Between late spring to late fall of 2016, I realized that all the unfortunate events had turned me into a zombie because nothing kills me at that point. I guess that the well of tears inside my bodied dried up after some time, and my mind had developed a thicker and stronger walls to withstand the waves of job rejections. With each rejection, I was able to handle a lot better with it.
On the plus side, Goodwill was able to keep me after my temp period since the lady never returned from her summer break, but my part-time status remained. With my expenses exceeding my income almost every month, I remained in the job market.
I just kept going.
Back in the day, I never would have imagined that I could handle even a dozen college applications…but here I am on my 20th job interviews and I still looking. Almost every interview I thought I did well, but the return call or email either begins with “unfortunately” or didn’t happen at all.
Every rejection was like a bullet in my body, but I kept going even though I felt so hallow on the inside as there was no sense of pride left inside me. Many friends and family recommended that I look outside of my profession and outside of my location to find a job, but they don’t realize that I actually had already done that, and it was even less response.
With all these rejections, I started to have doubts in myself and I even thought maybe I should go back to school to study something more practical. But then I thought about how practical it would be to go into student debt for a degree that is even more job-promising than marketing.
With the rejections pouring in, I lost a sense of pride and almost was smothered by the confusion. Still, one thing was clear in my mind; I had to just keep applying because what could I do otherwise?
During the meantime, I was working part-time and applying for other positions. My mom and I finally settled that Thanksgiving was when we would visit her and the rest of the family in Taiwan. ‘We’ in that sentence meant Hector and myself; if it wasn’t clear in my previous story, Hector and I got married, but my mom has yet to meet him in person.
Maybe I can apply for jobs in Taiwan….at least stay in Taiwan a little bit longer, I thought to myself.
Of course, when I told the idea to my mom and my husband, they had a strong aversion to it. Hector thought I was joking because we just got married, so having me working across the country from him was ridiculous. My mom warned me how Taiwan’s economy was even more difficult, the wages were a lot lower, and there were less labor protection laws in comparison to America.
I was running out of ropes, but I had to keep going, and the only I could do was living on a prayer. Bon Jovi’s song never screamed so precisely about my life before.
Through the rejections I’ve been receiving, I realized that I was losing against other applicants because I was ‘less experienced.’ I was very sure that was the main problem a lot of the millennials were having too. Thus, in almost every interview, I always emphasized that–
I might appear to be less experienced compared to people who have been in the industry for 20 years, but I learn and adapt twice as fast and I can catch up in no time.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t open their minds that Marketing is about new ideas and a lot of the trendy technology and platforms only happened in the past 5 years and new technology will just keep popping up overthrowing the old ones, mobile marketing Social Media advertising to name a few.
There has got to be someone who could think outside of the box, I thought. Please God let someone see not how many years I have behind me, but my growing potential.
Foxsilong Studio 