The Laid-Off Life: Congratulations, You’ve Been Rejected!

“The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, [rather] in what direction we are moving.” – Hon. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

I have recently uncovered an unusual truth of the modern job hunt: Rejection can be a good thing. Progress. Better than the alternative. Ah, you say, but isn’t acceptance the alternative to rejection? Sure, in the real world. But this is not the real world, this is the job search, and there are more alternatives than what you see in the Matrix, Neo.

The job application process, broken down to its component parts, is fairly straight-forward. You find a job listing, you write a pretty little cover letter, maybe fill out an online questionnaire, and ship your résumé off into cyberspace. Web, email, US Mail, carrier pigeon, whatever the means of transport. Send it in, cross some digits.

And wait.


But job search etiquette clearly states that after submitting an application, you should follow up on it. How else will you stand out among the rest of the proletariat and huddled masses? Call up the decision-maker, humanize your submission, bestow the 3-1-1. And address it to a specific person. But these days, unless you are high-end, career-excelled, head-hunter material, you will likely not even know to whom you are applying.

Job search sites, online classifieds, Twitter listings, LinkedIn updates, they’re full of disinformation and covert ops. Hiring managers and human resource professionals are going in to hiding. It’s an epidemic. They don’t want to be found. They don’t want you to contact them. They don’t want questions. They don’t want follow ups. Anonymous listings. Agency contact only. No phone calls, please. They don’t even want you to know their name. What’s a job seeker to do?

Options abound:

• Google the company name and “HR manager”.
  
• Search their Facebook fan page.
  
• Ask an alumnus.
  
• Ask your networking contacts.
  
• Find the company on LinkedIn and search for human resource employees. (LinkedIn is an amazing resource for uncovering covert persons, but even that, HR people are getting wise to. Fuzzy references and vague titles have replaced real people’s names in searches.)
  
• Dial up the company’s switchboard and ask for a name. Good luck connecting with a human (even hitting zero now often gets you ‘you have pressed an invalid key’).

If you’re fortunate enough to escape the auto-attendant maze, new company security policies often preclude the switchboard from giving you a person’s name. Suck it up and sadly ask for “Human resources, please”. But I guarantee you a Pete Rose bet you will get voicemail. So you leave your name, spelling out your last name. Leave your phone number. Spell out your email address. Rinse. Repeat.

And wait.

Why don’t HR people return phone calls? You’re not calling to sell them a timeshare. You just want to humanize yourself to them. You want to place a voice to a résumé. You want to tell them how perfect you are for them. You want to show interest, ask about the company. All the things you’re supposed to do. Please, Ms. HR Manager, just call me back. We were taught to follow up, let us follow up!

But do you want to know a secret?

Spoiler alert!

There’s a good chance your application never even got as far as HR, or any human being for that matter. These days, at larger companies, and even smaller ones using such software, your résumé simply gets dumped in to a database upon arrival, where it is pulled apart, dismembered, and dismantled. Stripped down to its protons and neutrons, like matter into a black hole, and sifted through for keywords. That self-portrait you bled sweat over is now mere ones-and-zeroes in an intelligent keyword-categorized search. If the proper terms in your résumé match an optimized keyword search, it may go in to the pile an actual person may look at. If not, it will forever line the bottom of their hard-drive's proverbial birdcage. So, if you’re not suitably SEO’d, you’re DOA. Take 'em away boys, there's nothing more we can do. I’ll let the experts at PhillyJobs.com tell you how to do this, but you best be doing it or that beautiful résumé of yours may have a half-life shorter than spam.

Then one day you’re cleaning out your inbox of emails about half-off flowers and your cousin’s trip to Paraguay when that flashing ‘new mail’ message blinks, and an email titled ‘Re: Your Resume’ arrives from noreply@pleasepleaseiwantthisjob.com.

Dear Michael: We have carefully reviewed your application. While your résumé is impressive, we have decided that you do not fit our needs at this time. Good luck on your search for employment. We will keep your résumé on file for 90 days if anything comes up that matches your qualifications.
Sincerely, Mr. Robert Notyourboss.

(Bytheway, has anyone ever had anything “come up” later that matched their qualifications? Ya, me neither.)

Rejection, yes. But triumph nonetheless! You may actually only get a 10-15% response-of-any-kind rate from your submissions, so good for you! Progress! Use this little victory to stay positive and stay on track. You’re that much closer to a magical email that says someone loved your résumé and when can you come in for an interview. And in that moment, you’ve discovered how rejection in the Laid-Off Life is an encouraging alternative to silence.

Please Note: if you’re a Human Resources Professional, please take my witty criticism with a handful of salt. I think you are all very, very wonderful people and I strongly encourage you to give me a job. However, if you’ve ever been laid off or otherwise unemployed yourself, remember how much it completely and utterly stinks on this side.

And if you get my voicemail, rest assured I will promptly return your call.


Michael Hochman ◙ LaidOffLife@yahoo.com ◙ twitter.com/PhillyPartTwo

Michael is a Copywriter, Creative Marketer, and Advertising & Broadcasting Professional still in search of full-time employment after 10 months of full-time job hunting, thanks to an “involuntary career sabbatical”. A Philly native and Syracuse graduate, Michael will gladly accept any job offer you may have for him. Any. Really. Please give me a job??