During my final year of engineering, I was part of the placement team and in some ways responsible for ensuring that my collegemates have access to job opportunities.
We had seen one of the worst placement sessions in 2009 and 2010. Economy seemed to have recovered, and we had one of the best placement sessions in the history of college. Almost everyone had a job! I mean almost everyone who was eligible for a job.
But there was this guy, Rahul. One of my best buddies at college — who was still struggling in getting a job. It is one thing to send a resume to a company and not hear back. It is another thing to prepare hard for a job and then get rejected. I no longer remember the exact count, but Rahul appeared in more than 13 companies before finally landing a job in a small service-based company. His career trajectory completely shifted once he had his first win.
There is something about the first wins, that I will probably write about at some other time. This one is about rejections!
So, we had a guy who sent hundreds of job applications but never heard back… appeared in the later stages of hiring process at 13 different times but failed — and there was a quite a bit of gap in between all that was happening… Small gaps where there was nothing — just him alone, thinking. Friends were there — but he had to win this battle himself.
When I think about it, Rahul wasn’t much different from us in most terms… Probably a little unlucky at times — but luck isn’t something you control, by definition.
After about 12 years of graduation and having my share of experiences here is what I think about rejections now.
Rejections are hard
Even if getting rejected in part of your job and you are rejected millions of times. It will still hurt as long as you care. I still hate getting rejections and every no stings.
It feels hard to not let rejections impact you, but it is possible to reframe rejections into something better.
Rejections are redirections
Getting a yes is like solving a complex equation with thousands of variables. When you get your first yes, it means you have the minimum number of variables figured out… As you get more and more yeses, you can be confident that you are getting closer to solving the equation.
A rejection is “external” feedback that your understanding of something is incorrect. You have to figure out what that external feedback is. But the problem is —
You will come up with wrong interpretations
I started building a company when I was in my 20s. I was selling to schools, and most school leaders treated me like a kid. And I started assuming that I am not able to make sales because these schools do not want to buy from a young person.
I changed my hairstyle, my clothes to make myself look older. I started keeping a beard. I was solving the wrong problems. What school leaders were trying to tell me was that I am building products they don’t care about — but I thought they are telling me that I am too young (some literally told me this, though).
If there is a possibility for the other person to say “No”, it is often best to approach the situation with an exploratory mindset and validate your conclusions as quickly as you can.
Inactions should be timed out
Worst form of rejection is silence. When you do something and do not receive any feedback. If you’re building a product and getting silence from your customers — you are likely solving the wrong problem. If after all the efforts, you don’t hear back — decide a reasonable timeout and do something better.
If you are maintaining a friendship or finding a partner for dating — you should decide how long to wait before you know it’s not working out.
You will give up, unless…
Rejections are not bad enough. Getting rejected again and again is brutal. Unless you have a strong reason to persist — you will likely give up. If Rahul had another option while getting job rejections, he may have taken it up. When giving up is not a choice — you are in a great place to solve!
This is the “internal” feedback that is telling you to continue on the path you are on. It is the why you need to get over the rejections and accomplish what is needed. If you believe that you deserve what is at the end of the rejections — rejections won’t hurt that much. because —
Rejections are redirections
Every rejection is feedback — more data points to consider what you’re doing right and what needs to change. While building AI models — the more high-quality data you have, the better chances you have to build an accurate model.
Every time you get a rejection; it is an opportunity to add data points to your repository.
Pro-tip:
Be a researcher. Document like a researcher, capture as many variables as you can. Ask questions like a researcher.
See to invalidate… not validate.