5 Steps to Follow When Your Job Offer Goes South

My client was feeling good.

She's been on a job search for a few months and had several interviews. Some of them didn't pan out and some of them she decided not to pursue.

Eventually, she received two offers! She was thrilled!

The first offer came in and was not only a salary increase, but also moved her into a senior role she desired.

The second offer was the same financially and an advancement in her role. The difference was that it also gave her opportunities in areas of the business that she hadn't been exposed to thus far in her career. This was the reason this offer was her preference.

She knew the details of the second offer, had negotiated for them, and verbally accepted. Now she was waiting on the offer in writing.

The first offer was in writing and had a timeline of when she had to respond. She had gotten one extension on the timeline while waiting for the second offer to come through but time had run out. She had to give her decision on the first offer.

She ended up turning down the first offer and went all in on the second offer for her company of her choice.

Then the worst possible scenario occurred. The second offer never came through.

She was devastated.

She texted me and we got on a call as soon as possible. She needed to process what had happened and feel all the feels in a place she felt safe and supported.

We talked through what she was feeling in the moment and how to manage her disappointment, so it didn’t completely derail her.

5 Steps To Follow When Your Job Offer Goes South

To move through career disappointment more quickly and get back to equilibrium use these 5 steps.

Step 1: Lick Your wounds. When you lose an offer, role, promotion, or opportunity that you are excited about you are going to be disappointed. You may also feel angry and defeated. All normal. Allow yourself to have the feelings. Let them move through you. If you ignore them, they will get stuck. And then other experiences and thoughts will stick to that disappointment and affect your thoughts, beliefs and career changes going forward in ways you are not even aware.

Step 2: Stick to your routine. Often, when we have suffered disappointment, we want to get in bed and do nothing. AND THAT IS A-OKAY! As mentioned in Step 1, honor your feelings. Tend to yourself AND keep to your minimum routine. You can clear some things off your calendar but not everything. If you normally work out, just do it less intensively or less often for the next few days. If you like to journal or meditate in the morning, do that. If you make yourself food to eat during the week by all means keep that up. By keeping to some of your daily and weekly routine even as you watch extra TikTok videos you will see that normal is still possible and you will recalibrate more quickly.

Step 3: Glean the lessons. At some point, you will be able to step back and look at the situation with less disappointment and anger. This is when you get to mine for the gold. DO NOT LOSE THE LESSON. What might you have done differently? What questions do you wish you would have asked during the process? What did you do well? Did you ignore your intuition in any way? When you learn the lessons, you grow in your ability to trust your inner

wisdom, have more courage to ask questions in the future, and are better able to manage your disappointment and anger.

Step 4: Get quiet and listen for guidance. Once you have licked your wounds, renormalized through routine, and gleaned the lessons you will be on your way to creating something new for yourself. The trick is not to do a lot of outward actions until you have asked your inner wisdom what advice it has to offer. Set aside 30 minutes and ask your higher self/inner wisdom/spiritual board of advisors what thoughts they have about your next career move. Then sit in silence and wait for an answer to rise up on the inside. Or journal for 30 minutes without stopping, allowing the gems of wisdom to come through your pen. The answers are there inside of you waiting to be given a voice. Let them be heard!

Step 5: Take inspiHER’d action. During Step 4 you will begin to have thoughts and ideas come to you. Some will make logical sense, and some will make no sense at all. Trust that all are there for a reason. As you look at the wisdom your expanded self offered ask what action you could take on one or more of the options. Make that call. Get a haircut. Reconnect with someone you interviewed with in the past. Hire a coach. Taking inspiHER’d action means doing things that may not make sense. That is where the fun resides!

Your Career Transformation is going to throw you curveballs. It is good to have a plan in place on how to take care of yourself and your career whatever happens.

Having a coach to help you through both the celebrations and the tough times is invaluable. You are not alone! Let’s get on a call so you can have even more support during your career change. SIGN UP HERE.

~Laurie