One student's tale of job rejection
Sometimes it’s your peers who can help you the most and make you realise that you are not alone. We asked a graduate about how they cope with getting letters of rejection.
As part of my degree, I have to do a one-year work placement, from this summer to the summer of next year. I spent a lot of time and energy from November to May on a placement search. In total, I applied to 26 positions, had five telephone interviews, three assessment centres and eight final interviews. I received a grand total of one job offer, so I was rejected over 20 times.
I was slightly disappointed to be rejected by a company who told me that they had really liked my skills and attitude, but they gave the job to someone with more specific experience. I was extremely upset to be rejected by a large multinational after the final interview, as I had actually really started to like the company. They said someone would call me to give me some feedback – it’s now six weeks later, and I haven’t heard anything.
Some graduate recruiters want people who are just themselves
I must say that being told that the company had ‘so many high-quality applicants’ as the reason why you have been rejected is pure hogwash and extremely irritating. I’ve decided that I will not be applying again to any company that gave me useless or no feedback after rejecting me.
In my experience, telephone interviews are fairly generic – the one exception was for an investment bank where I was asked about what modules I had enjoyed at university, then asked to apply concepts from those modules to real-life problems.
Keeping it in perspective
My advice on dealing with rejection is to keep things in perspective. Rejection is a normal part of life. I turned down invites for final interviews from two companies because I realised that they wouldn't be a good fit for me and my future career plans. What each recruiter is looking for varies in different industries, companies, departments, and individual job roles. It would be impossible to satisfy every recruiter. My impression so far is that most graduate recruiters want candidates who seem like they will fit exactly into a specified box. Some graduate recruiters want people who are just themselves; but then you still need to fit into the box they have in mind, it’s just that this version of a box is more flexible! So, it's best to find out as much as possible about what the box is, and the crucial times to get this knowledge are before you submit your application and before you go to an interview!
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