Just got rejected from your dream job following the interview?  If so, we know how difficult this can be to come to terms with, particularly in the current difficult job market. The excitement of getting through to the interview stage has been replaced with huge disappointment and often self-doubt.  With any form of disappointment it is good to remember that it is often not what happens to us that defines us, but how we react and deal with it.

Build a resilient mind-set

Building a resilient mind-set is the key to being able to handle rejection in a more balanced and constructive way. Resiliency will help you to keep a more positive and adaptable attitude when things don’t go as you had hoped and allow you to focus more on the opportunities that can be created from the lessons learnt.

Instead of dwelling on the things you can’t change, try to think objectively about what you can do to improve future chances. The first thing to remember, is that in an extremely competitive job market such as this, you have done well to get as far as you did.  This shows that you are capable of success, so you just need to keep going and keep believing in yourself.  Once the initial disappointment has subsided, take stock of what you have learned from the opportunity and use the positives and negatives to take you forward to your next application.

Ask for feedback

Try and get as much feedback as you can following your interview – this will help you know what to focus on going forward.  Where feedback is not available, you will need to draw your own conclusions about what went well and what areas could be improved.  Whilst doing this, try to be constructive and positive. If for example you felt that the interviewer didn’t realise how experienced you were at a particular task, try to think of how you could have presented the facts to them in a clearer way and maybe given some better examples.  It is again important to remember, that in the current market, companies have a much wider choice where they are often able to choose from several different candidates that may all be a 100% match. This means that you may miss out on an opportunity even where you felt you could not have done anything better.

Practice the areas you felt were your weakest

If the reason you have missed out this time was for lack of technical knowledge make sure you improve and practice this for future opportunities.  There are many online courses available to help you brush up on different technical skills. If you felt you may have missed out by lack of interview style or confidence, practice with friends and family, answering generic interview questions. Make sure you are well versed on the most common competency based interview questions and have examples ready to show how you would deal with things in practice.

Even if you haven’t been successful on this occasion, it doesn’t necessarily close the door to future opportunities with the particular company.  It is therefore always worth following up an interview with an email to say how you enjoyed hearing more about the opportunity and remain interested in both the role and the company.

Accept rejection as part of the process

None of us land every job we go for and learning to accept rejection as part of the process will help to keep things in perspective. Our brains are hardwired to pay more attention to negative events than to positive ones, so we need to accept that we will feel disappointed and disheartened, but build our resolve to take the positives forward and work on the negatives ready for our next opportunity.