Tag Archives: rejection

Dealing with Mistakes and Rejection: When things don’t go as planned

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As lovely as it would be for everything to go perfectly according to plan, it rarely happens that way. There are always bumps and goof ups that happen along the way, and the most important part is that we can adjust and keep moving on.

When I got to campus, I applied for a few jobs. I went through interviews, and waited to hear if I had gotten the positions. For both cases, I had felt relatively confident about my interview and my application, but none of the positions that I applied for worked out. I was definitely broken up, but I had to keep in mind that it wasn’t personal.

After all, in the sea of amazing and well qualified women here, I was just one fish, and a first year at that (not to say that the latter hurts, but it may not help). I took a bit to center myself. Sure, it would have been nice to have a paid job on campus, but it wasn’t a requirement. There are other things I can do, and it’s by no means the end of the world to not have a job.

And I was right: I honestly am not sure I’d have time to work right now between my classes and the extra curricular activities that I’ve picked up (plus the essentials like spending time with friends, self-care time, and sleep). The biggest thing about dealing with rejection is thinking about ways to try again with a fresh start another time while moving forward and not dwelling on the past.

Another thing that’s easy to dwell on is a mistake. Recently, I missed a deadline for blogging, and I was (figuratively) beating my head against the wall for it. It’s not the first time I’ve tripped up, so I was extra mad at myself for getting behind again.

The most important things to do with mistakes are a) apologize, b) make amends, and c) take steps to avoid doing the same thing again. Some mistakes do happen twice, but it’s important to avoid letting them happen a third time.

I sent an apology email, I took action on my blog post that I missed, and I started a fresh post for the new cycle to get on my game early. I also took out my planner and marked each post assignment date clearly, and in my best writing, so I won’t let the ball drop again. For me, calendars and reminder systems like lists work wonders.

As much as it’s easy to get worked up into a funk, don’t let a mistake ruin your day. A mistake is simply an unintended error. You may not have meant to do it, but you can make steps to fix it in the future and apologize for what has happened. There’s no use crying over spilled milk! Remember that most of the times, forgiving yourself is harder than being forgiven by someone else.

No matter what, whether disappointed with an outcome or with something you’ve done, know there will be second chances, you just need to plan ahead for them.

What I Learned From Being Rejected

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I felt my body temperature rise and my jaw start to tense as I clicked on the un-read email:

“Thank you for applying. This year we received an overwhelming number of applications and regret to inform you that you have not been selected to interview for our program.”

Tears started to well in my eyes. I began trying to distract myself with other homework, because I didn’t want to let myself get worked up over this. Even though I had poured my heart out into this internship application, it was competitive and I wasn’t that qualified. I tried to convince myself not to take it personally.

No one likes rejection. However, in retrospect, I really do view it as a learning experience. I tend to get really focused on irrelevant details, and subsequently forget to look at the big picture, and getting rejected helped me broaden my viewpoint and scope immensely. It gave me the impetus to begin thinking about what it really was that I wanted out of an internship, and it gave me the motivation to set up some appointments with people who might be able to help me be more proactive with my search.

Here are a few tips that might be helpful for others facing rejection:

  1. Draw on your resources. There are so many professors, students, and staff members at Scripps and the 5Cs who are more than happy to help and provide their expertise.
  2. Do not take rejection too personally. If you google “Famous and successful people who have failed,” who will find long lists with people like Oprah, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, and Jay-Z. It literally happens to everyone. Instead of letting rejection or failure get you down, use it as fodder to fuel and motivate you to accomplish your goals. Plus, sometimes you might not get an internship or job position because you don’t have the right connections, or you are not qualified enough. These things will come with time, so try not to blame it on some fault of character or lack of intelligence. 
  3. Map out a timeline. Part of what makes job and internship searching so stressful is that deadlines can be spread-out, and it can be easy to lose track of time. It helps me to write deadlines for myself in a planner so that they don’t sneak up on me.

Heeding my own advice is easier said than done, but so far, I’m doing a pretty good job at not letting rejection define my sense of self-worth. Rejection is pretty much inevitable at one point or another, but so is success. Focus on the small successes, forget about the small rejections, and focus on the big picture; you’ll be a lot happier and more motivated to keep moving forward.

Keep On Keepin’ On

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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.

She Gets A Job At Phonathon, You Won’t Believe What Happens Next…

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Get it? Cuz I write clickbait! Haha jokes.

So today we’re talking about the job that I currently have because I have literally no idea how to find a future one of those (which is what I’m supposed to be writing about shhhhhhhh). This post has been kind of a long time coming since I got a job like a month ago (two months ago?) but before I get started talking about my job, here are some recent things you might need to know….or maybe just forgot

NBC's Chuck anyone? No? of course not

Get the reference? NBC’s Chuck anyone? No? Right, Of course not. Ugh

So without further ado: my past month.

-Learned that faxing is still a thing (I’m taking animation classes at my community college this summer. That is, if I actually faxed them things and didn’t just STRUGGLE FOR NOTHING).

-I went to Disneyland, it was awesome, I will fight anyone who disagrees.

-I cut off a lot of my hair.

-I got elected SAS MEDIA RELATIONS CHAIR (did I include this little update thing just so I could be excited about this? no. yes. probably. sorry about it).

-I’ve burned through a lotttt of TV (in order i think… Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, The 100, Salem, Gotham, Archer, Garfunkel and Oates) I watch this much TV through a technique I call, “being a useless human being.”

-started this blog post, it’s not one of my best, but it’s going pretty okay I think, anyways.

So I currently work at Scripps Phonathon, which is an interesting choice because I normally try to remove the negativity from my life:

example a

And asking people for money is so so so so stressful.

Here’s the thing though, asking people for money is literally every job, it’s just that you also sometimes get to exchange goods and services for that money.

I, on the other hand, get to exchange my limited bank of Scripps memories and a lot of speculation about the new dorm.

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“um yeah, so there’s probably gonna be rooms and stuff, i think it’s gonna be eco-friendly, anyways i see you graduated with a degree in please start talking about yourself please.”

 

(Thank god for stock photos honestly.)

But seriously, I love my job because I get to connect with really cool Scripps alumns and also really cool current Scripps students (please love me guys, y’all are so cool), and I also fear it because it’s a lot of pressure.

Fun fact: Scripps tuition only covers 65% of the operating budget and I am now partially responsible for coming up with that other 35%

Less fun fact: I am absolutely terrified of rejection.

I totally get the whole “don’t take it personally thing” and I try to, but in my head all interactions with another human look like this:

 

tumblr_mz1op3FqL31r5c7dco1_1280I’m not sure how to make that emotion more clear other than to specify that I am Ned in this situation and the spoons are maybe a metaphor that hasn’t been completely realized yet.

But here’s the thing, people have and will continue to reject me for the rest of my life.

How exciting is that!?!?!

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So right now I’m learning how to take rejection and so should you. There are like 12 billion TED talks I should link you to right here, but I won’t. Instead enjoy this uplifting? song and the knowledge that every time you ask someone to contribute to the Scripps Fund and they can’t because they’re in med school right now it isn’t about you and that rejection just makes you stronger as a person and eventually you’ll have as many dials as Elisabeth.

Or you know, something more accessible. Either way really.

 

The Best Rejection I’ve Ever Had

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Source: Levo.com. The Levo League is an online community of professional women, check them out! I’ve linked this image to their website.

In my last post, I was preparing for a big interview with a big firm for a summer internship. Long story short, I didn’t get the position and was crushed (see my 5 Stages of Rejection below). However, every cloud has a silver lining, and I’m excited to share what I learned.

Just to be clear, I loved the firm and was so hopeful I’d get an offer. Everything I’d heard about it only made me want to work there more: the chance to get solid accounting experience at a well-reputed firm, the emphasis on diversity of thought and community service, the learning culture, the big city location… I was even enthralled with the generous maternal leave policy. (I’m nowhere near that stage in my life yet, but as the daughter of a single working mother and past student in Core II Economics of Gender and Choice, it’s a big factor in my decision-making process when evaluating company fit.) So when I received that sad, carefully phrased rejection email, my self-confidence took a big hit.

How did I react? “Jasmine’s 5 Stages of Rejection” goes something like this:

1)   Crushing paralysis and self-doubt. Usually includes putting on my pink fluffy robe, crying in the fetal position, and questioning my path in life.
2)   Eventually I’ll attempt to be strong. This stage involves trying to convince myself everything happens for a reason and sending cheerful, make-the-best-of-this messages to the people who knew I was interviewing.
3)   Inevitably I feel like a liar and start crying again. I’ll phone my mother/older brother/boyfriend and ask them to tell me that I’m not a failure and that I’m going to be okay.

https://38.media.tumblr.com/38582f483d172130d8ed3d87d90d34f0/tumblr_mqncpfyLmW1sqhiuzo1_400.gif

Thankfully they aren’t like Edna Mode from The Incredibles.

4)   Netflix. Nature documentaries on ocean and snow environments are really soothing.
5)   For me, to learn a lesson is to find the silver lining that allows me to move on. So after rebooting my emotional system, that’s what I try to do. It’s frustrating enough to fail, but to not know what I did wrong? To repeat my mistakes in the future? Even worse.

The day after I received the news, I decided to email my interviewers and ask for feedback. Here’s the text I wrote. Feel free to use it if you need!

Dear XXX,

Although I was not offered an internship at XXX this summer, I continue to hold your firm in high regard and hope to find a place at XXX after graduation. I am writing to ask–following my interview with you, do you have any feedback for me? I would hate to make the same mistakes again in future interviews and would appreciate any advice you might have as I move forward in my search for summer employment.

Sincerely,
Jasmine

Vicki at CP&R cautioned me not to expect a reply, as companies’ HR policies may prevent interviewers from providing that information due to legal reasons. So it was a very pleasant surprise to receive the following response from one of my interviewers:

Hi Jasmine,

Thanks for reaching out! All three of us liked you and thought you were very well spoken. However, we struggled with your current lack of accounting experience and decided that at the end of the day we could not extend an offer to you at the current point in time without knowing whether you would have sufficient technical accounting knowledge by the time the internship starts. I definitely encourage you to apply again next year, either for an internship or a full time position depending on where you sit with your accounting units and do not get discouraged that you did not get the offer this time. My only advice to you from our interview is to take more accounting classes, do as well as you can in them, and be ready to discuss them next time around. Best of luck to you and I hope to talk to you again next year!

Sincerely,
XXX

Vicki had also told me to respond carefully. I needed to acknowledge their response and thank them, but could not misconstrue a reply as an invitation to further plead my case. Finding out that I had been rejected because I didn’t have enough classes yet, and not because of some irrevocable personal difference, definitely put my mind at ease. And my interviewer’s encouragement to reapply made this just about the best rejection I’ve ever had. So I sent a thank you to my interviewer saying just that, and then moved on with my search for summer employment. Wahoo constructive action!

To those of you who have never ever failed at anything and thus have never ever needed to learn from failure: I’m not sure what kind of a life you lead, but you’re probably doing something wrong. To those of you who have failed at some point in your job search, how did you deal with it? What did you learn? Post your stories in the comments!