Lick your wounds and move on? Returners deal with interview rejection.
If you’re a job seeking returner, it is possible that you’ve experienced disappointments. Coming back to librarianship, applying for numerous job vacancies, and being unsuccessful can affect your confidence and your self-belief. You may question why you chose to return. It certainly takes strength to accept interview decisions and to continue to pursue opportunities.
What’s the best way to handle disappointment when you are relaunching?
Type terms into a search engine and you can get career advice on how to deal with interview rejection in broad terms. This post looks at the process with the help of resources presenting the library and returner points of view.
- Article by Elizabeth Leonard: Career conversations: So, you didn’t get the job. Reference and User Services Quarterly 58 (3) (2019): 134. (Full text available via Library and information Science Abstracts (LISA))
- iRelaunch podcast EP 3: “Dealing With relaunch rejection” with Valerie Cherneski by iRelaunch, LLC (soundcloud.com) and companion blog post by Valerie Cherneski “How can I deal with rejection better?” | iRelaunch
So, You Didn’t Get the Job – Leonard suggests making changes to the way you conduct your job search so that you improve in future
In this article, Elizabeth Leonard breaks down what she considers it might mean when an application fails to make it through each phase of the job search process (i.e. sent the application but didn’t get called for an interview, if you made it past the first round (phone call or Skype), if you made it to the final interview but didn’t get the job). At each stage, Leonard points out some of the common or obvious reasons why the process might have stalled, broken down or gone wrong in some way. For example, if you didn’t make it to interview you should reassess the materials you are submitting – application form, CV, cover letter etc. Leonard also offers tips for dealing with virtual calls and an insight into their pitfalls and challenges, e.g. about getting too comfortable while on the call and maintaining professionalism. For all interviews, Leonard emphasises preparation and the importance of a thank-you email.
Learning point – try to make changes to each stage of your job search to improve your performance next time round.
Dealing with relaunch rejection and How can I deal with rejection better? – Cherneski advises to view rejection as part of the return-to-work process.
Valerie Cherneski offers constructive and valuable advice in both the iRelaunch podcast and companion blog post and both resources come thoroughly recommended. Essentially Cherneski views rejection as a critical part of the return-to-work activity and suggests that returners should develop a rejection strategy.
Cherneski’s rejection strategy consists of four parts:
- This is a career search plan which builds in and expects rejection as part and parcel of the overall job seeking process. Far from being a negative approach, it offers the job seeker a measure of control. As Cherneski asserts on the podcast, ‘expecting rejection will help make sense of it when it happens.’
- Like Leonard, Cherneski wants you to ask yourself to reflect on what you have learnt from the experience and to incorporate this learning into your future return to work strategy.
- To seek and accept feedback. If you didn’t receive feedback along with your interview decision, Cherneski advises sending an email asking directly for it. However, acknowledging that some recruiters may be reluctant to discuss interview outcomes in writing, she suggests contacting to request a 15 minute phonecall rather than ringing and placing someone on the spot. Cherneski makes clear that asking for feedback is ‘a way to keep a door open with that company’. The organisation will realise that you are serious about them, your chosen career path and that you are committed about improving your skills etc.
- To accept the decision and move on.
Learning point – develop a plan for dealing with rejection. Make it part of your overall job search strategy.
Let’s summarise some of the key points that are raised in these resources. Both authors mention:
- Your materials – making sure they are up to scratch
- Required skills – matching the essential requirements
- Being prepared – spending enough time on interview preparation, finding out about the organisation, researching the job, preparing question to ask
- Learning from the experience – make changes – improve – moving forward
- Asking for feedback
Is there anything further for returners to consider?
Research undertaken in this area suggests that those who are successful in securing work after career breaks do so despite the standard recruitment channels.
“Word of mouth and contacts work much better than recruitment agencies as a route back to work.”
(Unwin and Khan 64)
Developing personal connections is usually a better strategy for returners than applying to large hiring sites online for example. In ‘Dealing with relaunch rejection’, Cherneski is also aware of this issue and discusses the implications. Without a supported return to work route, such as a library returners programme, people usually find employment through their immediate network and from talking to them about their situation.
Accordingly, returners should be looking to their direct contacts alongside or possibly in favour of newspaper advertisements, job fairs, recruitment through social networks, job portals or recruitment agencies. Such relationships include, but are not exclusive to, the people that they’ve worked with in the past. Is anybody from your former employer hiring? What about Professional Associations? Alumni? Online communities? Tools like LinkedIn are a quick and easy way to reconnect with any former work colleagues you have lost touch with while you were on your break. Linkedin for library returners provides a guide if you are not familiar.
Conclusion
This blog post has looked at job search disappointment with the help of resources presenting the library and returner points of view. Both resources asked us as readers to reflect upon what we have learned from the job application experience. Would we have done anything differently, handled ourselves in another way or presented our materials otherwise? Giving some time to think about what we went through, we can make changes, note the areas we would like to improve, and then move forward. The speed at which we are capable of progressing depends how resilient we are. For library returners, adopting Cherneski’s rejection strategy may be the favoured approach.
Extra resources
Squiggly Careers. #143 Ask the Expert: Resilience with Martha Lane-Fox CBE. 14 May 2020.
Additional references
Mallick, Mita. 5 Ways to Bring Women Back into the Post-Pandemic Workforce (hbr.org) Harvard Business Review. February 02, 2021.
O’Hanlon, Robin. Ace the Interview: Land a Library Job. Libraries Unlimited, 2016.
Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP. Women Returners: The £1billion career break penalty for professional women. November 2016. Accessed 24/03/2021 pwc-research-women-returners-nov-2016.pdf
STEM Returners. STEM: The Hidden Workforce. STEM Returners Survey 2020 https://www.stemreturners.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/STEM_-The-Hidden-Workforce.pdf
Lisa Unwin and Deb Khan. She’s Back: Your Guide to Returning to Work. Urbane Publications, 2018.
Yang, Peter. How Resume Employment Gaps Affect Interview Chances of Job Applicants. ResumeGo 2021. Accessed 24/03/2021. Resume Employment Gaps – ResumeGo
