Rejected Does Not Mean Doomed
By Soozy G. Miller, CPRW, CDCC, CDP
Job rejections are disheartening and stressful.
To experience this rejection and get an idea of what my clients feel, I decided to apply to a job that I am not qualified for. I wanted to see how I would be treated when I was rejected. I aimed to get rejected on purpose.
I applied to a Talent Acquisition position with the New York City Metropolitan Transit Agency, and according to their job description (which is very clear and specific), I am about 80% qualified. Two parts were clearly missing on my resume because I don't have them: Experience working in HR and knowledge of N.Y. employment law.
I completed the application (including the knock-out questions) and got a rejection within about 5 minutes. It said:
Dear Soozy,
Thank you for your interest in the Talent Acquisition Specialist (Recruiter) MTA PD position at MTA Headquarters.
Your qualifications have been carefully reviewed. At this time, we have decided to move forward with other candidates that more closely match our current needs.
We encourage you to apply for other open positions that fit your interest and qualifications. Thank you for your time, and best of luck in your future endeavors.
It reads as generic, but still perfectly nice and totally logical. As I said, I did this on purpose.
If I was a panicked, stressed job seeker I might say that the rejection was too quick, that the MTA must have unfairly used AI, and I have rent to pay and mouths to feed, so why can't they just talk to me about the 80% of my experience that does match?
As an expert on both sides of the hiring desk, I know that I tested an application and the hiring system worked the way it should this time. A person who is experienced in hiring looked at my application, quickly determined that I didn’t have some important experience, clicked Reject, they won't talk to me about it, and I received a perfectly respectable (albeit computer-generated) response.
Even a lot of rejections do not have to mean that you’re doomed to never work again. But all those rejections could mean it’s time to re-think your job search strategy.
I have lots of panicked, stressed clients who did not respond as calmly as I did when they received a similar message, so now I’m off to help them improve their strategy.
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Better job. More pay. More control.
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