Hey, this is Overpass Insights! My name is Eric and I make apps! Now today, I want to talk about
job searches and rejections.
Okay, so I have been spending the weekend going through a bunch of old
documents and folders and boxes trying to look for certain things and just get organized. You know,
normal tedious boring organization work, right? But I found a box of a bunch of old
rejection letters for searching for a job. And I wanted to share some of these with you. Now,
a lot of you guys out there might be looking for your first computer job or you might be working
in a job that you're just not happy with, and you want to find something else. And one of the things
you have to get used to when you're looking for a job or even if you're running your own business,
and you're looking for clients is you have to get used to rejection. This - so, uh it's funny
that I - you know, for some reason, I kept these old letters from back in 1998 when I was looking,
when I wasn't even in software yet. So, just a bit of backstory, I was, you know, still living
in the States, and for family reasons, we had to move to England and I was just finishing up
my degree - just finishing up my degree in History. So, my degree is in U.S. History.
Again at the time, you know, software development was something I didn't even think about. In fact,
I didn't even think I was smart enough for software development back then. I thought
you know, that's for the smart people, I could never do anything like that, right?
So, I moved - so we're moving to England and I didn't have a job, I didn't have any idea
what I was going to do, so I started to apply to stuff and because my degree was in History
and I was not qualified to teach in England, I was looking for a job in, I don't know, a museum or
a book manufacturing company, whatever. So, I was sending off all these CVs
to all these different places, and it's funny to read through them this morning. You know,
there's nothing here for you - there's a rejection letter from Abingdon Museum, from Pendant Museum,
I've actually quoted them for doing an app years later. I totally forgot that I'd applied to them,
right, Wallingford Museum, um you know, they all wish me success in the future. Nothing, you know,
nothing suits my skills. There's a UPS I've applied for, Reading Museum, Bexson Model Village,
Berkshire Aviation Trust. I've got lots of and this is just the beginning. This is
the first of many. Like over my career, I've gotten lots of rejection letters and rejection
emails. But for those of you, guys, who've been in the business for a long time, you know that most
of the time you don't get a rejection at all. You just get silence, right? You apply, you wait to
hear it back, and then nothing. Crickets, right? And it's just a part of doing things, right? And
it was going through all this and I found my old CV, my first CV that I ever did which was
really light on skills. right there was no um if you look at the skill section here it says
able to read uh speak and read the chinese banner in vietnamese languages that's what
i learned in the army i was a chinese linguist never ever ever ever came in handy in my job
right worked in a supervisory capacity in several working environments in the army i was a you know
i was a sergeant but that was you know that was it familiar with the basics of ibm compatible
computing including windows 95 word perfect and quattro pro 7 and can learn new programs without
difficulty okay i knew windows 95 like click around uh word perfect yeah i could probably
highlight something and make it bold quattro pro 7 i don't even know what that is but i
know i remember at the time i didn't know it but i figured i could learn it if i had to right and
i thought that was like impressive office skills and office skills including typing word processing
bookkeeping and cash handling cash handling that's what was on my cv back then uh familiar with world
history and world events again never never came in able to work in a team environment or individually
without supervision again that's just a fluff thing right i mean as far as cvs go this was
was a very weak cv right but it was kind of thing where you know it was something i had to give them
a cv and i was struggling hard to come up with a bunch of different stuff in the end when i did
move to england the first job i got was working in a factory i got an effect working in a factory
packing uh yogurt into boxes so i was standing at the end of a conveyor belt uh eight hours a night
taking the yogurt pots out putting them into boxes and sending them down another conveyor
belt which i did that for two months and uh in every and in the daytime i would send off at least
10 cvs a day and again it was like back in 1998 where email wasn't you know not a whole
lot of companies were on email and i was doing all through the newspaper and i've got i found
all these lady diana stamps for 26p right the reason i wanted to show you guys this is because
it's just a part of the process right it's funny when i think about it that when i look at these
rejection letters today i'm very proud of them i'm proud of the fact that i got these rejection
letters and i kept going and eventually i was able to find that first job uh the first it job
and i was able to to skill up and i was able to read everything that i could i was able to get
onto that ladder and move to the next job and the next job in the next job and like i said there's
so many rejection letters since then there's so much rejection but i'm proud of these now
but back then i was ashamed of them right i think every single one of these letters that came back
was like a dagger through my heart it was like you know the the more you start to hear that
you're not suitable you're not suitable you're not suitable it can get to you like your confidence
can get lower you can feel like you know maybe they're right maybe maybe i will never have a
decent job maybe i'll just maybe i'll just make minimum wage for my entire life and that's just
going to be the way that i go right and it wasn't until you know the persistence and persistence is
only persistence if you keep at it obviously right the the fact when i did get my first job and i did
get to my second job and the next job of it these went from being marks of shame to persistence
and if you know and that's the thing about these things that we're embarrassed about the things
that we're afraid to try the things that failure that we're so you know god that didn't work
it's because you we never know whether or not we're on the right track whether or not we're
going in the right direction if i had a time machine i could go back and tell this you know
young eric young 25 year old eric that hey don't worry about it you know this is going to work
out just keep at it don't give up keep going i would have but you know then i'm going to have
nothing to be proud of the reason i'm proud is because i kept going but um you know like i said
it was at the time it was embarrassing it was shameful it was um you know that so i wanted
to share that with you guys some of you guys out there are looking for jobs you're you know you're
looking to get in your your next career your new thing you're like you need to get into software
you're wondering you know how do you break in uh everyone keeps saying no right it's just you know
keep at it right one day you those rejection letters those rejection emails whatever
or the silence the crickets that you hear um you know they'll be signs of your persistence
right i know this i know this from experience anyway i wanted to share that with you guys i
hope you're having a great day today and i'll talk to you again next time
the streets