How to get a job after you've been rejected

http://www.karenx.com/blog/how-to-get-a-job-after-youve-been-rejected/

by karenxcheng • 13 years ago

97 68 13 years ago

karenx.com

sbuccini• 13 years ago

I see you didn't get into YC. How did you apply this technique to that process? If you didn't, why not?

karenxcheng3• 13 years ago

Good question. We thought about what we should do after YC.

Post rejection, we waited a few weeks until we had some pretty good traction stats, and then sent an email to PG asking they reconsider us. We got an email back saying they don't change their decisions because they wouldn't be able to scale that way.

In this case, we didn't think the best thing was to do flashy techniques, based on what we've heard about PG. Depending on where our startup is, we may apply again next batch. We're applying to other incubators right now too.

ra32• 13 years ago

so what you're saying is your "technique" doesn't even work for you

probablyfiction• 13 years ago

Job searching must be a nightmare if every application requires 100 hours of effort.

joshdick• 13 years ago

Not if you find the right job for you first.

karenxcheng3• 13 years ago

Lots of people have spent more than 100 hours on their job search, spread across hundreds of companies. The idea is - what if you focused on the ones you really want, and put more effort into those?

bicknergseng• 13 years ago

I'd wager this is ~90% of the problem with the modern day employment market. Monster et al made it too easy to apply for a job. Now every position gets 1000 applicants and every applicant applies for 100 jobs. The applicant thinks the more they apply, the better their chances. The employer thinks there is a cookie cutter, definition employee out there that will fit 110%, be overqualified, and willing to work for less because the applicant won't get any of the other 100 jobs they shotgunned. The employer passes on applicant after applicant and waits until they find the 10x employee. The applicants move on to their next 100 cover letters.

logicallee2• 13 years ago

Moreover, everyone who is in their 5th week of unemployment, for any reason, has spent 300 hours - not 100, not 200, three hundred hours NOT doing anything even tangentially related to getting their next job.

Life is literally a zero-sum game, and over the course of 5 weeks, 840 hours passes, of which 210 hours are kind of nonnegotiable (6 hours of sleep per day). The rest of the 630 hours over just 5 weeks are spent however you want. Two discretionary hours per day on sleep, maybe even thre (totalling 9). Six hours on not doing job stuff. Three on job stuff. Another four on not doing job stuff. Are you keeping track? Another two on not doing job stuff. That's 24 hours, including 9 hours of sleep and/or nap time. Every day. "It adds up, Jerry!"

We counted 630 discretionary hours over just 5 weeks. Sure, some could be spent on "search". But as for the rest? Why not plough it into specific jobs you're entertaining.

I would never be above spending 40 hours on a single programming sample showcasing a set of technologies I really wanted to work with, especially if this entails learning it for the sample. 100 is not far off.

How much of those 100 hours included learning something? I would say that you need to spend ridiculous amounts of time preparing for and working on getting a specific job.

You can spend a year on it! Part-time. Just on getting a specific job that is open for a year.

Please can and do.

No reason not to.

yaddayadda• 13 years ago

While on unemployment, people are often required to spread their search across hundreds of companies.

After being laid off, I was unemployed for several months and was required to submit at least 3 applications a week. On the face, that doesn't sound like many, and for some fields it probably isn't heard. But if you're in a specialized field, even finding 3 open positions to apply for becomes a full-time job. And each of those openings tended to require many hours of specialized work. Some of that time was moving a nicely developed resume into their proprietary applicant webpage (urgh!!!). There was one job that actually required me to develop a dummy website. Because I knew there were weeks when I wouldn't even be able to find 3 openings, when I found more than 3 I would intentionally wait until the following week to apply to the more promising openings. The idea being that I could do the minimum work on the required 3 applications, then spend the rest of the week diligently working on the more promising openings, and submit it first thing the following week.

Then there are the weeks that I couldn't even find 3 in my field and didn't have any left over from the previous week. For those I applied to complete throw-away positions. I felt sorry for whatever sap had to review my application.

All the while, I wish I had been able to focus on a handful of desirable positions and personal retraining. Instead, I spent months doing B.S. work just to be able to pay the mortgage until I was able to get a job, which ended up coming through a personal connection and would never have shown up on the radar that the unemployment office required me to use!

mathattack3• 13 years ago

I interpreted the story differently. I read it as 100 hours for THE job. It isn't unreasonable to spend 100 hours nailing down the right place to spend 1000s of hours. (Same with college)

wikwocket• 13 years ago

This. One take-away here is that if you find the one place you absolutely want to work, put your all into it, don't take no for an answer, and who knows what you may achieve. This is not advice for everyone: many people just want a job or any job. But if you want the job, go for it. For another example, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p28MFt8RBA#t=110

A more general take-away from this post is that "everything is negotiable," which is also an excellent lesson. Don't play by all the rules. Explore what you can get, often just by asking.

auctiontheory• 13 years ago

Application time is highly leveraged. Think about how many hours you'll spend at your job. It's worth putting in the time to pursue the right job.

collyw6• 13 years ago

How do you know it is the right job until you have worked there?

My current job has gone from being "great" to being "average". Down to a number of factors, none of which would have changed in the job description. In the beginning I was designing and building a database system. Now I am maintaining it, and getting a lot more donkey work to do (fixing excels, tidying up the data when something hasn't been entered correctly). The organization has grown - I started in an office with one other person. Great for being able to concentrate. Now we have 4 people in the office. This makes learning new stuff a lot more difficult, as there is a lot less quiet time. Got an extra boss, on top of my team leader. So rather than concentrate on a task until it is complete, I have two people changing my priorities for me, forcing me to switch tasks, and destroying my productivity.

bonemachine4• 13 years ago

So I put in my 100 hours. I made a custom resume that I illustrated with little Evernote-style animals. I got out my guitar and sang a song about why I wanted to work there. I designed a custom iPhone app for them.

Eww. Talk about trying way too hard.

stevenp• 13 years ago

Seriously? It's not trying too hard at all.

If there's a job you really want and you're really passionate about getting it no matter what, you should do anything in your power to try to get it. If you fail, you can at least say that you tried as hard as you could and it just didn't work out.

null_ptr• 13 years ago

If you're worth anything you don't need to break into song to get them to hire you. Your time would be better spent honing your skills and looking toward new opportunities. Workers have the right to dignity just like everybody else.

bonemachine4• 13 years ago

If there's a job you really want.. you should do anything in your power to try to get it.

No really, you shouldn't. For the sake of your long-term self-esteem & professional stature, what you should be looking for is a 2-way street.

Which is not to say you should apply for companies that are hard to get into, or for which get tons of applicants that you'll have to stand out against -- of course you should. And of course you should do your homework -- look into their business plan, the profiles of people they've hired (and who are likely to interview you), etc.

But you shouldn't ever have to feel that you have to bend over backwards to get their attention. The basic point is that ultimately what you're after is a relationship where they need you as much if not more than you need them.

And to get to that point, you have to head off any inkling in their mind that you're "chasing after them." Not that you should be doing the opposite (i.e. playing hard to get). But one way or another, you need to enter into the courting process with a rock-solid sense of self-assurance that -- whatever your deltas (+/-) against their ideal profile/skillset -- you're bringing something very valuable to the table, namely, yourself. And that it should be obvious to them that stand out against the pack, and -- while you may not end up being their first or final pick -- you clearly deserve front-line consideration. Without having to jump up and down, wave your arms, or make mixtapes for them, etc.

Analogies to dating being of course more than appropriate here.

rfnslyr• 13 years ago

How about instead of making pointless songs and trying to appear cute, have your expertise speak for you?

100 hours on shit not related to the job, yikes.

collyw6• 13 years ago

You should watch The Apprentice (UK version at least). These people are willing to humiliate themselves on public TV to get that job. And usually they have quit within a year.

Actually X-factor is an even better example. Some people on it are clearly talentless. They have been deluded into thinking if they want it bad enough and try hard enough, they can become a star.

mathattack3• 13 years ago

There is a very fine line between "Trying very hard" and "Trying too hard." I've seen people try very hard for getting a job, and then stop right before the finish line. In this case, it's all about the outcome you want. It seems like she wound up with the right outcome (first choice school, eventually landing in the right job) so it worked out.

I can't begin to describe how many people I've interviewed who had no idea what my (small) firm did.

logicallee2• 13 years ago

"Some kind of web development right? Maybe corporate clients? Am I at least getting warmer??"

collyw6• 13 years ago

This is another thing I find strange in interviews. People are expected to know the ins and outs of the company. Fair enough if you are Apple or Google, but for anything smaller, why would you be expected to know much about the internals of a company.

So everyone just reads the webpage, the interviewer gets the answer he expected. Not sure how that makes the developer better at his job. Sure they took an hour or so to read the webpage, but does it in any way matter?

(Actually one company I applied to recently did the opposite - they had a fake webpage with minimal detail - I am not sure if this was to catch out bullshitters. Anyway, when asked what I knew about the company, I was honest and said I didn't know much. The job didn't go ahead in the end, though the guy said he was impressed with me at the end of the interview).

theseoafs• 13 years ago

That part definitely put me off too, but I wouldn't chalk it up to "trying too hard". I have a problem with the author's idea that putting "extra work" into a resume with animals on it actually made her a better candidate for the job in any way. It's worded as if she's surprised the song she recorded failed to actually demonstrate her competency to the hiring manager any better. Of course it didn't. No one hires software developers based on the colorfulness of their resumes or their vocal range.

kstop2• 13 years ago

I got the impression it was a designer job. The work she did made sense in that context.

castillowl• 13 years ago

At a minimum, thanks for the reminder about keeping failure in perspective. It is so easy to fall into failure aversion mode and not even realize it can hold you back.

jelloPuddin2• 13 years ago

Getting rejected from Palantir in late August was probably the best thing that could've happened to me. It was the first company that I interviewed at for a full time roll and it made me realize I wasn't ready. I spent the next 8 weeks coding for three hours a day and preparing for interviews. Ended up landing a great job that I'd take over Palantir any day.

ra32• 13 years ago

I spent the next 8 weeks coding for three hours a day and preparing for interviews.

what were you doing the rest of the working day?

jelloPuddin2• 13 years ago

I'm still in college. I'd wake up at 6, eat and do some coding problems, go to class, come home, do homework, do phone interviews, code till midnight, and go to sleep.

mbesto• 13 years ago

By rejecting me at first, college admissions taught me the most valuable lesson of my life. It doesn’t matter if you’re told no. Everything’s negotiable.

I've learned to appreciate this over the years. However, I think this is very much an American thing. I lived for 4 years in Europe and people are much more willing to bend the rules in America, whereas people in Europe tend to "follow the rules". And thus, the people that support the systems are less willing to bend. Any European natives agree?

Morgawr• 13 years ago

As an Italian, I don't agree. But that's for Italy, we're corrupt and we always bend rules.

Currently living in The Netherlands and things are very different here. Also Belgians and Germans are very strict, from what I heard.

Europe in itself is far too broad. We may be very small land-wise but culturally-wise we can be very different between each other. Can't say for sure, really.

ahomescu1• 13 years ago

As an Italian, I don't agree. But that's for Italy, we're corrupt and we always bend rules.

Hah, that made me chuckle. I realize you're being serious, but it seems funny. (disclaimer: I'm Romanian, things are similar for us).

benjaminwootton• 13 years ago

You can tell it's a good job market because being rejected for a job nowadays wouldn't feel like a big deal in the slightest.

It would simply be onto the next one and you'll probably have an offer for something equally good or better within the week!

speakme• 13 years ago

This was a great read, especially as our startup gets closer to launch and we need to keep in mind both the value of rejection, and the philosophy of always trying as hard as we possibly can. The 100 hours specifically can be debated for job applications and etc., but the idea behind it is hard to argue against.

groby_b• 13 years ago

I'm going to state an uncomfortable truth. As somebody who has seen more than a few horrible interview failures - how about you put in a 100 hours of work before you come to the interview?

Not for the company, but for yourself. And not doing fancy resumes with songs and pictures, but learning the basics of what you're actually doing? Because I'm fairly certain that most interview rejections are due to the fact that your qualifications are insufficient, not because your resume wasn't fun enough.

Sheepshow• 13 years ago

Couldn't agree more. I've seen a few "job applications" that are more like marriage proposals, and its sickening.

Hey actually that gives me a great idea: maybe I should spend 100 hours preparing a marriage proposal for that college girlfriend who dumped me.

djhworld2• 13 years ago

You read them though right? The point of these wild and zany applications is they stand out from the crowd. Visually anyway, the actual content and truth behind it often leaves a lot to be desired, but if you're going in for a marketing job...

jowiar• 13 years ago

I see far more failure by way of deeming oneself unqualified and not applying than I do by way of train wreck interviews.

For me, job applications are like college applications - the best attitude is not to get my heart committed to anything outside my control, and not to take anything as a statement about who I am, and always will be, but rather on what, at a particular point in time, I can offer a particular person. I've had my ass handed to me in an interview before - It was a great experience - I learned what I needed to get better at to get the type of position I wanted, and through applications, failures, and learning, I eventually found a great position.

collyw6• 13 years ago

The way most job descriptions are - listing 5 languages with at least 3 years experience, its not a surprise that people deem themselves unqualified.

(As a side note I get to hire someone after Christmas,and have no idea how to word the ad. It will be all round work, with a fair bit of Python / Django, but I feel that these are fairly niche and will limit my choices if I ask for these specifically.)

cookiecaper• 13 years ago

Unfortunately it only becomes increasingly evident to me that most people don't make any decisions based on merit. The dog and pony show is much more important than knowing your stuff because honestly, most people don't know anything well enough to know if you know your stuff or not anyway.

If your benefit is dependent on any level of critical analysis, you've already lost. Learn to create a positive emotional response in people. Don't rely on their ability to rationally function.

vinceguidry• 13 years ago

Don't argue with success. It just makes you look like an idiot.

yarou• 13 years ago

I used to believe a long time ago (when I was younger) that anything is possible -- so long as you work hard. But the reality is it's more complicated than that. Some people have pure talent; no matter how hard you work, you can never achieve their level of talent in a lifetime. Some people have access to the proper network effects, i.e. genetic lottery. It all comes down to analyzing your situation and making the best out of it. Who cares about some shitty programming job that's 9-5? That's overrated. Build something you're passionate about, that you love to show others. It can be something simple at first, but slowly you'll gain insight into what you really want to do.

samtp• 13 years ago

I think anything is possible as long as you're open to anything. Putting your head down and plowing ahead can only get you so far in most circumstances. The key is to work hard while continuing to look around and recognize the diverse opportunities around you.

So many people get caught up on a single scenario as their end goal, rather than understanding that there are many possibilities that you don't even know about right now, that would bring you greater happiness than the single ideal that they hold so dear.

Skywing• 13 years ago

I think that the over all sentiment of this post is correct - hard work can pay off, and sometimes not in how you originally expected.

I also recently applied to a company, Blizzard Entertainment in Austin, that I have wanted to work for since 1999. In 1999 I didn't program, but playing their games got me into programming (through reverse engineering the games) and I have wanted to work there ever since. I applied for internships through the years, and then after school I started applying for full time positions. I never once even got a response, other than the automated rejection emails that come 2-3 months later. A few months ago they actually called me though, and I had the opportunity to go through the interview process for a .NET position. I sailed through the technical phone interview and was given a take home project to work on, for a week. It had some requirements that involved some design patterns that I'd never used before, but I easily put in 60+ hours on the project after getting home from my current job. After seeing that submission though, they decided to not continue with the interview. It's hard being rejected by a company that you've dreamed of working for for so long, especially when the rejection was after they looking at my code. As a coder, that code is all I am evaluated by during that phase of the project, so it's rough. I couldn't let it end there though. I researched the design patterns requested and completely re-wrote the project. In retrospect, my 2nd attempt was much better than my first. I don't know if the developers I spoke with, from Austin, saw my 2nd attempt or not, because I was going through a recruiter of theirs from CA. The recruiter basically just cut off all communication, and I got no feedback as to what I could have improved on.

But, I didn't stop there! That was basically 2 rejections. I decided to go around the recruiter and drafted up an email to the developers here in Austin - all I asked for was feedback on my code so that I could improve and apply in the future. I didn't have any of their emails, but I had their names. I sent the email to various combinations of their name and magically one went through. The guy responded literally 10 minutes later. He seemed open to helping but was busy (this was happening during thanksgiving and blizzcon, so it was definitely busy for them). We emailed back and forth several times but each time he kept forgetting to respond, so I just let it go. I didn't want to come off as pushy or annoying and ruin any future chances at the job.

No real moral to this, other than I kept trying and ended up with a real developer's email here in Austin. Maybe next time around he'll remember me.

jigneshg• 13 years ago

Skywing,

Thank you very much for sharing your experience and hard work for getting job in your dream company. I can understand the situation and moral after 2 rejection but i really appreciate your effort for working hard to achieve your dream.

You really put great example for other readers here looking for job and got rejection. We should always think positive and work on our weaknesses to get our dream job.

Thanks

mpeg• 13 years ago

It'd be nice to know what the author of the post got out of trying even harder (!!) and joining Exec that way. Are we talking nice experience, multiple promotions, million-dollar exit, or other stuff?

I, honestly, don't try hard at all for interviews. The only work I put in is in doing some quick research on the company and the people I will be meeting, but even that is not so important (because it's usually better to hear from them directly)

I have had some very good success on face-to-face interviews like that, and it makes things equal between applicant and company; if a person has put in hours of work in creating something specifically for that interview, is he desperate for a job? is he trying to make up for a lack of talent? I don't think it's such a positive thing as this article would lead one to believe.

venus• 13 years ago

WTF? But she never got a job after being rejected! She managed to get a failed college application reversed with her song and dance act, and that's it. When she tries that on a real job, it fails, and she goes on and rationalises that as being for the best. Huh?

This post has no point at all. And as someone who does his fair share of hiring, it is terrible advice anyway. If you really, really want another chance, just ask. I'll usually give someone a second shot if they seem to really want it, and give them an opportunity to explain why I was wrong the first time.

ivanplenty2• 13 years ago

Couldn't agree more except one small difference:

This post has no point at all.

Yes, it does have a point. It is an advertisement for her product. Notice the connection between "spending 100 hours" and a product called "give it 100"... that is hardly an accident :)

ivv• 13 years ago

Very true. Of the many people who I interviewed and who ended up without an offer, not one has asked for a second shot, which would likely have been granted. It's unfortunate, because not every winning candidate wins by a landslide.

ch4s3• 13 years ago

Very interesting. I once felt an interview starting to go poorly in the final stage and tried something similarly unexpected. I asked, " Honestly, what reservations do you have about hiring me." The interviewer answered, and I rebutted the three concerns. I started the next week, and it was a disaster. Then I decided to become a programmer, it was for the best.

Aren't anecdotes fun?

dylandrop• 13 years ago

Ok, sorry, but 100 hours to apply to a single job is just silly. There are tons of factors that you could make you an unfit candidate for that position that you couldn't possibly know about, and even putting a solid year of work into a resume won't help you get around those problems.

"So I put in my 100 hours. I made a custom resume that I illustrated with little Evernote-style animals. I got out my guitar and sang a song about why I wanted to work there. I designed a custom iPhone app for them."

Perhaps they were a little creeped out by someone singing a song to them on YouTube without knowing them at all? This just gives me weird vibes... and furthermore demonstrates nothing of clear value to being a designer (presumably) at Evernote. Those 100 hours would have been better spent honing skills or learning a new one.

I think you should pump the brakes a little on your job application strategy. Most of the time, a well-crafted, personal email and solid resume is the best way to go. A bunch of the time not being hired is as simple as "they found another person first", "you were one of 100 resumes and they accidentally skipped yours", or "they were looking for a person who would be more adept as skill y whereas you're best at skill x". That's why you should concentrate on a couple companies you'd like to work at, and not be devastated if the most likely situation happens (not being picked).

vitd• 13 years ago

I've got 2 stories which may or may not contradict this idea:

1) I interviewed a candidate for a junior position. He seemed qualified and came with a recommendation from someone I trust. But during the interview with one of the managers in our group, he indicated that something on his resume was not accurate. He didn't directly say that, and he tried to squirm around it by saying he really meant it in this way, etc. etc. The manager took this as a big red flag that this person was not trustworthy or at least not a good match for our group. He was later told he didn't get the position. At that point he started emailing me constantly asking what he could do to get in our good graces. I had to tell him that since I wasn't the hiring manager there was nothing I could do, and that he had really blown it because it basically looked like he was lying during his interview. Now every time there's an opening in our group he emails me looking to apply for the position. This has made me 10x less likely to consider him in the future. (Granted, he didn't do his "100 hours".) But being a pest is not going to get you anywhere. Just suck it up and move on. (I wish someone had taught me how to do that when I was younger. I often got the advice, but wasn't able to implement it, much to my detriment.)

2) At an earlier job, we had a candidate apply. I thought he was pretty good, but the boss was unimpressed. During the interview I asked him if he'd read some programming books that I had found useful. He hadn't heard of them. The boss rejected him and we hired someone else. A year later we had another position. He applied again, and this time he told me he had read the books and explained how he had put some of the ideas into practice. He didn't pester us for a job and he didn't act like a psycho or a douche. He just did the hard work of learning what he was missing. We hired him. Later I left that job and started my own company and hired him again. He was a good employee and good at what he did.

I can't imagine trying to work with the guy from #1 above on a daily basis after seeing him be so persistent and annoying. I would definitely not hire #1 even if he were the most qualified candidate because of how annoying his persistence was.

glasshouses• 13 years ago

How does this get on here?

Why is it acceptable to use HN as a platform for shameless self-promotion? And if it absolutely has to be why can't it at least be worthwhile?

HN's filter needs to be overhauled. Particularly any post from a site with the same name as the poster. Those are rarely good.

How to get a job after you've been rejected

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