Rejection is painful no matter where it comes from, so being told you haven’t been successful after a job interview you thought went well can come as a hard blow. Many people dwell on rejection and allow it to affect their confidence, which in turn impacts the rest of their job hunt and subsequent interviews.
How you handle job rejection is just as important as your performance in an interview – learning how to deal with rejection helps you grow and head into the rest of your job hunt with a positive outlook.
Here are some things to remember if you ever face the rejection blues.
Somethings are beyond your control
It can be hard not to take rejection personally and play over the interview in your head wondering where you went wrong or whether it was your personality that led to you not getting the job. Try not to read into the rejection too much, these decisions are rarely based solely on your performance. If you know you’d prepared fully and given it your all, there’s little else you could have done.
Remember, there are always other factors at play in the hiring process. So, while you may have performed excellently in the interview you don’t know the reasons influencing the company’s decision – things all beyond your control.
Get feedback
Asking for feedback may be the last thing you want to do, but gaining feedback from an employer is essential for your development. Hearing the positives (and negatives) allows you to learn, build on the positives and address any issues before you continue your job search.
As recruiters, we always aim to gain feedback for our candidates to assist them with their personal development.
Look on the positive side
Every job interview is a learning experience and while the rejection is negative you should always look on the bright side. If you performed to the best of your ability, demonstrated your competencies and communicated in your most engaging manner in an interview and you were still turned down, then you can be safe in the knowledge that it was probably the wrong company for you.
It can be easy to focus on the disappointment of missing out on a job but maintaining an optimistic outlook means you can move forward without carrying any interview baggage.
If you’re ready to start or continue your job hunt, get in touch with the team at Cogent Staffing to find out how we can help.
