After Rejection: The Masochism of Requesting Feedback

I did it. The application. The first interview. The second. The writing test. All of it. And then, after a week or two – or more – of back and forth and waiting to hear from a hiring manager, it arrives. The rejection.

It’s a familiar story for many job seekers. Please tell me it’s not just me.

It never doesn’t sting, no matter how many come (and they have been coming). And as someone who rarely craves lemonade, I’m not looking to do anything with these lemons but throw them in the compost bin and forget about them.

But I still have to pay rent, right?

So I do what any responsible (shudder) adult does. I ask for feedback to understand what went wrong, where my shortcomings were, and how I can improve for future job applications.

Following a rejection from a job – especially one that I really wanted – the last thing I want to do is engage further with the company. Instead, I want to do what we all do and secretly stalk the person who did get the job and compare ourselves in the quiet misery of our own homes. But that doesn’t help anything, of course, while feedback from HR and hiring managers can be invaluable to growing.

It’s why I know that I need to frame my management experience better. Because despite building a successful business in Paris, leading teaching projects worldwide, editing in a Chinese newsroom, and overseeing a PR agency’s internal marketing copy (among other projects), hiring managers keep telling me they want writers who they are confident can lead a project. I get it. I’m working on it.

Getting to this point, however, has been humiliating in many ways that are likely unavoidable, but nonetheless annoying.

Steps Towards Masochism

First, it requires a certain amount of swallowing your pride to ask someone what went wrong after a rejection. I feel like I’m annoying the HR managers who, like everyone, are always busy. They owe me nothing after all the work I put into my application. I know that. Still, it feels like the status quo should be to leave on a constructive note rather than a sour one. Maybe I’m delusional.

Or maybe online dating has normalized ghosting to a new extreme. Theories for another day.

Second, asking for feedback after getting rejected is hard enough until you realize you’ll never get it. I’ve asked people through email and LinkedIn – people I met and spoke with – but simply never heard back. It’s like a second tacit rejection that stings more than the first. I know people are busy, but for higher level jobs, especially after multiple rounds of interviews, a quick note to even say it’s not possible isn’t a huge ask.

I, ever the glutton for punishment, keep refreshing my inbox hoping for insight.

Finally, in the few times that feedback has come – and it rarely has – it’s been borderline useful, but rarely enlightening. Again, it’s not a hiring manager’s job to fix me, but I revel in specific feedback the way an interviewee asks for specific details during the hiring process. Insight into perceived lack of management has been the only usable feedback in the past five years of applying for new roles.

Otherwise, it’s been a lot of stock rejection emails from do-not-reply@hr.com about going with other candidates who better suit the job specs.

Love, HR.

The Takeaway?

Despite it all, I keep begging for the post-rejection feedback to salt the wound that’s been oozing for years. And to be clear, it’s really no one’s fault. It’s the game we’re playing, and some people play more gracefully than others. For anyone who has responded to my requests for feedback in the past, I thank you for the small dose of salve you provided me.

For the rest of you, why are you reading me after rejecting me? Geeze. Stalker much?

I also believe these issues are industry-wide. From universities who rejected me to marketing agencies and brands seeking writers, the world of hiring practices has left me cold and mostly dejected, but unlike a jilted lover, I can’t just walk away and forget about it. I need to go back, humiliate myself just a little, and beg for a few crumbs to help make the next try better. I also need to be comfortable going hungry when those crumbs don’t come.

I’m tempted to ask for your feedback on this conundrum, but, well, at this point…