aren’t one, you are forced to work harder. Sometimes, we need negative motivation in life to drive us and bring out the best within us. Someone else’s rejection, if taken the right way, can make us work harder to become worthy of approval and selection. Whatever it is that you’ve been rejected upon – skills, experience or confidence – overcome it and the fruits of your labour will follow suit.
7. It Gives You A Chance To Apply At Other, Better Places
When you get selected at a decent place, you grab at the offer and don’t necessarily explore your options further. But when you’re rejected, you become a bit more humble and apply at several places, even at the ones you’ve only hitherto dreamt about, ‘cause now you’ve got nothing to lose. Who knows where you may land?
8. It Builds Confidence
Mindy Kaling, the author of Why Not Me mentioned a very interesting formula for confidence in her book. She said that she hadn’t met anyone truly confident who hadn’t worked hard in life. She ardently believes that the harder one works, the more confident she becomes of her work and herself. Being rejected would drives you to work harder till you make it and when you do, you are confident like a boss.
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9. It Teaches You How To Deal With Rejection
The best thing about a job rejection is that it teaches you how to deal with rejection, in life. Rejection is harder to handle in personal life and at higher stages of your career. In fact, many people break under the overwhelming disappointment of being rejected, if they don’t learn how to take it when they’re young. So, take job rejection in your stride and understand that life is teaching you something important.
GIFs: Giphy
