Reading rejection
On becoming more competitive through understanding the context of your rejection
In your job search, as in many aspects of life, you are going to fail more than you succeed. Even if you do everything right, you are not guaranteed success. In a modern hiring process, there are many variables over which you have no visibility and no control. Many of these unknown variables have nothing to do with your quality as a candidate or person. The rejection still feels bad.
The many faces of rejection
It's a very common experience to receive a rejection email with little constructive criticism. It will indicate that you weren't successful but doesn’t give any indication of what you did well or how you could have done better. While it could be that you weren’t well suited to the role, or that someone else was just better suited, it could also be a host of other reasons that are completely unrelated to you. For example, it could be that:
The hiring manager left the company or team, and the role was cancelled.
The position or job description could have changed rapidly.
The team you were hoping to join is being restructured.
Business priorities could change.
The budget for the role might have disappeared or been reallocated.
The position could have been filled internally.
The role could have been absorbed into an existing employee's workload.
It could be one of the above reasons or a myriad of other reasons limited only by the possibilities and potentialities of day-to-day commercial enterprise. The important takeaway is that it’s very possible that your rejection wasn’t actually a measurement of your quality as a candidate and even less about your capability in your field. Regardless, this recognition hopefully takes some of the sting out of the rejection.
In a perfect world, you would get constructive feedback and detail. Good recruiters will often try to give you as much context as possible. Remember, though, recruiters are not incentivised to communicate with people they can't hire; it’s the opposite. So, writing individual and detailed rejections, while it would be useful to the candidate won’t help a recruiter achieve their goal or meet their KPIs. This is the practical reality that often sits behind the ghosting phenomenon.
If you have experienced a very communicative recruiter who then suddenly disappears, (or ghosts you), it’s very likely that, based on their understanding of the brief, they thought that you were a good candidate, but then something critical changed in the process, or they received feedback, and they realised you wouldn’t be a fit. Depending on what happened, they are then incentivised to either seek different candidates or pursue the candidates that the hiring manager approved. Unpleasant to experience for you and definitely not helpful, but not personal at all. Just people following their incentives. Incentives which do not necessarily reward effective and/or respectful communication.
The importance of our response to rejection
Ghosting aside, the two most common reactions I see to repeated rejections are:
Internalisation of the rejection
Dismissal of the rejection
Internalisation of the reaction results in a loss of confidence and dismissal of the rejection leads to apathy and an unwillingness to change, adapt, or evolve as a candidate. Both responses lead to unsatisfactory outcomes. Either way, you stay stuck in the endless cycle of applications which are rejected or ignored.
How then do you avoid internalising the rejection and losing confidence or apathetically going through the same motions of application and rejection over and over again? The answer is to strike out a middle ground between the two. In learning how to read rejection in all its forms, even its absence, you will avoid internalisation and glean value from even the least constructive rejection. This type of interpretation of rejection requires a shift in your focus from trying to ascertain why you were rejected in any given process to an understanding of when you are being rejected. This helps you depersonalise the rejection while still benefiting from the data it provides.
The timing of your rejection and what it can tell you
Generally speaking, and this might be hard to hear, if you find yourself being rejected before a screening call with a recruiter, or first-round interview, this is a sign that you are not a competitive. This is likely because your job search infrastructure (your CV, your cover letter, the accuracy with which you've mapped your market and your online presence) is not directed at the appropriate audience and/or is not effectively telling your story or communicating your value. Unfortunately, in this circumstance, just applying more will not help. Your job search system needs work. You’ll need to get back to basics before you can truly compete in your market of choice. The good news is, it’s entirely fixable
If you find yourself being invited to screens and first-round interviews but then receive a rejection or get ghosted after that first meeting, it’s likely that your professional narrative, and/or interview preparation is letting you down. If this is true for you, your job search system is working well enough to capture the recruiter’s attention, but your interview is failing to build on whatever the recruiter saw in you. This is also fixable, but again will not be resolved by just making more applications. In this scenario, it’s likely that your professional narrative, and/or the articulation of your value are not helping the recruiter understand how you could contribute in the role. Solving this problem will require that you spend time reflecting and building context.
If you are easily progressing through early rounds and routinely being rejected in the late or final stages of a process, then congratulations, you are a competitive candidate! You’re likely very close to success though it may not feel like it. In this scenario, you’ve spent longer in the process, met more people, and perhaps even established real connections with recruiters or hiring managers. As such, you are more likely to get specific and constructive feedback, though it’s not a guarantee. At this stage, there are perhaps some small refinements that you can make that will help but you are largely competitive. Gains that you make at this stage will likely relate to your network and relationships and how much alignment and connection you can generate with other people.
Embrace your rejection and make it an ally
Wherever you find yourself along the rejection continuum, it all feels pretty bad. Particularly when the rejection emails you receive are basically the same regardless of the stage of the interview process you are in, this is precisely why it is important to be able to understand the timing of your rejections and not necessarily their content.
Failure and rejection are just part of the process. Your failure will lead to success, and your success will eventually lead to failure in a natural and ongoing cycle. As a result, your ability to interpret rejection is way more important than your ability to avoid it. It’s not the rejection that matters, it’s what you do with it.
If you develop an ability to read the timing of your rejections, you will feel more informed, less frustrated, and more mentally resilient. You’ll protect your confidence and identify how you can be more competitive at the same time. Don't take your rejections to heart, especially if the feedback is not specific or constructive, but don't ignore them either.
