Syndrome of the Rejected Person in an Employment Process

In a note that I will share next week, I will share the process of defining topics to write about and how I plan content.

To give you a preview, the sources are personal experiences, others' experiences, what you see in daily life, what you observe on social networks like this one, and that's how today's topic came to my mind.

In my beginnings, I had a rating that scared my wife and bothered my father, who believed in the concept of dedicating your entire life to a single company: every process I entered, I stayed. Over time, things changed; my rating isn't bad, but I no longer bat 1.000. There have been processes where I wasn't selected. There were some strange ones where they said they would contact me just to fine-tune numbers, but the call never came, though I found out someone else had been hired for that position. In another case, HR had already welcomed me, asked what color car I wanted, and then, with a CFO change, everything went backwards.

Those of us who have a lot of confidence in ourselves naturally think we're better than other colleagues in the same profession, whether due to technical capabilities, soft skills, trajectory, or the sum of all these. While having high self-esteem is very positive, the cruel reality is that this is just your opinion and maybe your mother's. Others don't necessarily share the idea that you're the best professional compared to others in the process.

Comparing people is complex; each person is unique and offers different capabilities in their combination of hard and soft skills, previous experiences, etc. In the evaluation process, there are subjectivities that will make different people make different choices even for the same job position.

One of the inconveniences is that recruiters don't usually give feedback when a candidate isn't accepted; some don't even notify that the process has ended. They surely have reasons for this, such as lack of time, not knowing if the chosen candidate will arrive to sit at the desk or deliver results, and leaving the door open to continue considering a person.

A rejection process, like any other negative event, has a grieving process that goes through different stages: realization, understanding, acceptance, pain, anger, reciprocal rejection, sadness, depression, encouragement, etc. There is no fixed order; each person experiences them differently and may repeat some stages.

Part of the rejection process is criticizing those who rejected you, pointing out that they lost an excellent professional, that the company will go downhill, that everything will go wrong, the stock will fall, and that they will burn in hell. The point is to indicate that the reason was in someone else, not in us. Again, it seems that this venting is necessary for some people to recover and move forward.

My advice: While I believe it's valid for people to vent, share their experiences, seek mirror support in the network, have someone agree with them, tell them they're right and the counterpart is wrong - the companies, the recruiters; that maybe they'll even get another job opportunity, etc., I think it's best to recognize and understand what's happening to them, try to turn things around as quickly as possible, not dedicate much time to the past, and better focus energy and positive thoughts on searching for other opportunities.

Come out strengthened from this process, look for ways to do better next time, practice interviews, English questions, work on the "buts" they told you or that you think could have been, instead of criticizing the rejection action, try to be empathetic, try to understand (not accept) the reasons, turn it around quickly.

The world is full of things, challenges, learnings, don't get stuck in the past, lift your head, look to the future, I know that sometimes many rejections, not having found work in months or years can be frustrating, but the answer isn't in the past. True, the system might be broken, the only way to fix it is from within, your turn will come to be on the other side of the coin where you can do things differently and ensure no one else lives the experience the way you're living it, give them what you would like to be receiving.

Have an excellent and positive week.

Cheque.