Why Rejections Will Make You Question Everything

Especially when it comes to the error in your ways.

“Don’t get it right, get it written.” — Ally Carter

Do you ever write your rejections, on a piece of paper or a memo perhaps? I do, all the time whenever I fail. I come back home, and do what’s best i.e. I search for answers what I did wrong, and how can I get it right the next time.

There is a lot of doubt that is present when rejections happen. Much of it is usually condescending towards one’s self and we usually do not see beyond that because of the hindsight bias. There is an opportunity when we receive a rejection, it can only be realized if we breathe deeply taking a step back, and think for a few seconds.

In moments of desperation caused by rejection, I have realized that the more you question yourself and your ways — the easier it becomes to know the outcomes or moreover productively predict them.

I have received an ample amount of rejection in the last year — I was preparing myself for the summer internship in 2020. I had applied to many organizations, I even tried applying to different roles but there weren’t any roles available for my skillset. I think I have received enough rejections to know and deduce the error in my ways when I first applied towards them.

Many interviews, and rejections whether through the ATS, or the person behind the camera. It has been a great deal. Not once did I feel bad for getting rejected for the position I applied for.

Instead, I would run towards my mother, and tell her that I got rejected by Amazon and Microsoft. It fueled me with joy, and I wrote everything down about my failure to create a mindmap over all the ways that you could fail through rejections. It helped me polish my skills, especially tailoring my resume to meet the requirements.

Now usually an ATS won’t really see what you write. It searches for keywords, I had pinned almost 100 ways to write my resume to get it past that search. Finally after more than 6 months, and 400+ rejections, I finally landed an acceptance letter from a company in Ohio. Though I passed the interview, I couldn’t meet the requirement for travel sadly.

It wasn’t the only one. I had been accepted in every 3 out of 10 applications I would, later on, send to companies for various internship roles. I would even get a call for an online interview, and pass it with flying colors. At the start, of February 2020 Covid-19 broke out as a global pandemic. This came in the way of more than a year worth of hard work and it diminished my chances of ever going to my internships that I had circled down to two. One perhaps was a local one at a prestigious telecom company while the other was in Dubai, at a really great cloud company.

All of this was set until I received the emails that were somewhat of a downer. They had closed the internship, because of Covid-19 and had requested to apply if future opportunities arise. I believe there are many people just like me, who were aspiring to transition into exciting careers this year. Covid-19 is perhaps the sword that has stopped that journey, for now at least. I kept on receiving automated emails stating they had closed the program, and my options started to become lower and lower.

Though I didn’t feel bad, it was inevitable. I learned something truly wonderful during those months — it was that I found my answers by questioning my rejections and what had to lead them to occur?

I wrote everything down, every rejection email that I have received is in the form of backup or a Jamboard(exciting tool) that I created to follow, and track insights that I calculated from my rejections. I researched the many ways that you can use to hack the ATS. I have learned a lot in my journey because of my ability to question my rejections.

I believe we should strive for looking past the angst and focusing on what we have in our own two hands. We didn’t lose anything, and yet we gained so much. Think about it what did I truly lose? I lost nothing. I worked hard, day in and out preparing — those skills are not in vain. I have helped so many other people along my journey to secure jobs. Somehow, I have been able to learn about something I never knew.

My father told me, on my first rejection and the ones that followed,

“Who cares, you keep trying and that is what will set you apart from the rest!”

A question he handed to me, that I aimed to solve, and thus I did. Rejection is perhaps one of the many ways you can correct yourself. It doesn’t matter if you get rejected — we should strive for a better mindset towards handling rejection. When we embrace it, with joy and zest — think of the possibilities of motivation and inspiration that can come from it.

We can choose to fuel our passions through rejections — rather than dismissing them by self-loathing. There is always a realistic, and positive way of seeing things. We should strive for this mindset.

I have, and I have learned to pick myself up by it. Learn to make mistakes, and push yourself to receive as many rejections as you can. There is an opportunity where you can exploit the ones who reject you because they will leave a backdoor through you can crawl your way back in. It will take time, effort, determination to succeed. But when you’re aiming for receiving a rejection, without a worry — I believe you’re going to be just all right.

Thankfully, there are ways to jump ahead of the curve, and whenever you feel that the world is rejecting you, stand up and take a step back to question your ways. Perhaps the best lesson that you can learn is to change yourself rather than changing the world. Use this opportunity to let the world chase, or follow you as you make your way to success.

And questioning your rejections — my dear friend is what will take you there, to the place of your hard-earned dreams.

Peace, Thank you so much for reading.