The inevitable rejection of the job hunt

Life is full of rejection. If you can’t take it, you won’t make it. My comic submissions used to get rejected all the time. I took the hits, wobbled, and pressed onward like some sort of a submissions zombie. But for some reason, the rejection of employers is harder to get around than the rejection of publishers.

Maybe it’s because of the interview process. When you submit something for possible publication, you never get to know the editor on the other end of the line. They send you a “thanks but no thanks,” and you hang onto the materials for future submissions. They weren’t rejecting you, just your work.

But during the interview dance that comes with the search for a new employer, you usually get to know the person on the other end of that rejection very well. You exchange chatty letters, in-depth phone calls, and if you’re lucky, even look each other in the eyes and shake hands. It’s like gambling. The further along you get, the higher the likelihood that you’ll get hired–and the higher the likelihood that it will hurt like hell if they decide to look somewhere else! Big wins and big losses ahead!

Those long emails are suddenly replaced by a long silence. Then the fateful day arrives when you receive a few terribly formal small sentences, usually beginning platonically with “thank you for your interest…” And just like that, you’re dumped.

If I ever have a company, I will send small boxes of chocolate to all the people we interview then turn away, as a token of our thanks for taking so much time to court us.