My body shook awake from the rhythmic vibrating of my alarm. 8 AM, groggy, burning eyes, I instinctually grabbed my phone, swiped the alarm off, and through my four hours of sleep not yet bolstered by coffee, saw the email.
The subject beamed with the name of a company I had interviewed with last week, the sender, “Recruiting.”
Dear Francesca Jimenez,
On behalf of the entire Career Management team, I would like to express our sincere appreciation for the time and consideration you have given us during this process.
After carefully reviewing all current openings for which you have been considered, I regret to inform you we will not be offering you a position with the firm at this time …
I rubbed my eyes with exhausted frustration, they became salty with tears as I wrapped my arms around my tense body.
When I had read the description for this role, I was literally dancing up and down (you can ask my boyfriend). Each line excited me more, backed by the confidence I had in my experiences relating directly to the statements. I still have dreams about a 401k and health insurance plan that covers dental AND vision (I have really bad eyes). Everything, from the assigned duties and qualifications appealed to me and matched me, or at least so I thought.
Getting rejected, turned down, told no, however you want to say it, is difficult. The feeling can weigh me down, as if every right step before hand, the company research, networking, cover letter, solid experiences presented on my resume, staying up till 4 AM multiple nights, still couldn’t even amount to an acceptance.
Last semester in Senior Colloquium for music majors, one of the faculty talked about how they came to teach at Scripps. They prefaced with this sentiment, “Keep in mind, that when you read the biography of anyone, they are only mentioning the highlights and completed awards. I bet, that for every degree they have listed, grant, published article, there’s a higher number of rejections or uncompleted projects. I can tell you, that for every completed degree I have, there are at least two or more unfinished.” They then began to talk about the beginning of their career.
I have found myself coming back to that talk from colloquium. Rejection is part of the process, just like the hard work, the writing, the research, but sometimes it is necessary. That talk from colloquium continues to help me put a lot of my past “failures” and success in perspective, breaking down my own biography. For instance, out of 11 colleges I applied to, I only got fully accepted into one, and it wasn’t even Scripps. I was wait-listed here until the first week of June, just a few days before my graduation. Last summer, I applied to at least 10 different internships, turned down from all but one, receiving an acceptance two days before I would have lost the internship grant. And that is only academic and professional related opportunities. I have been rejected from chamber groups, orchestras, music programs and summer intensives, but that hasn’t kept me away from something that I love doing.
Throughout this process, I have also been reminded about something another music professor said about life expectations and the stress to do great things, “There’s no guarantee for success when you put yourself out there and try. But if you don’t put yourself out there and try, there’s definitely a guarantee for no success.” It is easier said than done, but when the rejections and disappointments come (as they have been recently for me), I’ve been doing my best to keep my head up, change my perspective, continue with activities I enjoy, spend time with family and friends, remind myself I’m awesome, and keep on keepin’ on.
