The Mindset to Deal With Rejection From the Company You Admire
By: Ashraful Islam
Tags: Programming, Software Development, Interview, Startup, Work

The Mindset to Deal With Rejection From the Company You Admire

“Fall down seven times, get up eight.” — Japanese Proverb

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

In the last few days, I was a bit restless because I wanted to know about the feedback from the company I was interviewed for. I really wanted to work there and that’s why I was feeling the fear of rejection.

Gradually I experienced that that fear was affecting my work in the current workplace, and because of waiting for feedback from that company, I could not concentrate on my current work as well as my personal life. All the time, I was eagerly waiting to get positive feedback from that company and for sure that’s a really bad thing.

So I was thinking about how I can get rid of that thinking and concentrate on my current job. Then I started studying tons of blogs, articles, and books on how to overcome that situation.

So today I am going to share those experiences that helped me to train my mind to get rid of that fear of rejection.

We’re all going to get rejected one day. It’s not possible to get every single job you applied for. Even the greatest engineers sometimes get rejected.

Rejection doesn’t mean anything, especially when it comes to an interview. It doesn’t go on the resume or in your LinkedIn profile. It just disappears.

Rejection doesn’t make someone a bad coder. It’s just not the right fit for a candidate with the interviewer or the company.

Just think, they rejected me but maybe I would not enjoy working with them. I would never get the current job if I was not rejected by the previous job.

Rejections are never the predictor for success.

If you are rejected, then try to get as much feedback as possible from the company. Tell them that you are trying to constantly improve and that feedback from them is crucial for your improvement.

You need to think of a technical interview as an opportunity to learn. One of the best things about the software industry is sharing knowledge. I learned so many things during these exchanges that have helped me grow as a better developer.

Actually, we don’t spend much time throughout our lives applying for a job than doing the job. Getting rejected after trying for one week doesn’t mean anything because maybe you will stay at the place you join next for a long time. So spending some time applying for a job and getting prepared for that job interview is always worth it.

Sometimes luck also plays a role in the interview, but that’s not the only thing. So don’t take the rejections personally. Sometimes you just have a bad day.

For the companies, they are more likely to say “no” instead of “yes” because it’s a big risk to hire a new employee. Sometimes they also stay in some sort of contradiction, like on whether you are the right person for the job or not.

If you fail ten times then just try ten more times. You just need one success, that’s it.

It’s not the end of the world if you fail.

In spite of all these rejections, you will grow significantly from this experience. Each interview helps you get ready for the next. Eventually, you will receive an offer, but you never would have made it there without all the rejections that came before. The most important part is to make sure that you turn every rejection into a positive learning experience.

If you’re learning each day, then your skills are getting better and better. One day you will get the offer for sure.

Searching for jobs can be stressful and the rejections you get can be very frustrating. Use the rejection experiences to grow and become a better developer. The best mindset might be thinking about how can you become a better developer by filling the technical lackings when that interview is over.