guidance counselor 2.0 · episode 98
dealing with rejection
key takeaways
- rejection is going to happen in your job search and is not personal or directed at you
- reach out to recruiters asking for feedback either way so they actually deliver the bad news they are holding
- keep taking interviews even when discouraged because timing and fit matter more than you think
- rejection might mean the company had an internal candidate or it is not your fault at all
- do more interviews so rejection hurts less and becomes a normal part of the process
listen or watch
listen
about this episode
how to handle job search rejection, stay in contact with recruiters, and keep interviewing despite setbacks
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full transcript
auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.
Hello, hello. Thanks for listening to guidance counselor 2.0. Listen, I want to give you a quick rundown of what this podcast is and what you're about to get into as you listen to these episodes. We had guidance counselors in middle school. We had guidance counselors in high school, but we didn't really have guidance counselors in college and now as professionals. We don't really have anybody to turn to to ask a quick question to learn something about the job search or to navigate your career. And so that is what I want this podcast to be for you. I want it for it to be a tool for you to navigate the job search and your career.
So that being said, I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you need to reach me, Taylor at vacovac.com is how to get in touch with me old-fashioned email social media at tdsintdesse. And then finally, please rate and review this in the app store because I want this to be discoverable for others so they can navigate their careers. I hope you enjoy the episode. All right, so we're going to dive into rejection, bump bump bump. I need like a sound effects panel thing. Andrew, maybe we can work on that. So, but all that being said, I've had a bunch of people DM me. And if you have a topic you want me to discuss and you don't want to like highlight it in public, shoot me a DM.
This topic actually came from somebody who DM me over the weekend and talk about rejection, how to deal with it, how to like get ahead of it. And when I say get ahead of it, not game the system, but just do all the things that you need to do to stay ahead to either get feedback back to you that you rejected or that maybe you pass. So we're going to talk about that. So again, if you have any comments, questions or concerns, go ahead and throw them up. But I'm going to go ahead and get started on my thoughts on rejections and I'll get to all y'all's comments.
So with rejection, one is going to happen. Right. I'm going to go ahead and just say it now. Rejection is going to happen. You can't get around it. I will tell you this. I'm a three on the any gram rejection sucks. Rejection it hurts. It is something that I've had to deal with. It is something that I've had to get better with. And so one just just obviously let's just go ahead and say the opposite is going to happen. So I think too when it comes to job search and dealing with rejection, there's a few things to kind of help move things along. First off, and I always talk about this, you have to have constant communication and constant check-ins with recruiters and or companies.
Now I will tell you this because I struggle with this. I struggle giving bad news. Right. So I will tell you this. Your recruiter actually at an agency or your recruiter at a company could very well, could very well. have your feedback and they are scared to deliver it to you. So you need to check in with them. And the one word track that I really like to hear when it comes from other candidates is, hey, Taylor, listen, I haven't heard from you. I may be rejected. That's totally fine. Can you just let me know either way? Right. And to me, that's like, like, I listen, I'm just being honest here.
I struggle giving bad. I struggle giving feedback. And rejecting candidates. I struggle with it. So sometimes I just sit on the feedback. I do. Listen, I'm not perfect. I'm not going to say here and say like, I do everything perfectly. And so usually when the candidate reaches out to me, then I follow up with them. But for me, for me, I will tell you this recruiter struggle with it. We are scared to deliver feedback because a lot of times, a lot of times recruiters get zero type of feedback from the hiring managers. Right. I know recruiters get a bad reputation. I talk about this all the day and time.
But a lot of it falls on the hiring managers. A lot of times we don't get feedback. We have to chase down the hiring manager. The hiring managers can't even give us feedback. So then we're scared to go and share with the candidate. And so for us, I'll tell you this, the word track that I would recommend for you to use in regards to recruiters is, hey, Mr. Mr. recruiter, I haven't heard from you a bit. I was probably not the best sign. If you have any feedback, would love to know one way or the other, good or bad. Just would love to hear it.
So again, that's just my two cents there. I do want to get to comments. You all been commenting again. Keep commenting. I'm going to throw them up. Let's talk about it. Let's have a healthy conversation about rejection this morning on this beautiful Monday morning, at least beautiful here in Nashville. Let's see here. Andrew goes rejection. Does it mean that you're a failure? It just means you failed this one time at this specific moment thing. A bad golf shot often teaches you more than a perfect one. I love it. 100%. And again, I want to get this across in Asia. I appreciate you, I appreciate you bringing this up.
Like rejection, like isn't directed at you. I've had so many developers message me and go, hey, Tim, I'm going to stop. Can you stop sending me job opportunities? Because I'm just tired of getting rejected. Like no, no, don't have that. I could have the, I could have your dream job in my arsenal. And because you said don't send it to me because I'm tired of getting rejected, you could have missed out on your dream job. You have to keep interviewing. That's why I'm saying always take the interview. Even if you're not looking, always take the interview, like get comfortable with rejection. Because it's going to happen again, again, common themes here.
The hiring process is imperfect. Right. It's imperfect people on the hiring side, hiring imperfect people on the can side. It's just a mess. It's never going to get better. I try to be allowed to help educate people. at the end of the day, it's not going to get better. So you don't need to take that on. It's hard to not take it on, but it's not a personal attack. I'm here what's going on. It's good to see you this morning. Ellie goes before working on my on my LinkedIn because of Danny and Taylor, I job search the dumb way. I dealt with over 500 rejections from cold applicants, maybe 2500 interviews and rejections, maybe four to five final engine.
Yeah, again, I mean, and again, Ellie, thank you for the shout out. Yeah. If you do it the traditional way, you are going to be rejected a lot. I think, in my opinion, if you signed up for my text message community today, I just sent out the text. Depth is greater than width. You will be rejected less if you build relationships than just blindly submitting your information all over the place. Angela, what's up? Good morning. Andrew, good morning. Oh, where'd that go? Ellie goes, glad I could learn from rejection and I've broken through the other side of it exactly now. I don't get this crushed by it, 100%.
And I see rejection is not yet. Oh, I love that. I see rejection is not yet. Many people rejected four or five times for dream roles. Absolutely. I see so many senior engineers on Twitter that are at Google now or at Microsoft now that have been rejected by other fan companies. I mean, listen, everyone gets rejected. Everyone gets rejected. Um, GLT happens a lot. Absolutely. Uh, Casey goes, Ellie, exactly. It's important to get that mindset shift, otherwise rejection will always be a dead end. Absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, Ellie, I never really thought about recruiters scared to share. Yeah. I mean, again, going back to this is my biggest thing.
Like recruiters, we hate sharing bad news because I will tell you this. So we, so again, quick math for y'all recruiters meets. So the, the, the math breakdown for recruiters is you meet 10 people a week in one of of them essentially you place. Right. So 10%. That's one of my reasons for putting out so much content is like what, what are recruiters doing to help the other 90% of people that they're not placing? Right. And so for us, we get a ton of bad news recruiters deal with bad news all the time. So that's why we're scared to give bad news is because we deal with it all the time.
Uh, Andrew does everyone have a pitchfork. Yes. Jason, that's good advice. Make it easy for the other person. Yeah. Again, hey, listen, Mr. Mr. recruiter. Uh, I haven't heard from you in a bit. That's probably not the best news. Even if I'm rejected totally cool, just let me know. And if there's any feedback most of the time there's not because hiring me and your stink. Um, that brand and I have a torch. Uh, Casey goes, that sounds like a rough position to be in matter spec for recruiters. Yeah. I mean, listen, we deal with negatives all the time all the time. And I will tell you this, the, the negativity has eroded a little bit on my career or eroded me a little bit over the years and I got to be careful with that.
Um, Laura goes, uh, apps, job search rejection isn't personal much better than most rejection. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Again, not personal. It's totally professional and you don't need to let it get you down. You don't need to let it get you down. Um, do you have to go search your reach out to my recruiter once and he gave me the rejection feedback. I think it's V nice. He gave it as it's better to know either way and he picks up the phone always. That's such a good quality recruiter. Absolutely. And again, a lot of times I just tell the candidates like, hey, listen, I don't have any feedback.
Like, you're rejected. I don't know why the company didn't give us feedback. Again, companies, if you are watching this, give better feedback. I tweet this all the time. Companies if you don't have the time or you don't, um, send feedback after somebody was uh, rejected your shits broken. Cerson on, on Monday here. Uh, John goes rejection. Might not even mean you failed this one time. It could just mean you're great at everything and our, means you're great at everything they are not looking for. Yeah, again, I just listen, the hiring process is jacked up and you don't need to take it personally. You don't need to take it personally.
Um, let's see here, uh, barely the never good morning. What's up, Marco? Um, I'm a Sierra. I have asked why, why not me at the end of some interviews. It helps with feedback and to clarify some things. Last time it turned into a conversation about what I could do to get over certain hurdle and what stood out on my resume. Yeah, again, I think the unlock for the job seeker here, um, is, Hey, listen, like, is there feedback? Okay. No. Hey, Mr. Mrs. Recruiter, what do you think the feedback would have been knowing me? Or what do you think, um, you know, the, the company may have said, but again, the lack of feedback is ridiculous.
Um, to be totally honest, it's, it's just something we deal with and I have no idea why. Yeah, LinkedIn user give feedback. Yeah, hiring managers give feedback. I don't know why it's so hard. Like, and, and, and I think too, and I don't want to get this towards a hiring managers, again, but hiring managers like, are you going to reject the candidates just because they didn't answer a certain question as good as you wanted them to about a particular topic? Like, I had that at time. Like, just because the candidate answer one thing, you're going to reject them on a position that is a three year buy-in.
Like to me, that's, again, I have multiple conversations about hiring. That's another issue. I see all the time about rejecting or dinging candidates on a specific answer to a specific question. Um, let's see your Garrett rejections. Also, service opportunity. Yes, absolutely. Hey, listen, I appreciate it. You know, I know I was rejected here. Do you have any other opportunity somewhere else in your organization? Right? That's another great question. Um, I love that so much. Uh, LA goes sometimes they have posted the role and had someone that was their shoe in and or people who've recommended you have recommended multiple people. Sometimes it's not you. I felt at times I did everything right, but it was a wrong timing.
How often do you see this Taylor? Yeah, it's all about timing. Let's see. I'm going to read this one more time. Oh, yeah, it's sometimes they have, they have jobs posted. They have posted the role and had someone that was their shoe in. And I really recommend you ever sometimes it's not your fault. I felt at times. Yeah. I mean, listen, they're, yeah, so companies have fairly good, um, and send us to recommend like their own people so they don't have to use recruiters. Um, that's another thing we're up against is people's own internal network. Um, and so yeah, I mean, this happens. It's all about timing.
Um, somebody emailed me over the weekend. It says, Hey, listen, how do I help recruiters like the most? Like you have a lot of content Taylor up about like 10 question, number recruiter resume templates, everything else. Like how, how else can I help a recruiter? And for me, it's checking. That's constant check in. It's constant checking in with me, texting me, um, following up with me, emailing me because sometimes I get a job that's a perfect fit. Like, literally I'm not kidding you. I interviewed a guy last week. Uh, and then like, I got a role that's a great fit for him. It's like, like a week later.
It's all about timing. So you constantly have to check in. Um, Jason goes, I ask what I would it what would it look like if I did get the job? What would you learn it or did you, if you were me? Um, I asked what I would what it would look like if I did get the job. What would you learn? And if you, I love that. Um, Dorian, I wish the taking issue with just staying as high in process. Dorian, listen, man. I get it. I get it. I don't. This is, yeah, same. Same. Um, again, it's the companies. It's the companies that know why they're interviewing how they were, how they interview, why they interview and have a specific reason or the ones that succeed a lot of times people just have conversations to try to have conversations and they don't really know what they're interviewing for.
Not kidding. You there, there's a company we recruit for. They interview one of my Azure architects and they go, man, we would like to see more people. Well, I'm sorry company. There's not a lot of Azure architects walking around town right now. So this is, this is what you got. Um, so yeah, I agree with you Dorian, 100% Angela goes. Rejection also translates to not being a fit for the company. That is a thing. I share company culture first to be sure it meets candidates need as well. Not personal. Yeah, listen. Like sometimes you just don't vibe with people. It's all about vibe. Right. Sometimes I don't vibe with my wife.
There's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes I don't vibe with my family. Sometimes I don't vibe with my boss. Like it just happens. It just happens. You have a bad day. Maybe you're ticked off at somebody or something. Right. Dogate your homework and you used to in vibe. Right. It happens. So again, try not to take it personally. Uh, let's see here. Yeah, Angela rejection is sometimes too a street. I was a jig for a company. I wound, I would end up saying no to anyways. Yeah, exactly. And also to sometimes it's a blessing you got rejected. I'm just going to tell you all that. I'm just going to tell you all that.
All right. Y'all will again. So that's all I got today. I appreciate it a ton. Um, y'all have a great Monday. I hope this helped. I just want to let you know that rejection is not you. Like it's not your fault. Um, don't take it personally. It's going to happen. Be prepared for it. Do more interviews. Do more interviews to where being rejected does not hurt. Um, so again, y'all share this. If you know somebody in your network or you've talked to somebody recently, that have been, that has been struggling with rejection in their job search, share this on your LinkedIn so they can see it.
Maybe send this to a friend. Um, but again, I want you to know everyone gets rejected. People have bad days. The hiring process is imperfect. It's not on you. Don't take it personally. But you got to keep interviewing. You got to be open to rejection. So keep working on that. Right. The, the, the, my best advice to you is continue. Yeah. Fail forward. I love it. Rejection made me go independent. I love it. Listen, rejection does amazing things to people that makes them innovate and innovate. And so again, take this. One thing I want you to take a little nugget. I want you to take from today is rejection is not personal.
That's it. Rejection is not personal and it's going to happen. It's going to be consistent. So again, y'all, thank you for tuning the guidance council 2.0. This one. I appreciate it. We'll be live tomorrow morning, 9 30 am central again, share this in your network. If you have somebody who's dealing with rejection, um, and you want to bless their time on as they say, I check out Taylor dussin.com resume templates, 10 questions, a number recruiter question that asks hiring managers interview in my egghead session on how to build your LinkedIn, text me 615-235-5650. Text and community one text message a day to your phone tips and tricks on how to level up your job search.
We'd love to have you part of it. So again, y'all, thank you for tuning in. I appreciate y'all time would not be this would not be what it is without you, the community. So thank you so much. You'll have a great Monday. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode and I am very grateful. Cause you know why there's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes and I myself rarely finished an entire episode. So I appreciate you so, so much for listening. Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the app store. I want this to be discoverable to others and the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it, please like right now, unless you're driving, then don't do it.
So thank you again. If you need to reach out to me, Taylor at vaco.com or at tdsin on all social media handles and I hope you have a fantastic day.