While studying HRM I learned that British graduates go through about 9 applications before being invited for an interview (and that is just for white people. For ethnic minorities it is 16). So imagine my surprise when I got invited for an interview after applying for only one job.
Now, a bit of background here. I ran myself ragged leading up to my exams at the end of April. I was volunteering at a local radio station which meant writing and recording my own show and assisting with their associated magazine. Now juggling that with studying was hard enough but then two colleagues at my part-time job got sick and I had to help cover. Seeing as the only other available supervisor has children I did most of the closing shifts and a lot of full days. This left me studying on my lunch break. Now, this actually worked out quite well seeing as work gave me a momentum that I just can't get when studying at home in a comfy chair with lots of distractions. But the downside is that once my exams were over it left me exhausted.
Shortly after, I actually had to excuse myself to the bathroom when volunteering at the radio station because I felt like I couldn't breathe. I suddenly got all of these questions in my head:
- What am I going to do with my life?
- What has all this been for?
- I've missed out on social exploration, does that mean it's too late for a social/romantic life?
- Will any job make me truly happy?
It wasn't a full blown panic attack, just a creeping, stifling hotness from my neck to my cheeks, a pounding heart and the feeling of wanting to cry but not being able to.
The only consolation I could give myself was that I intellectually knew that these were irrational thoughts born as a result of too much stress and that they would go away soon.
And go away they did. The best advice I would give to anyone who gets those feelings is, do what I did. You may desperately want to go home and not be around other people but trust me, if you go home to an empty house to do nothing then it is just going to be so much worse. So I stayed and worked on my show. The fatigue didn't go away for another couple of days but I was glad I didn't hide under my covers while I waited because I have the feeling that those thoughts would have had a lot more room to breed had I done that.
Due to this I decided not to do any aggressive job hunting for a little while, until I had got my resting heart rate back. I said to myself, "Good God woman, you haven't even had your graduation ceremony yet. Give yourself a break."
But low and behold, an editorial assistant job I applied for invited me in for an interview. I've always known I interview very well, despite also knowing from my HRM course that interviews are one of the least trustworthy methods of hiring someone (think about it, a person could be lazy and/or completely unsuited to the role but may be very confident and good at selling themselves. Whereas a person who is humble and shy in new company may be perfect but doesn't have the ability to express it), so I wasn't worried about making a good impression.
And make a good impression I did. It was narrowed down to me and one other applicant. So I was asked more questions and it was requested that I lower the reading level of an article written for adults to show how my brain worked as an editor (by the way this is a job for an educational website dealing with children's literature and making adult works accessible).
They were very impressed with me again but sadly the didn't go with me. In fact they didn't go with anybody. They said they wanted someone who would fit in well with the growing company and apparently no-one fit the bill. They said they would be happy for me to freelance with them as an editor so lets see how that goes once I get more information on the subject.
Now this rejection hurt less than I assume a lot of graduate rejections do because I was very convinced of the, "It's not you, it's us," reason they gave seeing as they ended up not hiring anyone. They were also very courteous in keeping me involved in the process, getting back to me when they said they would and also offering me more in depth feedback on my application. I find, that is more likely with small companies.
So if you want to avoid disappointment in the face of job rejection here are some tips:
- Manage your expectations.
- Be yourself and don't be ashamed if you don't fit the bill (you may be a perfectly good worker just not a good fit and do you really want to spend the rest of your working life managing your personality?)
- Try applying to small companies, they are more inclusive even in their application process.
- And if you do apply to big companies don't take it personally if they fob you off.
- In fact don't take anything about the application process personally. This is business, it is rarely just about you.
And of course to anybody who starts to get stressed out or fatigued as a recent graduate don't keep moving enough to run yourself even more ragged but don't mope around either. Both of these actions will just make things worse.
So be positive and keep moving because what you are looking for is out there.
