Rejection Builds Resilience: How You Can Overcome Job Market Challenges

Alright, if you’re here, you have probably experienced this…

You’ve put in the work. You’ve been building a strong portfolio with projects, learning new skills, following all of my advice that I’ve laid out in my Comprehensive Analyst’s Guide to Career Resources. You’ve applied to dozens of roles. Maybe you’ve even made it through a few interview rounds.

Then… silence. No feedback. Just ghosted. When I’m connecting with analysts on Reddit and LinkedIn, I hear the question all of the time, “Why can’t I get hired? I have done all of the right things that ‘x’ influencer has told me to do!”

While I could wax poetic about how I think hiring teams should “do better” and how you should treat potential employees like customers (since, often they are, and may stop shopping with you if you ghost them), there are plenty of thought leaders in the recruiting space that have much better things to say on this than I do.

Instead, I’m going to break down what some of the problems are, and how you can try to break through the noise to land that job that you’re after.

Why Is This Happening? A Crowded and Broken Market

• Hyper-Competitive Landscape: More candidates, fewer openings, and a ton of entry-level applicants.
• Broken Hiring Processes: A lot of companies use automated filters through their Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), ghost candidates post-interview, or fail to provide clear expectations or meet those expectations once set. Again, there are some real issues I have with this, but I’ll leave this one up to HR professionals to sort out.
• Hiring Freezes or “Fake” Roles: Some companies open roles, only to pause or slow down hiring for economic reasons. Unfortunately, some companies also post roles that aren’t even open, for various reasons, which creates a ton of noise in job searches.
• Expectation vs. Reality Gap: Companies post “entry-level” jobs but expect 3+ years of experience. While we all laugh and joke about this, this is very real. More on how to navigate this below.

What Analysts Can Do to Improve Their Odds

Refine Your Resume & LinkedIn/Indeed Profiles for both ATS and Humans

• Tailor resumes to job descriptions, don’t shotgun applications with the same one. While you shouldn’t have AI write your entire resume, you can use it to help give you ideas for tailoring your resume to that job description.
• Ensure relevant keywords (SQL, Power BI, forecasting, etc.) are strategically placed.? Rather than just listing your skills, talk about how you used your skills to solve real problems.
• Keep formatting simple. While a visually striking resume may be nice if you’re a designer, formatting and columns can wreak havoc on an ATS. According to TopResume.com, 75% of resumes are rejected before they reach the hiring manager. Be the 25%.
• The Entry-Level Experience Problem; don't lie - but be creative about what counts as "experience". You don't need to lie on your resume to hit the "3+ years experience" for the entry-level position. Look critically at your past experiences at "unrelated" jobs, university, volunteer work or even personal projects to see what you can use as relevant experience. I ran social media for a local nonprofit as a volunteer, and it wasn't until my last job interview where I realized there was valuable and important experience to count in there.

Leverage the Hidden Job Market: Your Network

• Many jobs don’t even get posted publicly. Referrals are king! While this is especially true within your current company, look to build your network with people that can position you for the right roles in the companies you want to work for.
• Engage in LinkedIn groups like GOATs to share your projects & collaborate with others, comment on recruiter posts, and send thoughtful connection requests. Don’t use AI’s default outputs to engage in comments and messages. I’m not saying you can’t use some tools to make your life easier or give you inspiration, but people can tell when you are just using AI and it’s a big turn off.
• Don’t just ask for a job. Ask for insights or advice. People love to share their expertise.

Build a Portfolio That Speaks for Your Best Work

• Hiring managers are looking for proof of work. Even if you haven’t had a formal data job, showcase real projects. You can use guided practice projects to add to a portfolio, just don’t make it the entire portfolio. Recruiters are becoming familiar with seeing these, and could think you just copy & pasted someone else’s work if you don't have some real world examples.
• Make your portfolio visible - again, there are great resources for this like datascienceportfol.io , there’s no need to reinvent the wheel.
• Write a case study about a project; what problem did you solve, how did you solve it, and why did it matter? This is so much more powerful than a portfolio on its own. Michael Whaley highlighted a great example of this in this article.

Master the Follow-Up & Stay Visible

• After an interview, send a thank-you email within 24 hours. Make it personal, but short and sweet.
• If ghosted, follow up professionally: “I understand these decisions are difficult, but I’d appreciate any insights on how I can improve for future opportunities.”
• Post on areas where you are an expert on LinkedIn and other career-focused environments. Hiring managers and recruiters will notice. I have heard stories from several people about getting contacted because of thoughtful contributions in these spaces.

Develop Resilience & Play the Long Game

• Every rejection is an opportunity to refine your approach. Encourage and ask for feedback. If you need inspiration on this topic, check out my article Why You Should Build a Culture of Feedback.
• Take a contract role or freelancing gig to build experience if you are just getting started in the industry. While this work can be more inconsistent, having real world experience is extremely valuable.
• Keep learning and pick up a niche area of expertise (supply chain, marketing, finance) that sets you apart from other analysts & individual contributors. There are great certifications out there for each of those areas.

Be Adaptable and Turn Frustration into Learning

I know it’s extremely frustrating to be actively job searching. If it’s encouraging at all, I applied for 12 analyst roles at my last company before I got my first one. And that was internal applications, when I was already a proven leader in my area of the business, with a reasonably good internal network and a great personal brand.

Now, amplify that by applying for roles at other companies. It takes a ton of time. It’s a numbers game, but it’s not strictly quantity. You have to make sure that each step of the way, you’re considering the quality and what you bring to the table with every application.

It’s not hopeless but it is a ton of work. I believe in you, and you can do it.

What’s been your biggest struggle in the job search? Let’s help each other in the comments.