The day of not so awesome rejection (rather lengthy and personal post behind cut)

- no on the running store.  I have zero retail experience, which was a big turn off to them, my running experience is still considered a beginner, and the fact that I don’t live nearby is also against me.    They did, on the bright side, say that I interview well and my resume is great for someone with my experience, but just not what they are looking for.  I politely thanked them.  I hold no grudges because what happened with them I expected, and they were polite and prompt about it — I literally sent in my resume yesterday at 5 and had an email half an hour later about a phone interview this morning.

- A quasi-dream job that I applied to back in SEPTEMBER sent me an email rejecting me.  I went back to their website and discovered that they filled the position in November, which is frustrating to be told nearly 5 months later about not getting the job.

- Received a rejection letter from a place that I had a 1st and 2nd interview with that looked kind of promising

- Got rejected from another institute based off of my professional objectives not matching their professional mission.  Awesome, right?  And yes, I did look at their professional mission and it matched my professional objectives.

And about 4 other rejection emails today….but the ones listed were the most note-worthy.

Some days I feel like throwing my towel in and giving up.  I honestly do.  Usually it’s those days when it is one rejection after another. But today wasn’t one of those days. Yes, I got rejected from a high number of absolutely potentially worthy jobs, but none of them screamed ME.  The quasi-dream job I kind of figured after not hearing from them for a couple of months that they had decided to go with another candidate.  I had accepted it.  I think it stung more at how long they took to reject me than the actual rejection.

What is, frustrating, however, is the amount of pressure that has been building on me to find a job.  Up until last year I was focused on finishing at least one of my degrees before seriously looking at jobs.  And I’ve spent nothing but the past 2 semesters looking for jobs and finishing my degree.  With graduation less than a month away, the only thing I have to show is the stack/box of rejection letters and emails.

It’s the economy. It’ll happen soon.  Just wait and things will get better.  Ya’ll say it, and I know some of you actually get it because you’re there.  But for a soon to be newly graduating student it’s even worse because this is the 2nd time I’ll be graduating into a poor economy.  I chose graduate school over months of endless unemployment in 2008 when the economy took its downturn.  And here I sit 4 years later in the same situation but not with many options but to sit, search, and wait for something to come. A PhD program is a distant option because my thesis needs to get done first (which I guess is the shifting focal point…), but I’ve never felt the need to get a doctorate and add years upon years of studying and writing to my life.  I’ve already sacrificed enough of my life to school that I’m ready to put myself into a career/professional job and have a social life (a post for another time).

Before this turns into a woe is me type of post, which is not what I wanted it to be but feel like it’s turning out to be, I want to point out the one positive side of rejection — the waiting to find out is OVER.  Sadly, a new period of waiting comes.

So now I wait, for that magical job to appear, in a magical place, at a magical time.  I’m starting to live by the “when the time is right” and “it wasn’t meant to be because there is something better” approach in life.  Hopefully these things come true because my social life and sanity are really suffering.

Oh, brightside?  Haven’t stress eaten yet. Then again, I haven’t done much of anything but spread out my research notes and stared at them for 7 hours while head banging to Pandora’s Disturbed Radio station.

Alright, off my soapbox.  I apologize for how personal and jumbled my thoughts are.  Special kudos to people who actually read the whole thing…

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