Six questions to ask when you’ve been rejected for a job
On the other side of rejection could be higher pay, a happier professional you (statistically leads to earning more money), and progress in your career — whatever that means for you. So don’t give up! I was rejected 39 times and told I was too young and inexperienced to be a finance expert before landing in the career I wanted.
Dig in. Find out why you didn’t get the job.
Especially if you made it to the interview phase, you’ll want to get feedback from the interviewer on why they didn’t choose you. Some recruiters will be more willing to share their rationale than others. Try these pointed questions to squeeze the truth out of them.
Can you tell me what made the winning candidate stand out for you? Was it something specific that I said or did in the interview? Can you share more details about aspects of the position you didn’t think I’d be suitable for? Was there a perceived gap in my skills? Could I have prepared differently (if so, how)? Were my salary expectations too aggressive?
Now, with this feedback in mind, what can you take away from the experience? Was it just not the right job fit? Do you need to upgrade your skills or education? Were you properly prepared? Did you forget to change out of your pink Santa Claus pyjama pants … and got caught on Zoom when you had to stand up? Have you forgotten your manners after being home for two years?
If you didn’t get to the interview phase, there might be something “off” with your resumé and LinkedIn profile (and YES, you absolutely need to have a very solid LinkedIn profile). You can work with a career resource centre to sharpen up your resumé or hire a coach to help you redesign or rewrite these. You need to stand out in order to be noticed in the job market.
Use the feedback to become more powerful
You can’t change your personality and the dreaded “you just weren’t a cultural fit” response. But you’ll be pleasantly surprised that in almost every case, you can “fix” whatever else went “wrong” if you got rejected.
If the feedback is legitimate and constructive, you can take action. In some instances this is going to be finding a mentor who’s got the kind of dream job experience you want, and who can help you get your next role. In other cases, you need to dig into your financial resources and earmark money to go toward coaching, classes and training. Here’s a tidbit for you to chew on: financially successful people who are happy in their careers spend about three per cent of their take-home pay annually on personal and professional development. When was the last time you invested in yourself?
And I think this goes without saying, but I need to say it anyway — Google yourself! There might be an incriminating picture or two out there that needs to be deleted, pronto.
Were you discriminated against?
Discrimination is ever present in the job market and it unfortunately impacts women of colour the most. Interviewing bias can be hard to pinpoint, but if you’re fairly confident it’s happened to you, take action. You can report these incidents to the organization’s HR department, an office of the ombudsperson or take it to the media if it’s significant.
Bias can also show up in the offer package, too — in salaries less than market rate or less than someone else’s offer competing for a similar position (this happened to me when I was 28 years old and I was offered $9,000 less annually than my male counterpart — for the exact same role and with the exact same experience — literally, I graduated from the same program as him in the same year).
Flag this immediately if you see it. In just the past six months, I have personally supported two women in addressing salary discrimination. In both cases, when addressed directly with the department head, the offer packages were corrected to be market rate … now, if only the revisions came with apologies …
Not sure your offer is what it should be? Try these resources for salary analysis:
Payscale
Randstad (annual salary guide available for download)
LinkedIn Salary (has some salary info)
Mercer Benchmark Database — a paid source of data, but they have small hints and nuggets/presentations available on their website
Professional associations, who often publish salary information
It’s hard to see the silver lining in rejection, but if you treat the rejection as an opportunity to tune up your career tool box, you’ll likely end up with an even better job and more money.
This article was originally published in The Star. Lesley-Anne Scorgie is a Toronto-based personal finance columnist and a freelance contributing columnist for the Star.
