Tips for bouncing back after rejection
How have you all learned to handle rejection and stay motivated? Sometimes I struggle with keeping my head up after getting rejected for an opportunity—I definitely need to change my mindset.
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I definitely feel you as I get really discouraged and upset after rejection, even if I know beforehand how unlikely success is. Honestly what helps me is allowing myself a certain amount of time (eg hour, day, depending on severity of the situation) to feel sorry for myself, and then literally force myself to move on to the next thing. If you have supportive friends and parents who don't get tired about your complaining, would definitely recommend venting to them once in a while to get things off your chest. Don't do that too much lol, but my roommate and I were recruiting at the same time and feeling the same things so being able to complain and get mad about failures was honestly therapeutic.
Want to add if your post-rejection funk is really bad and affects you for more than a couple days, consider talking to a therapist and getting professional help for dealing with things
You have to have enough self-awareness to analyze your flaws and enough self-confidence to not anchor your self-esteem in the approval of random companies.
It is so important to say “Fuck Goldman Sachs. If those chodes don’t recognize brilliance when it stands before them, they don’t deserve my talents anyhow.” You don’t need to talk like an NFL Wide Receiver, as no one likes a douchebag, but it’s worth thinking like one. Someone rejects you? Fuck them. They clearly have poor judgment.
It is even more important to spend time thinking about if you could have done anything differently in the process, so that you don’t replicate negative behaviors or mistakes in the future. Some of these mistakes can be so mindlessly minor that you just have to shrug and get over it. Some you may be able to improve on and fix immediately. Learn to analyze your candidacy, your communications, and your interviews honestly. Would you hire you? If not, why?
Ultimately, you can’t let other people define you, but at the same time, if everyone is rejecting you, perhaps you are the issue. It’s nuanced, but if you care enough to ask questions like you did, you can care enough to understand.
Vent /off load about it to friends or family. Write down all your anger, frustration or sorrow on paper and then crumple it up and throw it away. Seek expert guidance on how to re-strategise if necessary. And above all else always remember, Fred Astaire was rejected cos they thought he couldn’t dance. Never take rejection personally, even if you think it’s personal, it’s not personal they are just stupid.
I will echo was a few others have said:
1) try to understand what you can improve - sometimes there is nothing you can do about it, but almost always you can learn something. Did you miss a technical question? Was your story not crisp enough? Couldn’t think of a weakness? Etc. Work with others if you have friends/colleagues you think can give you honest feedback
2) get pissed off - it’s ok to be upset or angry. There is a balance though, failure is that feeling you hate, you don’t ever want to feel, but you also know it is inevitable, it is impossible not to fail, not if you are actually pushing yourself (anyone who says they haven’t failed is either lying or hasn’t tried a hard enough problem). So remember that, be ok with it, and use it to fuel #1
3) Know it happens to everyone - that doesn’t mean it’s ok, but as I said above, even the most successful people I know, those that lead entire departments at firms (at a young age) have failed and still struggle with failure and question themselves. Along the way all the best people I know have failed many times, they also work like crazy to not fail again, they are ok with the failure and they don’t let it sidetrack them. It isn’t an embarrassment, it isn’t something to hide, it doesn’t change who you are.
4) don’t let it define you - interviews (resume reviews, etc) are 30 (maybe 60) min ordeals, there is no way to know whether you are going to be great in that time. Employers take bets with the information they have. Do they miss out on stars? Yes. Do they hire duds? Yes. Does it mean a firm thought you wouldn’t work out there? Yes, it does, but what is their level of confidence? You know more about yourself than they do, I’ve seen (and this was my story too) people rejected by a ton of firms just to land at a top place and absolutely crush it. Know that sometimes luck plays a role.
And finally, when you get the opportunity don’t let it slip by. All that work you did to try and land this job, use it to continue improving and crush the job.
mind altering substances. preferably the natural ones
“He who does not feel me is not real to me.” Be confident. As @CRE said you need the confidence to have a fuck them mindset / forget about this one and instead put all of that energy into getting the next one. Identify weaknesses, work on them. Go get the next one.
following. Didn't get return offer from a top BB after busting my ass all summer and felt absolutely worthless for ~9 months. a year later still have major imposter syndrome after lateraling to another BB. whats helped, at least a bit, over the past year is just going 10x harder working on my skills and making sure in the future no one ever has a reason to deny me something I know I can achieve. working out and finding other outlets for anger has helped as well.
It is always good to be driven to succeed but also try and balance and be healthy with it. I’m all for working hard to not “fail” again, but I will add a couple things:
1) some of this is out of your control, there are so many stories out there of stars (actors, athletes, employees, etc) being rejected many times over - it can be a crapshoot, and let’s be honest the person interviewing you is taking a bet and sometimes it’s a 51/49 bet
2) find things that make you happy, that can be money, prestige, whatever you want, that is fine, but make sure it makes you happy. You are working so hard, just make sure you know what it’s for and that you’ll be happy on the path. Most people won’t ever be satisfied (and that’s also how some people are competitive) and it is hard to know without being there, but as someone who has lived the range of comp and work hours, there was a long amount of time where I didn’t know what made me happy (or at least didn’t make time for it). I kept working to get to the next level and there are many things I enjoyed, but I didn’t make time for myself, and I’m finding that I actually value that.
Anyway, make sure that the grind is worth it.
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