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Comment by dijit | Hacker News Reader

This implies that there's a stigma to being "rejected" for a role.

The answer is that you're not entitled to a role, just like a company is not entitled to have you. There's no stigma in saying "You're not exactly what we're looking for right now", even if it's the case that you might be _really great_ somewhere else or even ideal for that exact role in future.

I don't understand people who take a "no thank you" personally, some of the comments are along the lines of: "Ha! sure showed them!" but really it's just like dating, sometimes you get passed up for no other reason than you weren't the person the other was looking for at the right time. Understand rejection, don't treat it like an enemy.

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> I don't understand people who take a "no thank you" personally, some of the comments are along the lines of: "Ha! sure showed them!" but really it's just like dating, sometimes you get passed up for no other reason than you weren't the person the other was looking for at the right time.

Perhaps that makes sense if you don't make it past the application or initial phone conversation

However, once a company gives you the opportunity to demonstrate your professional skills, either via a technical phone screen / homework / on-site whiteboard-a-palooza, I don't think its accurate to state that they're just not that in to you.

Your personal performance in that session is the reason for you advancing forward or not and when you don't, it is hard not to take that personally.

> I don't understand people who take a "no thank you" personally

Probably because they've been personally rejected for a job.

I get what you're saying in the context of one job, perhaps when you already have experience. But when you're just starting out and get rejected repeatedly, of course it's disheartening.

Maybe things are different today but I remember applying to jobs out of school as being very much a numbers game. I'm sure I had dozens of rejections and those are just the ones that got back to me. By contrast, every subsequent job (well, all three of them) came from very narrow targeting and my personal network.

I totally agree with your sentiment and aspire to a more stoic / optimistic approach, but personally have found it difficult to avoid taking things like this a bit personally - especially when you're excited about the potential role, think you'd be a great fit and you believe the company may have gotten a bad read on you.

Do you automatically reject about half of country music on the grounds that "you just weren't the person the other was looking for at the right time"?

I'm not saying that a steady diet of heartbreak songs makes for the best listening, just that the impulse is widespread, and so arguably understandable.

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