For every role that I managed to land on, there were many more failures
First of all, I have to say that I am very grateful to be approached by recruiters from Linkedin to introduce me new job roles. Many of the roles have potential to expand my career to the next level. On the surface, it does seem that I am doing well, being able to move from job to job, receiving gig opportunities to teach and educate the beginner coders. However, to get to this level, it really requires a lot of grit and rejections before I can get to where I am. Even till today, I am still failing interviews and technical tests. I am only human so it is natural that I can still make mistakes and also needs a lot of work to improve my personal abilities and skills.
The dejected feeling
I can’t say how many times I felt dejected after receiving the message from the recruiters, “After careful review, we decided not to move ahead with your application”. In all honesty, the feeling does get to me because naturally you will feel that you are not good enough for the role despite working hard for a long time. Just imagine not being able to get through to the first round! I am pretty sure almost everyone had this feeling before. The feeling gets worse when I got multiple rejections all at one go. Nonetheless, we still have to move on with life and make do what we can.
It’s not about you. It could be the timing or circumstances
To the truth of the matter, if you have done your best during the interviews, you should not blame yourself when you are being rejected by the companies. To take it positively, you have identified gaps that you need to address and become better. If you look at the success stories of entrepreneurs and celebrities, you can imagine how many times they were being rejected just because the majority do not believe in their abilities or ideas. The next successful entrepreneur or star could be you! So you should not feel too bad for yourself but seek to improve and make a better version of yourself.
Likewise, the timing may not be right as well. The company may find you “overqualified” or “under qualified” for a role. The company may be going through some restructuring and therefore decided not to continue with your application(it happened before!). The issue is that you will not know what’s going on behind the scenes and you may start to feel bad for yourself. Maybe it could be a good idea to shift the perspective that not every thing has its own place and time, eventually it will reach your turn. You just have to be patient with yourself.
It’s a number games!
Unfortunately, when it comes to applying jobs, it is really a number games. I have sent out countless of resumes in my life. I didn’t keep track of the total but it can be easily in the hundreds of applications. About 90% may not respond and the remaining 10% who responded will give you the first round interview. Out of the 10% interviews you go for, maybe half may will bring you to the next round. By the time you received an offer from the company, it could be the 1% out of the applications you have sent. By then, I could have gone for dozens of interviews and it really does absorb a lot of my time and energy.
This is from my personal experience as I am just an average Joe who seeks to break through the technology career. Eventually, it is about patience and determination. It really takes a lot of effort to go through interviews after interviews and I can understand how tiring it can be. What you can try to tell yourself is that “You only need just one to give you that shot!”. Keep trying and don’t feel unfazed by the challenges ahead.
When one door closes, a better door may open
This can be cliché but sometimes things happen for a reason. When a door closes on you, it does not mean you are reduced to lesser options. It could be an opening to something better. Fate can be very interesting as it always try to teach us some lessons by bringing different challenges and failures to our lives. Without it, we won’t grow to where we are today. With perseverance and faith, you can be certain that there will be a better job or life that awaits you.
To all my friends reading this, you can do this! You will definitely get it!
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