If you can’t handle rejection, don’t become a recruiter. If you want to be one, learn how to handle it.
Dealing with rejection on a daily basis may not seem so appealing at first. Investing lots of time to find a great fit and getting to know each candidate just for your offer to be declined is not easy.
The feeling gets worse if we see rejection as a “no-result situation”. When in fact, rejection is a direct result of work. If you find it hard to believe, then analyze your rejections. That may give you perspective to improve, change or even learn from the process. That’s already more than “no-result”.
When I just started my recruiting journey, I was receiving dozens of “No” responses per day even before the interview. I saw it as a “0 result”, and dwelled on it. My first instinct was to push the candidates to reconsider and turn “no” into “yes”.
While overcoming objections is a good thing to do, this is also something you want to do right. Being pushy and expecting candidates to change their mind right there and then is not the way to handle it. Instead, don’t push for an answer. Try to get to know them and understand their needs. The best way to deal with a “no” response is to turn it into an opportunity. To do so, keep the conversation going, and ask genuine questions which imply more than a one-word reply.
By viewing candidates as, first of all, people with their own needs and showing sincere interest in communicating, I have created a pool of passive candidates. Not only have they come back for other opportunities, but they also referenced their friends and colleagues in the technology field.
Another reason to get sad about rejection is that we may take it personally. The only reasonable solution to this is - don’t. Unless you are rude and unprofessional, it’s not about you. It’s about Mercury in retrograde. Actually, it is about the candidate deciding what is best for them. Sometimes this and your expectations just don’t match, and you have no control over it. This brings us to the next destructive route to take.
The control. Being overly sad over rejection is also believing that you have much more control over the process than you actually have. Meanwhile, the outcome mostly depends on other people’s decisions. Not only on candidates but also on managers and clients.
I had situations when the candidates didn’t show up for interviews. There were situations where it turned out in the interview that a candidate was literally lying about their experiences, or their attitude turned out to be unpleasant, to put it mildly. On the other hand, there were clients changing requirements in the middle of the process, making my perfect matches unfit.
There were rejections from clients or candidates at the stage of the process where I was sure I had a placement. The thing is, you don’t have control over every step of the process.
Being a recruiter is challenging in many ways. It is important to mention that recruiters are not immune to burnout. And finding productive ways to deal with rejections is one of the steps to prevent it.
Also, managing rejection delicately and politely builds up a strong network of potential candidates. Keep in mind that the immediate result is rare in recruitment, while the cumulative result takes place more often.
Saying that, get yourself a really thick skin, work hard on things that are under your control, and learn from your experience. Rejection is an integral and essential part of life. The same goes for any hiring process. Learning from and handling rejection makes us better recruiters.