Didn’t Get that Job Offer – What Should You Do Next?

We had an incredible coaching call this month on How to Turn Any Difficult Situation into a Gift. Thank you for those of you who made it to share your questions and insights. I love hosting these coaching calls as we can go deep into one topic for almost an hour. Just by showing up and contributing to the conversation, you are improving your soft skills and helping others

One Member’s Story

One member shared she just learned that she didn’t get the job offer she wanted. She was frustrated and disappointed. However she was already ready to listen to feedback and figure out how to move on from here.

She shared that she made a few sharp statements to the recruiter and wondered if she should have. While conceptually she agreed difficult situations can be gifts in the long run, she was clearly feeling the sting and baffled by the news. She wanted advice on what she should do next. How can she best move on and turn this difficult situation into a gift?

Thank you Linda for sharing this real life example with us. It takes courage to ask for help and we are honored you did. I hope what we shared with you as insights and feedback on the call gave you renewed energy and enthusiasm to move forward.

Three Gifts from Every Difficult Situation

We all encounter difficult situations. It’s how we deal with them that matter. Those of us who dwell on the injustice of the difficult situation we encountered is only pre-longing our own suffering. While it’s natural to feel negative about a situation that didn’t work out as we expected, staying negative only hurts our own future as well as victimizes ourselves. It’s critical to figure out how to get centered.

Maya Angelou once said, “If you don’t like something, change it. If you cannot change it, then change your attitude.” The best way to do this are to accept what happened as no one’s fault and then look for the gifts from this difficult situation. There may be as many as three gifts from every situation

• Gift of Power – how do we treat ourselves and others in the face of adversity? Do we speak ill of ourselves or others? By moving past this adversity with grace, we are developing the power of empathy, exploration, innovation, and/or navigation.
• Gift of Knowledge -What can we learn from this difficult situation? How can this new knowledge help us now and in the future?
• Gift of Inspiration – What will this situation inspire us to do differently? By not getting a dream job offer, perhaps it gives us time to reexamine our goals and explore a whole different areas we never considered before. We can discover new areas and make new plans.

Recorded Coaching Call

This is easier said than done. However, how quickly we can look at a difficult situation as a gift matters! It can free us from the negative emotions of the initial sting and welcome new possibilities for the future. I hope you will take 45 min to listen to this recorded coaching call – including how we were able to help Linda with her situation. Below is the first 5 min of the call.

To listen to the full call, you can sign up for free to the Soft Skills Gym for the first month and listen to full 45 minute recording here. Cancel anytime. I look forward to your comments and questions.

Audio Transcription

Lei: Let’s talk about: How can a difficult situation be a gift in the long run? Let me ask you first. Do you believe in that statement?

Linda: I feel that yes, I have to in order to stay sane, in order to make sense of things happening to me and my career. So, yes, I choose to believe that.

Lei: Great. Anybody don’t or have a strong aversion to that statement?

Rob: I think we need to take it and learn something from it, if you’re going to go through something that’s difficult. Hopefully, whether it turns out in your favor or not, you’ve at least made some learning as a result, positive or negative.

Lei: Absolutely. So, there’s a context premise of this, which is: Do we think we can control everything in our lives — in our work, in our personal life? I would say, if the answer is no, there is always the chance that something and someone else deciding creates a situation that might be difficult for us. And therefore, how do we choose to respond to that tends to be a life’s journey of many difficult situations we go through. But having the perspective that a difficult situation can be a gift provides, perhaps, the energy to keep going. 

Lei: There’s a lot of different kinds of difficult situations. I’m going to focus more on the work side, but obviously there is definitely loss in the family, relationship things. But for this purpose I think… We can talk about specifics, but difficult situations are commonly defined as things you don’t expect to happen. Your intuitive reaction is “I don’t like this. This is not good.” Like, I got laid off. I didn’t get that promotion. I didn’t get that job offer. My review was not what I expected. My project didn’t get delivered. Why is this partner so difficult even? These could be all difficult situations. 

Lei: I do have a style for those of you new to me. I always ask questions. This is not to be a session where somehow I magically know all the answers and impart it on you. I think it’s a matter of thinking through it. And I strongly believe, when we contemplate on a particular topic, whether we all agree or not, you get something out of that discussion. And that’s how I facilitate coaching sessions. And so, I would love to go around the room and just find out: How do you handle difficult situations? Or perhaps if you believe this, how do you turn it into a gift? 

Linda: Hi. It’s Linda. So, it’s almost like that first question, ‘What advice would I give to my 20-year-old self?’ Because I’m very logical. So, like you said, to see something as being a difficult situation is because it didn’t logically follow what I had expected, let’s say. I think Rob had said it. If you suffered through something, you should learn something from it at least, right? So, in my instance, I worked for a company, and it was really difficult to get budget. They were really tight with their budget, so it was really difficult for me as an e-commerce director to create an omnichannel experience for our customers. And this is something new to me. I was very shocked that they would have cashflow issues, given the fact that they’re a luxury company.

Lei: Not an uncommon problem, by the way, across different industries. I can relate to that issue.

Linda: That’s good to hear that it’s not just in luxury. But I was really surprised because my assumptions about luxury is like, my God, they have huge profit margins. You would think that they would have cash flowing in and out, right? But actually, it’s the opposite. Because a lot of the inventory is tied up with these high-cost items, right? So, from there, I became more knowledgeable about that industry and some of their particular struggles. With that said, hindsight is always 2020, so now when I’m looking for a job in customer success management, I come from that client perspective where, if I’m supposed to be selling some kind of software program to these kinds of customers, I have to be very mindful of their … listen to the rest of the recording here inside the Soft Skills Gym.

Your comments: Are you able to look at every situation as a gift or opportunity? I look forward to your questions and comments

Your comments: Do you have an inner voice that tells you that you are not enough? Do you where it comes from and how to ignore it? I look forward to hearing from you.

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I am always in your corner.

Lei