Rejection is a big issue during your job search because the normal reaction is to take everything personally. You take the job loss you had experienced personally. You take any situation where you are not interviewed or selected personally. You can’t do that because it will impact you and establish a mindset that is destined for more disappointment. You precondition yourself to think the worst will happen.

When you are not chosen for a position, I know it’s hard, but you cannot take it as a personal rejection. For one reason or another you were not chosen and that’s just the way it is.

Whether it’s a recruiter and hiring manager biases or whether they have pre-selected the candidate but corporate rules require they interview a certain number of people. Just chalk it up to experience and keep moving forward.

The chances are that you are not going to get any constructive comments and again just put it behind you. Without comments you can’t rationalize or justify the action, so don’t dwell on it.

There are many reasons why you might not be selected and most of them truly have little to do with you. Taking what you perceive as a missed opportunity personally will start you on the road to building a negative self image that will increasingly stand in your way.

I had a personal experience where the hiring manager told the recruiter that presented me that he could sense some lingering issues from a previous employment situation. When he asked about the circumstances surrounding my departure from my last company – where I had been fired – it was an obviously touchy subject. I truly believe that this sense that he had was a primary reason for my not getting the job offer. I realized it was simply another learning opportunity and I had to move on.

Some people take the approach that it is going to take a certain number of contacts before you achieve the success you desire, if that’s your case, this is one more check mark as you move through that pre-determined number of contacts. Whatever it takes to move you forward, do it!

This an excerpt from the book that Tom is writing “Confessions of a Job Seeker: A Guide for Serous Job Seekers”.