On Rejection

There are many forms of rejection in this world. You can be rejected as a person – by someone you’re crushing on. You can be rejected from a school you are interested in going to. You can be rejected from a role you tried out for, be it stage or screen. You can have self rejection, which is a cocktail of self pity and self denial and self loathing. Three is also job rejection.

Let’s focus on the last for a while, shall we? Within the category, there are subsets of rejection. There is the no call, no letter. This is the time honored “maybe if we don’t talk to her again, she’ll go away and not ask about the job again” method. It’s favored by many large ‘application only’ type jobs. There is the rejection letter. A nice (usually condescending) impersonal letter telling you that you aren’t good enough. There is the ‘smack down’ method. In this method, the interviewer (or company) does everything in their power to make you feel like the lowest and most unworthy type of person. There is the “we’re really sorry, but…” type. Here they tell you that, no surprise, they are really sorry, but the position is filled, you don’t qualify completely, they aren’t hiring at this time…etc. And then there is the most positive side of rejection, which is what I heard today.

The company called back and told me I interviewed really well, and it was a really hard decision because ‘for once’ all the candidates were supremely qualified and it was an extremely had decision but they do not have a position open for me at this time. They went on further to tell me that they are working on trying to find me something and will keep my information close at hand. They really hoped it would have worked out, but no such luck.

I felt like they were telling me that they wanted to ‘just be friends’. It was the same type of speech. A necessary evil that no matter how you spin it, just sounds shitty. And really, would they really have interviewed (at that stage) non-supremely qualified candidates? I guess what was meant by that was that everyone’s personality was a good fit for the company. They are really into that these days. They interview in the ‘behavioral style’ ie. “Give an example when you had a conflict of interest with someone, be it a classmate, coworker, etc. and how you resolved it.”

A friend and I were discussing just such an interview style on the bus yesterday and decided that if you get along with most people, and have never really had major confrontation/conflicts in your life, you are just not going to get a job. I had to struggle to find times where there was conflict or something….those types of stories aren’t on the tip of my mind. We came to the conclusion that we should go out and stage a very public fight between ourselves so we could answer, “There was this time where a classmate and I had an extreme difference of opinion over which sports team should advance. There were harsh words and a few blows exchanged, but in the end we decided that our friendship mattered more than a sports team, bought each other a pint, and decided on a compromise team we both liked in a different sport.” Or something like that. So…..anyone want to fight???