Facing rejection

It's been a while since my last post, which means that there's much to discuss. I mentioned last time that I had another interview - a phone interview, ugh - to prepare for. This particular position was for a company I'd absolutely love to work for, a very creative place seemingly filled with fun, smart people. However, while I felt confident about my research on the company itself, my nerves were concerned with another aspect of this interview: the case study.

Although my last interview had been pretty intense, from what I had read online about interviews with this place, some of these questions were going to be tough. Very tough. How the hell am I supposed to know why manholes are round? Is there even a right answer? But, after training myself with these questions, I realized that these people just wanted to see how I can think creatively and strategically, in hopes that I might apply the same on-the-ball approach to challenges at work. I anticipated a few of these questions, along with a case study or two to see how I would solve actual real-world issues in that particular field.

To be honest, I would have been absolutely lost without the help of a Michigan alumnus that I found on LinkedIn, who works for this company. Clearly, from the rest of this blog, I could ramble on about LinkedIn forever. But in this situation, it also proved beneficial to be a member of another network - that of the University of Michigan. I sought this alumnus out, and he was happy to guide me through the recruitment process, specifically helping me prepare for my interview. He, along with my boyfriend who prepped me over the phone (since he's pretty seasoned with crazy interviews like these) really saved me in this interview. When the calls came, the conversations flowed, I went through the case studies with ease, and I thought everything went great.

Well, I thought wrong. Despite my feelings of relief after this interview, I did not receive an invitation to go through to the second-round. I was actually shocked. I have learned the harmful effects of getting my hopes up, and definitely didn't let this happen with my last interview with the company that previously let me down. However, I really thought that this interview went great, and that I hit it off with the interviewers. I don't really know where I went wrong; the Michigan alumnus told me that it could just be that this department of the company does much recruiting within Ivy League schools, and I think I could have had a little more past experience within this particular field. Plus, we've got to throw in some impactoftheeconomy, blah blah blah. I'm going to e-mail the recruiter to find out if I could possibly get any feedback.

On top of this, I was also not offered a second-round interview with the first company I talked to. I had at least prepared myself for this, and I happened to be at Wisconsin visiting my sister at the time, so this was actually less rough. I think that - although these are only 2 rejections so far - it has finally hit me that this is going to be a longggg process that will definitely last through second semester. I've decided that December break is going to be my time to really buckle down and get out a zillion applications. And, strangely, I actually feel sort of positive about next semester. I know that I will be much less overwhelmed with my school work, and will finally have some time to focus on this (more important) job search. These rejections have shown me that, unfortunately, I'll need it.