How striving for 100 rejections landed me a job

Application after application, sleepless nights, rejections and constantly worrying about being good enough. We see our peers doing well and feel like an imposter while scrolling through Linkedin, questioning ourselves: what am I doing wrong?

This is something we have all gone through as students. But how can we actually get through it?

It might seem silly, but the way I dealt with rejection was to make a joke out of it. I challenged myself to get at least 100 rejections and laugh about it with my friends.

Sure, it sounds strange, but if you think about it, it’s pretty much impossible to get that many rejections. Instead, I saw these rejections as a breather period to help me improve my skills.

In the meantime, I also started watching Linkedin Learning videos about interviews, and listening to guided meditation sessions on Spotify to practise mindfulness and deal with the stress I was facing after opening those rejection emails.

During this time, I also completed the UTS Accomplish Award and learned about the importance of networking and creating a professional online presence.

I focused on becoming more confident and gaining more experience on the side as a volunteer for the Red Cross. Spending my weekends volunteering made me realise how lucky I was to be able to work with good people while also concentrating on my studies. It completely shifted my mindset from being desperate for a job, to being grateful and present in the moment.

While I was enjoying myself and focusing on building my professional persona on the side, I slowly started getting noticed and called in for interviews. Luckily, in my spare time I had been working on my interview skills just in case I received an interview invite. I was able to completely relax thinking that if I didn’t end up landing a job, it wouldn’t be an issue since I was busy studying and having fun.

To my surprise, I did end up getting selected for not one, but two internships at the same time! I had only reached 23 rejections. I couldn’t even get close to reaching my goal of 100 rejections! How funny.

So take it slowly and relax! You are not falling behind. You are on your own timeline and good things will come to you. Focus on your mental health and well-being. Your hard work will pay off in the end.

Featured image courtesy of Unsplash