Career Advancement: Effective Ways to Deal with Rejection on Your Path to Career Advancement Success

Career Advancement: The road to achieving your career advancement goals will be paved with rejection as well as success. You may invest hours, weeks, months, or even years of hard work into your career advancement plans and hopes, yet all it takes are just a few seconds for a decision maker to crush your career advancement dreams with a “no”. Respond to, and recover from career advancement rejection with these effective techniques:

1. Use one or more of these effective responses to rejection of your career advancement efforts

Request the opportunity to revisit the career advancement idea at a later date. When you receive a “no” to a career advancement proposal or request, ask “Would you be willing to talk about this idea again a few months from now?” Remember that you’ve been living with your innovative career advancement plan for a period of time, yet the decision maker may have just learned about it. Allow her a few months to digest the career advancement you’ve proposed, and you may eventually hear the, “Let’s go for it!” answer you were hoping for.

Present your career advancement plan to other potentially-interested parties: If the first decision maker you present your career advancement idea to declines, ask yourself, “Who else would be interested in this proposal?”

Rework your career advancement plan to make it better. When you receive a “no” to your career advancement proposal, ask, “What would make this proposal more appealing to you?” Be open to any career advancement ideas offered, and then decide if it makes sense to revise your career advancement ideas to incorporate their suggestions.

Consider “Plan B” (and “C” and “D”) career advancement options: Although your first career advancement proposal was rejected, another version of your plan may be just right for the decision maker’s needs. Develop some alternative career advancement plans and then present those ideas for consideration.

Recall another time when you were rejected, as well as the ultimate result. Like me, you can most likely remember a number of times when things didn’t go as you’d initially planned. But then recall what happened next, and ask yourself, “Did things turn out for the better after all?” For most of us, the answer is, “yes”. The challenge is in having the patience to see what the better ending to your career advancement story will be.

2. Change your career advancement plan when you discover it’s not what you want after all

Changing your mind after launching into a career advancement plan is more common than you might think. It’s perfectly acceptable (and better for you in the long run) to listen to your instincts about what’s right for you, rather than heading down the wrong path. If discover your original career advancement plan is the wrong fit, use the information you’ve acquired to revise your career advancement goals and plan.

3. Bounce back after being passed over for a promotion

A friend of mine uses the acronym, POPO (Passed Over, Pissed Off) for someone who gets skipped over for a much-deserved career advancement promotion…and is extremely ticked off as a result. Not being chosen for a career advancement opportunity you felt was a shoe-in for you can leave you feeling resentful toward the world. While you have every right to feel angry at being rejected, carrying around a chip on your shoulder has the potential to destroy your chances for future opportunities. These strategies can help you truly push through and overcome a POPO frustration:

Vent your disappointment in a productive way. Complaining to coworkers about getting passed over could come back to haunt you. Instead, talk with a friend who you can trust to keep your comments confidential, preferably someone who’s not involved in your career field or company at all. Talking with a counselor, or journaling about your disappointment, are other productive methods for processing your dissatisfaction. Whatever method you choose, find some way to articulate and sort out your aggravations.

Rather than getting angry, get busy. There was some reason why you weren’t chosen for the career advancement opportunity: you lack a particular skill or degree, you interviewed poorly, or you’re not buddies with the hiring manager. Whatever the reason (and chances are you have a pretty good idea of what this is), there’s some positive action you can take in response: get more training, improve your interviewing techniques, or work toward moving into another organization that values performance over favoritism.

Move on: If you had your heart set on a goal that your current employer isn’t supporting, it may make sense to switch companies to achieve your career advancement objective. “The Career Coward’s Guide to Changing Careers”, “The Career Coward’s Guide to Resumes”, “The Career Coward’s Guide to Interviewing”, and “The Career Coward’s Guide to Job Searching” provide outstanding strategies and guidance for targeting, presenting yourself to, and landing a position that would allow you to realize your career advancement goals.

4. Maintain momentum even when it’s taking a long time to achieve your goals

It may feel as if it’s taking a very long time to achieve your career advancement goals. To help you maintain your momentum on the path to career advancement, try these effective strategies:

Track the career advancement progress you’ve already made: If you’re attempting a career advancement goal you’ve never attempted before, you really have no idea how long it will take. You may set a hoped-for career advancement deadline for yourself, but it’s really just a guess. Readjust your career advancement timeline when you have more data about how events are progressing.

Seek out information on how to speed your career advancement. If you’re frustrated at the pace of your career advancement progress, look for information, resources, and people who may be able to help you boost your rate of accomplishment. Ask others, “Do you have any ideas for how I can make this happen faster?” and research examples of other people who have attained speedy career advancement success.

Enjoy the journey for what it is. Looking back over my own 10-year business-growth adventure, I can see now that there were many career advancement skills that I needed to master before I could move on to the next career advancement challenge. While my business growth may not have happened as fast as I thought it would, I wouldn’t trade those learning experiences for anything. Like me, you may discover that the process of getting to where you want to go may end up being the true career advancement accomplishment.

Excerpted and adapted from “Career Coward’s Guide to Career Advancement” by Katy Piotrowski, M.Ed.