The Job You Didn't Get

How to move forward when the answer is no

There’s a very specific kind of emotional moment that shows up after a rejection. Not the early ones where you applied, maybe just spoke to the recruiter, or did an initial call with. I mean the one you really wanted. The one you got excited about. The one where you made it to the third round, or the fourth. Where things started to feel possible. And then suddenly, they didn’t.

And I don’t think people talk about that part a lot. How hard it is to come down from a maybe. From a “I was so close”. Because in a long process, you start to let yourself picture it. Not in a dramatic way, but quietly. Subtly. You imagine the team you’d be joining. You think about what your first project would be. You wonder if your mornings would feel different. You start shaping your life around the possibility of it. Maybe you start telling your friends about it. Sharing some of the subtle ques that make you think it’s going to work out. I had one recently that would have required a move and I starting looking at neighborhoods. It’s hard to not let yourself get excited.

So when the no comes in, it’s not just a rejection of a role. It’s a rejection of this whole version of your future that you already started to build in your head. That’s what makes it feel so heavy. You’re not just letting go of a job. You’re mourning a future that almost existed, that you had started to really emotionally invest yourself in. It feels like a break up.

And yeah, sometimes it feels embarrassing. You start to feel like you got ahead of yourself. Like you shouldn’t have been that hopeful. Like you should’ve known better than to let your guard down and start imagining a win. But I’ll tell you right now, you weren’t wrong to feel that way. You weren’t wrong to get invested. You weren’t wrong to believe.

That’s part of the search. You’re not a robot sending resumes into the void. You’re a person trying to build a life. Trying to find a place where you can grow, contribute, get paid, and feel like you matter. Of course you get invested. That’s not weakness. That’s human. And honestly, you were probably doing so well in the search BECAUSE you were getting invested in the business.

So what do you do when it doesn’t work out?