007. How to Deal With The Pain of Job Rejection and Keep Going

Getting rejected from a job hurts. In this episode, Alejandra Thompson, shares her own experiences and offers valuable insights on how to cope with the pain of job rejection. She highlights 4 steps to help you navigate and overcome the challenges of job rejection.

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Intro Song: Cumbia No Frills Faster by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100275

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Transcript

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Hello. Welcome. You are listening to the Latinas in Leadership podcast, where we empower Latinas with the guidance, knowledge they need to get promoted into leadership, increase their salary, and step into their purpose. I'm your host, Alejandra Thompson, leadership coach and first gen Latina, on a mission to see more Latinas in leadership. Inside of my one on one coaching program, the Confident Latina Leader. I've helped Latinas increase their salary by 000, and even 40, 000. I've helped them get promoted into director level positions, quit toxic jobs, and change careers without taking a pay cut. In this podcast, you can count on me to share strategies, tools, and knowledge to help you break into the next level of your career. Let's go.

Shure MV7 & Lumina Camera - Raw-1: 0:54

Hey friends. Welcome back to the podcast. I hope your December is going well. We're getting close, to the let's circle back in the new year season. And so I'm hoping that it's going really well for you. This past weekend, I had so much fun. I actually did a vision board party, which if you haven't done, I mean, just text some of your friends right now and be like, yo, let's do a vision board party. Cause it was so much fun. I had never done it with other friends. I've done a vision board before, but I've never done it with other friends. And so me and a couple of friends got together and we had our laptops out. We were on Canva. We had the music going, some of the jingle bells. And we just had a blast with us putting together images and words. And using our creativity to cast vision for 2024. And I think it's so important to cast vision, but this added element of doing it in community was so beautiful. We had a lot of fun. We had some snacks, I brought roasted carrots. We just had such a good time. Rosa cares are so good. This is a total tangent, but if you have never had roasted carrots, a police, you got raw roasting. Your veggies is one of the prime ways that you it's like a life hack for you to get more veggies. There's so good. Roasted onions, roasted brussel sprouts, roasted carrots, like it's just a game changer. So I brought my roasted veggies. Of course, people were not surprised at all. Whenever I meet new people, I've very quickly. They learned that I'm. The girl that either is eating all the time, has her organic snacks, or has her veggies like whatever. So we had a good time cast division, and it was also cool to see how like different people had different ways of going about their vision board. So my, my way of doing my vision board versus someone else's way of doing their vision board. So we also got to see how we creatively express each other express ourselves. Sorry. So it was a really good time. I encourage you. If you haven't done it, get together with some friends. And I actually liked, by the way, like, I didn't think I was going to maybe like doing it on Canva because there's something very fun about hands-on and cutting things up and putting it all together. And, and I do think there is. But with Canva, it was also just way more efficient. And it was, I just feel like it was way more on point because I was able to Google the things that I wanted to put on my canvas board. And it feels like when I last time when I did it and it was like cutting up magazines, like there were just certain things where I'm like, I'm just, there's a certain image I have in my head and I can't find it in a magazine versus when you do it on Canva, you can just Google so many different things. I was on Pinterest. I was on Google. I was using the canvas images. So it was just really, really fun. And I encourage it. So that was how my past weekend went, love and December. This is a time of reflection for me. Also, something I encourage is reflecting on the year and casting vision for the new year. And what we're talking about today is the pain of rejection. Something I am very familiar with and specifically talking about the pain of. Job rejection. Because as a coach, as a leadership, a career and leadership coach, I work with many clients who are experiencing job rejection. And this is something that is incredibly painful. Rejection is not easy for me. I even as an entrepreneur, even someone who's been an entrepreneur for three years and has got re. I have gotten rejected over 50 times this year alone. It's not easy for me. I'm not superhuman and able to take it with ease. So, when I'm talking about this podcast today is how to deal with it, how I've experienced it, and hopefully some words of encouragement, but I am going to also have very four steps that I walked through myself. Whenever I'm experiencing rejection and I help my clients walk through when they're experiencing job rejection so that you can be able to handle this and manage it because you might apply to your dream job and get a rejection email. And I want you to apply anyway. You might get to the final round of an interview and get rejected. I want you to interview anyway, you might ask for the salary raise and get rejected. And I want you to ask anyway. Because the winds are worth the rejection. And I think that's why having a vision is so important. We have to have something that we're excited about enough that we want bad enough, that we're willing to experience the rejection that comes. At the expense of going after it. And so, yes, I've been rejected over 50 times this year, but you know, what else has happened? My client Luz said increased her salary by 17 K my client Angie got promoted to senior associate. Uh, Polara increased her salary by 22 K and got promoted to manager. Liliana increased her salary by 44 K and got promoted to director Michelle. Quit her toxic job and changed careers without taking a pay. Cut. Maria got promoted in boosted her confidence in meetings with her manager. So these are different stories that I can only share with you because I was willing to face the rejection over and over and over again. And there's nothing that I'm doing, that you are not capable of doing. Rejection hurts my ego, but God strengthens me and he gives me purpose. And I anchor myself into that because rejection does hurt. And so here are four steps for handling the pain of job rejection. Number one. Except your feelings. The more, we try to deny our feelings the longer we tend to stay in them. And I know we can really trigger ourselves into thinking that if we suppress it or if we avoid it, That we are actually doing something productive, but I'm telling you right now, when you try to suppress it, it will pop up somewhere else. Then eventually you just lash out or you burst into tears and sobbed for an entire hour because there's all these emotions that have been bubbling up so I encourage you to accept your emotions because this is something that is very normal to feel pain when you are rejected, this is not weird. Everyone has to learn how to manage, how to experience. Rejection and the pain that comes with it. If you desire to grow, get out of your comfort zone, be ambitious, go after your dreams. I'm telling you they are going to come with rejection. So please. Take this episode as a way of how do I learn how to cope and manage the pain that comes with rejection. We are wired to hate rejection. Biologically, we are wired to hate rejection. We are wired to experience it as painful. So do not try to shove it down, extend compassion to yourself. These are some of the things that I see my clients do. One, they try to put. This toxic positivity. Like they try to put glitter on poop. They try to make it just be like, oh, okay. Everything's okay. This is what it looks like. Oh, you know, everything's okay. You know, it just wasn't for me. Or you know, God has another plan for me. Like, that's fine. You know, I'm just leaving it to God, whatever. And the thing is, is I can just see it. I can always see when it is coming from a place of, you're trying to shove down your emotions versus you genuinely are like, God has a plan for me. And this was really difficult for me, but I'm getting to the process of like I accepted and I trust God. That's a whole different thing than when I can see it in my clients. And they're trying to put glitter on poop. They're trying the toxic positivity. We're trying. It's almost like we don't want to feel as sadness. So we're trying to just say out loud that it's okay without giving us a space to experience that sadness that we may feel when we are experiencing rejection. So extend compassion to yourself and acknowledge your feelings. It's normal to feel sad that you didn't get the job. It's normal to cry that you didn't get the job. If that was your dream job. It's normal to be angry that you would get to the last round and do an entire sample. Of your work and put so much work into that interview process only to not get it only for it to go to another person. It hurts when they say they went with another candidate. It's okay. To experience those emotions. And I actually think it's important. That's why it's step one is accept your feelings. The thing is don't stay there. That's all experience your emotions and allow it to be a wave and go through them. Don't try to avoid them. And you also don't have to stay in there forever. And you won't, you can get on that other side. So accept your feelings. When I'm talking to my clients and they've gotten rejected from a job, I will ask them about how they're feeling and I will give them some space to cry. I'll encourage them to go talk to a friend. I had one client of mine who got rejected after getting to the last round and she really thought the job was in the bag. And then she got the email that she didn't get the job. And she spent the whole weekend crying with her friends and that is great because we need to be able to move through those things. They happen. Number two, pivot your attention to the truth and what has worked. Another thing that my clients do is when we experience rejection in our overwhelm, in our grief and our sadness in our anger, whatever it may be, we contend to now paint in big strokes and go into woe is me. We can go into nothing is working. I've been trying for years and nothing has happened. This is never going to work for me. No one ever wants to hire me. We can. Go into these really broad strokes that are the very thing that are actually going to keep us in. The anger and that's just not going to produce productive. Solutions. So after you allow yourself to feel. Pivot your attention to the truth of the matter. When you experience rejection, it does not mean you are not worthy. Sometimes we can start questioning our worth our value. If we will ever get the purpose filled job. If we were ever get promoted, if we'll ever get a salary, raise. If we're ever going to be able to change careers, we can really start to spiral into this. Like it's never going to happen. It's never going to work. When your brain does that spiraling pivot to the truth, nothing is working is such a vague statement. And this is a big red flag that you can look out for. When you experience rejection, pay attention to where your brain gives you. These really broad, really vague statements. Like you're not good enough, or you're not smart enough, pay attention to these very broad statements because you want to then begin to question them. So if you think nothing is working. Ask yourself. What does that even mean? Like, what is nothing like nothing is working. Because I would really venture to say, that's probably not true. If you got to the very end of the interview, something is working. How did you get the interview? Something is working. I had a client who started to think this way. She was like, nothing is working, nothing has happened. I've been doing this for years and nothing has happened. And when we were coaching, then she started to realize, well, okay, I did. I have landed a new job. I have traveled more than ever before. I did move into a new apartment. I did interview with two companies, so there was all these things that her brain was immediately negating out of. Again, fear out of the pain from the rejection brain just goes out, not safe alarms, and then it just starts going off into all these different spirals. And so when we got to seeing the truth, then she got to see, oh, wow. A lot has happened. It's just not the thing that I want. I really desire this one thing in that hasn't happened. And so pay attention to that, pivot yourself to what has worked. And also don't allow this, this part right here. Number two, pivot your attention to the truth of what has worked. Don't allow this to also be another way that you then shame yourself. I see my clients then shame themselves and be like, oh my gosh, I should be more grateful. I know I should be more grateful. You're just adding shame on Shane. Like we don't need to do that. It's okay. That you didn't see it because you are experiencing the pain of rejection and that's what happens. Now you can see it. You don't have to go, oh my gosh. Of course I should be grateful. Like, okay. Yeah, you. It just experience it, just be in that gratitude, help yourself get into that gratitude right now. You don't have to then shame yourself because you weren't in it because you were hurt, like hello, where you are human. Of course you weren't in it. In that moment in experiencing that hurt. That's why we learn how to get into the gratitude of everything that we have that God has provided. Because we will get out of that sometime since we're human with these human brains and all these emotions. So whenever I experienced rejection and I start to question. My worthiness that I'm good enough that I'll ever make it. I always go back to remembering the truth for me. And that is remembering that people do not establish my value. God does. God loves me. God loves you. Whether I am rejected by people, whether you are rejected by people or not. And I know that this doesn't negate the hurt that comes from getting rejected from a job or it doesn't negate that you are unemployed and you need a job. But the point is to get yourself, to look at what is working and the truth of the matter so that you can begin to solve problems and actually move forward in a productive way. Part one of this step here is to start to reel your brain in from spiraling of the lies. It will say that's part one. You have to begin to notice where the spiraling is happening. And reel yourself back. Part two of this is to focus on what has been working in your job search. Like I said, if you got to the final round of the interview, then got rejected, guess what? You did many things right. To get that far. So what has been working, what helped you get to the final round interview? Celebrate those things. If you got the phone screen, then clearly something worked on your resume, or maybe you got an interview through a referral, then, that's working. You have to identify the things that are working because you want to know what you must continue to do. Moving forward versus thinking everything isn't working. Okay. So that was number two, number three, reflect on and grow from what isn't working. After you've accepted your feelings. and then you can go over. Okay, what is the truth? And what has worked then you now can actually reflect and grow on what isn't working. The thing that our brain likes to do is it likes to spiral into all these vague statements about nothing working. And when you are there, then how are you actually going to find any productive solutions when your brain is telling you that nothing is working, you're going to be like, nothing can be resolved because it's nothing is working and I am not good enough. So there's nothing to do here. It's not a productive way to be able to grow through the pain of job rejection. Reflect on and grow from what isn't working. Again, when you put positive, glitter on poop by by not acknowledging your feelings and going straight to try to make yourself feel better or shut down. It's not going to allow you to critically think about what's working and what isn't working. This makes the situation worse because what you'll wind up doing is you'll wind up either quitting altogether on the goal that you had. And then you'll continue to be underpaid. You'll continue to be in an industry you don't enjoy. You'll continue to be unfulfilled by the work that you're doing. You'll continue to have the longing for having purpose in your life or purpose in your job. Those things won't go away. So it makes the situation worse because that doesn't go away. And then the other thing too, is that it prolonged, it could prolong your process to actually succeeding because you're not looking at the things that you're doing wrong. And then you're making the same mistakes that are contributing to the rejection and therefore prolonging your job search. So if you've applied to a hundred jobs, for example, and you've gotten no responses, it's an indication that something could be wrong with your resume and or target job. So that's a good thing right there. Actually look at, okay, what is happening here? How many jobs have I applied to? I have gotten no responses. What's going on with my resume. Is there someone that I can talk to about this? If you continue to get to the last round of the interview, but then you don't get the job offer. What could be happening in your interviews? Are you using the star method? Method or are using the soar method to answer behavioral based questions. Did you ask for feedback on your interview? This is where you really start to dig into what could be the problem here, what isn't working. And then step number four is seek support. This is how a lot of clients come to me. They have been in the job search for a long time, that can vary between three months to a year. And within those three months to a year, they've probably fluctuated where they've applied a lot for maybe a few weeks and then they get nothing and then they give up and they stay in their job that they're unfulfilled. And then they, something will happen in their job and they'll be like, oh my gosh, I need to leave this job. And then they started applying all over again. And then nothing happens and then they become content again in their job. And by when I say content, I don't mean happy. I mean, just complacent. That's actually the more appropriate word. And then something else happens and it's just this cycle until eventually they're in so much frustration that they're like, I need to get help. And so a lot of people come to me once they are in that space. And I just want to encourage you. If right now you feel hopeless about your job search. Seek support. Seek support. Get some help. Rejection takes a toll on us. Share your feelings. With friends or families or a trusted person get help. Be in community and be clear about the support you're looking for. You may just want to call a friend and be like, Hey, I just need to be sad and cry about this job that just rejected me. And I don't need to be told that it's going to be okay or that I'm smart or that I deserve that job. I just need to. I cry right now. Be clear about how people can support you. Because people may try to make you feel better because they, your friend and they want to make you feel better. But if that's not what you want, then be clear. Or the opposite you could be like, Hey. I just feel like. I don't have anything to offer. I'm not good enough. And I'm never going to get this job, like please. Can you give me some words of encouragement? Talking about your experience can provide a release and others might be able to provide you with. Insights or encouragement or a different perspective. And remember, you don't have to go through it alone. Seeking support is a sign of strength. If you've been struggling with your job search for months and months, consider getting help from a coach. Consider hiring someone like myself who helps people go through this process. You don't have to do everything on your own. I know as Latina, sometimes we really get stuck thinking that we have to figure everything out on our own, but it's not true. I told you I've had clients come to me, struggling for 3, 6, 12 months to land a job. And then they land one within three months of working together. It's okay to need help. We're not supposed to know everything. You're not supposed to know everything. I know that my blow your mind. You're not supposed to know everything. We're meant to be able to share skills, share knowledge, help each other out. So seek support. That can be through a way of a coach or when I say seek support also expressing yourself with friends and families actually being in community. And having people be able to support you through the pain of job projection. All right, this is what we've talked about. We've talked about these four steps. In terms of. Dealing with the pain of job projection, number one, except your feelings. Number two, pivot your focus to the truth and what is working. Number three, reflect on and grow from what is not working. And number four. Seek support. I know this pain of job rejection. Is hard. The number one thing I'm encouraging you to do. Is too. Take a moment to reflect on what isn't working and what is working. And if you're stuck there, get help. There have been many areas in my business where I have gotten help. I have invested in my business in a coach to support me in getting the help. I need to be able to overcome some areas where I was struggling. And I was like, I don't even know what to do. I don't even know where to start. I don't even know what's working and what isn't working. It just seems like a mess. I have invested in that because I wanted the help that I needed. I, that I knew I needed. So I encourage you. If you are struggling in your job search, get help. You don't need to do this on your own. The pain of job rejection is normal. I know that doesn't make it easier. But if we are going to go after our dreams, if we are going to be bold enough, To go after a life in purpose. We are going to have to handle the pain of rejection because it's going to be there. We cannot escape it. And you're fully capable of being able to do it. You're fully capable of landing the job. That's going to be fulfilling to you of living a life that is filled with purpose. You are 100%. Capable of doing it. I am rooting for you. I hope you have a beautiful rest of your week. And I hope that this was helpful. Bye.

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If you are ready to get promoted into leadership and get the salary you deserve, I invite you to book a sales call with me. This is a one hour call where I will assess your career, your obstacles, your goals. I will tell you exactly the way that I can help you. And we can talk about whether the confident Latina leader program is the best fit for you. The link to book your sales call is in the show notes. Talk to you soon. Ciao.