Rejected for a job I was perfect for (5 steps to recover quickly from a job rejection)
In this video, career coach Natalie Fisher guides viewers through a mental reset after being rejected for a job they believed was perfect. She starts by urging viewers to ask themselves why they would want to work for a company that has already indicated they don’t want them, framing rejection as a signal rather than a personal failure. Fisher introduces the concept of "wasting your want," explaining that lingering on a rejected opportunity drains emotional energy and blinds job seekers to other employers who are actively hiring. She advises letting go of the need to control the hiring process—stopping excessive follow‑ups and interpreting silence as a clear answer—using a mountain‑climbing metaphor to illustrate staying in the driver’s seat of one’s own career journey. Fisher then flips the narrative: instead of chasing a company that rejected you, you should reject them, focusing only on organizations that demonstrate genuine interest. Finally, she warns against personalizing rejection, reminding viewers that a lack of response isn’t a judgment of their worth. The video concludes with a promotion for her "How to Get Any Job You Want" workshop, which covers interview storytelling, salary negotiation, promotion planning, and long‑term career strategy.
Chapters
Have you ever been rejected for a job that you thought you were absolutely perfect for? You were so excited about it. You thought, this is my ideal situation, this is perfect, and then they rejected you or they didn't get back to you. If you've ever felt that pain and disappointment of having something like that happen, keep watching because I'm going to explain to you exactly how to get over that and give you a new perspective. So So stay tuned. So first of all, I know you think you are perfect for this job. I know you were super, super excited about it, but I want you to ask yourself one question. Do you really want to work for a company that doesn't want to hire you? And you might say, yes, I really did. But I want you to ask why. Why did you want to work for a company that didn't want to hire you? You don't actually. So answer that question, because if they didn't want to hire you, you don't want to work for them. If you still think you did, just keep asking yourself why. Second thing is, when you continue to go down that path of being really disappointed about it, you are essentially wasting your want. Okay, so it's called wasting your want. You have the ability to want whatever you want, right? You can decide to continue to want that and be disappointed about it, or you can decide that you actually want to work for a company that actually wants to hire you. And the problem when you waste your want on someone or some— a company that doesn't want you is then you lose sight of all the places that do want you, and you're not putting yourself out there to actually reach them. At least when you're putting yourself out there more, you are opening up possibilities, right? So you're opening up question marks as to potentially these other organizations do want to hire you. Potentially they're very excited to. But when you're wasting your want on the one that we know doesn't want to— So maybe they've already sent you an email and they've said, sorry, we've gone with somebody else. Or maybe they haven't responded to you at all and you continue to stay hung up on them, continue to give them your mental energy, continue to think about them, continue to follow up with them. That is essentially wasting your want on a company that doesn't want you, and therefore you're missing out on all of the other opportunities because they have already said no, either with their actions or with their words or whatever they did. They have already said, no, you're not the person for us, right? So you already know that's a no, but you're continuing on either focusing with your mind or by actually spending time trying to follow up with them or figure out what's going on. And you want to actually just put your want into the companies that might want to hire you because I guarantee you there is one. And when you're focusing on the one that doesn't want you, You're going to miss the one that does. So when you're wasting your want, you're actually being counterintuitive to your end result. So when you're spending more time on the company that doesn't want you, they're showing you with their actions that you're not their priority right now. So if you think about what your end goal is, it's going to be to get that dream job in the organization that wants to hire you, that you love. So if you don't have an offer from them, You're wasting your want and you don't want to invest any more time in that particular opportunity. So the next point is that you need to understand that you need to let go of control of the situation. Okay? So quite often when you're in that state of wanting to follow up, wanting to know what's going on, needing to know, like I get a lot of questions like this. They're like, okay, how should I follow up? What does this mean? This is when I followed up and they haven't responded yet. What should I do? So this is all trying to control the situation. And when you start to try to control the situation, you start to take actions that are counterproductive to what you want, right? So there's no way you could control the situation anyway. So you just have to accept the fact that their actions are spelling something out for you and you need to learn to identify what those actions or lack of actions mean and become aware of the fact that you want to release attachment to the situation. Okay? So whatever they're going to do, they're going to do. And you just need to be very good at interpreting the fact that if they're not responding, that just means you need to focus your energy elsewhere. So I like this metaphor of say you're climbing up a mountain, right? And you stop And you're talking to somebody and they're telling you that they are going to give you a ride to the top, right? But that the ride may or may not get there, but you know you need to get to the top, right? You're, you're, you are motivated to get to the top of that mountain and you've stopped and met someone and they've said, yeah, I've got a ride coming, right? Are you gonna stop and wait for the ride for an undetermined amount of time, or are you gonna keep walking? So if you continue walking, that's completely within your control. If you stop and wait for a ride that may or may not come from this person that you met, then you don't have control over how fast you get to the top, right? This is kind of how I see it. If you wanna take back the control, then you just wanna move back into the driver's seat. And if someone's not responding to you, Even if you were really excited, the trick is to just understand, okay, I'm not a priority to them right now. I don't have time for waiting around. I'm going to continue to move on, right? So I'm going to continue to climb the mountain on my own. I'm not going to sit here and wait for a ride that may or may not come. And we all know that that doesn't work out very well for us normally, right? And it's not a very good feeling. So we want to understand that we can't control whether or not that ride is coming or not. And we can control whether we keep walking or not. So funny thing is we normally think that if we call them more, then the ride will come faster, right? We're like, oh, well, if we just call them again, if we just email them again, if we just tell them that, you know, we want to know what's going on, then that's going to speed up the process. But counterintuitively, it actually doesn't. It probably doesn't actually get them to respond faster. Because they're going to do what they're going to do anyway. So you think you're controlling it, but really you're coming from a place of needy controlling energy and it's not actually going to yield a different result for you for the most part. So there's some follow-ups that you can do, like you want to follow up after and then a week after, but you don't want to be constantly following up more because that's actually not going to change the result and it could make it worse. And the thing that we're failing to see in these circumstances, when we think that if we need to just phone them, then we'll get the information we need, is we're not paying attention to the fact that they're not calling us, right? So ask yourself, why haven't they called you yet? Why haven't they emailed you yet? There's a reason, right? And you reaching out to them more and more isn't going to change that reason. Stop wishing that they would respond. So a lot of people say to me, like, I wish they would just give me the courtesy of an answer. Why can't they just respond and just tell me? And they get emotional and kind of irritated that they don't get a response, right? A lot of the time it's like they didn't even have the dignity to respond and let me know that I didn't get the job, right? I do get where you're coming from on that. However, by not responding, they are telling you something. They are communicating in a way that you have not been successful in that opportunity. A lot of the times they don't respond, and that is a common complaint that I get, is that companies just don't reply back and they don't let everybody know that they didn't get the opening. That happens a lot, right? Companies don't have time to email everybody, or they don't have a process to do that. And whether or not that's right or wrong doesn't really matter to you. Because when they don't respond, you can take that as the communication of you didn't get it and you don't want to waste any more time on that. And I'll tell you, from an HR person's perspective, it's not very fun to reject candidates. Okay? We don't like to do it. Sometimes we have to be very careful with the wording for legal reasons. Sometimes we don't want to because they've invested a lot of time. It's not a fun thing to do to reject another human being. So I want to introduce the fact that maybe you don't need that spelled out letter saying you didn't get it. Maybe you can just accept the fact that you didn't get it, which means that that's your answer. You don't really need the response. You just need to know it's time to move forward. So with some of my clients, I find they, they would like the company to prove them wrong, So they haven't received a response. And I say, well, why haven't you moved on yet? And they're like, well, I'm still hoping they're going to prove me wrong. Like, I'm still hoping they are going to come through. We want to stop that, right? Because the reason they haven't done it, we don't need to know. They just haven't done it, right? So basically where I'm leading you is moving on is going to be your best, best option always. You want to focus on the companies that want to hire you now, and you can't do that when you are hung up on any of the things that I've talked about so far in the video. You'll never get enough of something that you don't really want. So you might think right now you were so excited about that job, you wanted it so badly, it was so perfect for you. But when that happens, you have the urge to reach out, ask why you have all these thoughts and feelings about why didn't you get it? It was so perfect for you. Like, why didn't it work out? And doing that is never actually going to solve your problem because the thing you need to realize is you didn't really want it in the first place. Okay? You think you did, but you didn't because it's like cupcakes, right? So cupcakes or cookies or something that— or a cigarette. Or a drink or something that you think is going to solve your problem. What you're really after is a feeling, and there aren't enough cupcakes in the world or enough cookies or enough alcohol to actually solve the problem, because after you consume that, after you get it, the feeling goes back, right? So even if you got the job and they did not want you there, But you got it, you wouldn't get the feeling that you wanted because they didn't actually want to hire you, right? So say it's like they, they were forced to hire you, they had to. And then how do you think that would go? It wouldn't be very pleasant. It wouldn't be what you actually want, right? Because you actually want to work for somewhere that actually is excited to hire you. So you can't get enough of something you actually don't want. So you really actually want to feel something and you're never going to get that feeling solved By following up again and again and again and again. So people think, oh, if I just call them and explain, if I just call them and ask them why, if I just call them and tell them what it is that they missed, right? They think that that's going to help, but it's counterproductive behavior. And again, instead of that, you need to be moving on. You need to skip that thought process and just move on to the places that actually do want to hire you. It's not actually about them rejecting you. It's actually about you rejecting them. As I mentioned in the beginning, you need to get really clear on the fact that you don't want to work for some organization that doesn't want to hire you. So you get to reject them. You get to say, well, if you don't want me, then I don't want you. What you really want is to work for like this version of the company that you created in your mind, the version that wants to hire you. But that's not a real version. If they haven't given you the job offer, if they're not excited to offer you what you want, then that's not the company you wanna work for. You've created this ideal version in your head, but you don't wanna work for them. So just remember, it's not about them rejecting you, it's about you rejecting them. So we can get excited about what the organization could provide, what this job could be like for us. We can get excited about that, but that's just something that we've created in our mind because we haven't got it yet. And so when we create that in our mind, then we become disappointed. And that's when we have those feelings of feeling rejected, right? But since we don't have those facts yet, because we haven't worked there, you can preemptively reject them and just say, well, if they don't want to hire me, then I don't want to work for them. Right. And that is a much more powerful place to come from. And I've had calls with clients where they say, but I really do want it. I really do want that job, even though they don't want to hire me. And I just keep on asking them why. Why do you want it? So ask yourself, why do you want to work for somewhere that doesn't want to hire you? You don't. Trust me, my friend, you don't. And last thing I want to say is don't make it into something that it's not, right? A lot of people will take the rejection super personally and say it's about them. And conjure up all the thoughts about them, right? Like, oh, I did something wrong. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I don't have the skills. I don't have the qualifications. I blew it. I'm never going to get it. So this is a thought pattern that our brain will take us down. And don't make it mean something it's not. It's not necessary and it doesn't serve you in any way. Simple thought, I don't want to work for an organization that doesn't want to hire me. And not all of them are gonna wanna hire me, and that's okay. I only need one, and I'm gonna focus my time and effort on finding that one. If you'd like more help from me, I have a workshop called How to Get Any Job You Want. You can click the link below to grab that. So we talk about how to generate those endless opportunities so that you don't have to worry about where your next opportunity is coming from, so you don't have to waste time on anybody or any organization that doesn't want you. We're going to talk about how to crush your interviews, how to get those job offers through storytelling, through communicating your value, how really knowing what your value is and how to efficiently communicate it to your interviewers. We're going to talk about mastering salary negotiation and how to have that conversation really confidently. And we're going to talk about how to set up your promotion. And set up your 5 to 10 year plan for the rest of your career or however long you have to work. So thank you so much for watching. Please click the link to get that below. If you liked this video, give me a thumbs up. If you didn't, give me a thumbs down. Subscribe to the channel if you're not already. Leave me a comment and let me know because it's the only way I know how to know who's watching. And I will see you in the next video.
More from Natalie
How To Sound Good Without Having All the Answers (In Meetings & Job Interviews)
