Rejection Sucks In The Moment; But Not Always Long Term
“Ain’t that a kick in the head,” said Dean Martin.
Although Dean Martin wasn’t writing about being rejected in the workplace, I think the quote still holds up. Rejection is a kick in the head.
Several moments of rejection have taken place in my career that still stand out to me today as if they happened yesterday. I can remember the phone calls, the emails, where I was when it went down, and the emotions that rolled through me.
Rejection sucks.
Frankly, I’ve been rejected from jobs I didn’t even want, but nobody wants to be told no. I’d rather get the job and then tell you no. You don’t get to tell me no first!
It never gets easy to be told that you’re being passed over for a job or even a promotion. That sense of rejection is tough, and it always leaves us with more questions than answers.
The thing about rejection is we only process that incident in that moment. But when we look back at our history of experiences, namely rejections, we get a better sense of how they shaped and motivated us to achieve the next opportunity that came our way.
I had these two experiences with Amazon in 2012 and 2014 in which I was rejected for Sales Manager roles. When they happened, I was devastated because I was ready to get out of the media business. I was confused, disappointed, and sad. I remember coming home and crying and just feeling like I was completely stuck and never was going to find my way into a tech company. Then two years later, I was hired at Zillow Group as a General Manager to lead leaders, and eventually that led me into more opportunities at Zillow. If you would have told me in 2014 to be patient for what was ahead, I would have told you that you were crazy.
I was rejected in 2010 for a role with Comcast to lead their Marin County (North Bay) office, while I was living in Central California and working at a CBS Television station. They had four offices in the Bay that all had Sales Leaders running them and this would have been one of the four. I was young, and I was out of my league for the role itself, but I was recommended and recruited and got all the way down to the final stage with just myself and one candidate left. It was so serious they even invited my wife and I to come to Marin County for the weekend to check it out. We put down a non-refundable deposit on an apartment in Novato and fell in love with the possibilities. One week later, they notified me that they went with the more experienced candidate. Again, devastated. I didn’t think I would ever get back to a major market, and I was going to be stuck in small-town media forever.
Two months later, I accepted a job as a Sales Manager with the CBS Television station in Seattle. I got to go back home, and I jumped about 115 markets in size as a result. If you would have told me that day I was notified that the Comcast role was dead that something better was coming along, I would have told you that you were crazy.
I even remember being rejected for an internship with the Tacoma Rainiers (Seattle Mariners minor league team) in the spring of 2004 while I was a Junior in college. Two weeks later, the Seattle Supersonics (NBA) hired me for the summer.
At the moment, rejection fucking sucks. It’s not fun. We play doomsday in that moment, and we go to the worst-case scenario. But as someone who has been rejected, only to get better news shortly after, my advice is to zoom out at that moment and evaluate the bigger picture of what’s happening around you. That rejection is a minor setback in the moment and it could give you perspective to drive forward on what comes next. By the way, if you never got rejected, how would you know how to handle failure? How would you know how to be better the next time? All of that rejection molded and shaped me to become who I am today. Without it, I’m nothing.
Also, consider what you can learn from each of these moments. When I was rejected at Amazon, it taught me I needed to build a brand, so I started writing. These moments fuel us for the future. I still write today because of the motivation of being rejected ten years ago!
It doesn’t mean you can’t be sad because you can and should be. You should also be in touch with the emotions and process the deeper why behind the sadness. If you get rejected for an opportunity and you don’t skip a beat, it may tell you that you weren’t that serious or excited about it to begin with. If you cry for the next two days, that may be a sign of something deeper. Whatever emotion you process, I encourage you to use that as fuel for how you move forward and pick up the pieces of the rejection process.
by Scott Bond
