Discouraged in the job hunting game?

[evelyn...@gmail.com]

Hi,

Below is an article on coping with "no" in job hunting or sales pitch
(they're quite similar, aren't they?). Feel free to share it with your
friends who are getting discouraged. Also feel free to share good
articles you come across :)

Evelyn

P.S. Many thanks to my boss, Ray Martin, who recommended this article.

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Cope With 'No,' and You'll Be Closer to 'Yes'

By Ted Knutson
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, March 22, 2009; Page K01

Rejection. It eats at your wallet and your self esteem. The thought of
more can make it difficult to get out of bed in the morning.

So how can you handle the flood of "no's" until that one treasured
"yes" comes trickling through?

Salespeople do it all the time, and the lessons they have to share can
help job hunters.

What motivates Jennifer Krinsky to slog through days that can be knee-
deep in snubs is that every time she gets a no, she knows she is one
step closer to a yes.

"Rejection is the price you pay for success," she said.

It takes making as many calls as possible to land an employer or a
customer, said Krinsky, for 16 years a recruiter for the Porter Group,
a sales headhunter in Columbia. She often makes sales calls for the
company herself.

"My best way of handling rejection is not taking it personally," she
said.


But with the bad job market, she said she is finding veteran
salespeople that she is trying to place are indeed taking it
personally, because the "goods" they are trying to sell are themselves
rather than someone else's services or product.

Krinsky said a tenet that has served her well is the knowledge that
one turndown does not close a door forever.

"I live by the motto that things always change, so even if someone is
not interested in my service right now, they may be in the future,"
she said.

Fine, but what happens when the rejection is especially painful --
say, a job or sale you really wanted or thought you had in the bag?

For that moment -- and here "moment" is key, Krinsky said -- her
favorite home remedy is what she calls her two-minute pity party.

"I save this only for a deal where I put my blood, sweat and tears
into it. I allow myself two minutes to be bummed out, whine, slam my
fists down, to get my frustration out of my system. And once I get it
out, it is in the past because it is not going to help me to dwell on
it at all. It is not going to help me get a job to whine for an hour
why I didn't get the last one. That negativity, if I hold on to it,
would only prevent me from doing well the next time I present myself,"
she said.

Attitude is key, said Bill Truax, a nationally recognized Cleveland-
based sales consultant. "Tell me how valuable worrying is going to be
for you. What is it going to do? It's going to interrupt your process
of looking for a new job, of networking."

Rather than investing time and emotional capital in dwelling on
rejections, he said, job seekers and salespeople should focus on goal
setting and goal achievement, as well as prospecting and making cold
calls.

"Have everything that you can control working for you. Don't waste a
minute of your time on things you can't," he said.

Among the steps that are under your control, he said: seeing enough
people and attending networking events.

Debra Benton, a Denver consultant who has been giving sales seminars
for executives since 1976, said dwelling on rejection can become a
self-fulfilling prophecy.


"If you worry and dread about what might happen, it will show all over
your face, in your voice and manner. People will see it and give you
what you seem to expect," Benton said.

She suggests reviewing the following checklist. If you're guilty of
any of these, you will increase your chances of receiving negative
reactions, so try to eliminate them from your operating style:
procrastination; lack of organization or goals; self-criticism or low
self-esteem; perfectionism; blaming other people; difficulty in making
decisions.

Finally, she said, being a little thick-skinned on a job hunt can help
you cope with the worst.

"Rejection is inevitable in life if you're making an effort and
putting yourself out there. Get callused to the fact that not everyone
will like you or what you do. Think about it. You don't like everyone
and everything others do, either. Take heart in the fact some people
don't like the Pope, the U.S. president, Miss America or Big Bird
either," Benton said.


--
Evelyn Yang Garland
Student Outreach Coordinator
Christian Connections for International Health (CCIH)
443-857-2307
evelyn...@gmail.com, ey...@ccih.org
www.ccih.org

The mission of Christian Connections for International Health is to
promote international health and wholeness from a Christian
perspective. CCIH provides field-oriented information resources and a
forum for discussion, networking, and fellowship to the spectrum of
Christian organizations and individuals working in international
health.