The Call Back Is Like Waiting For A Second Date.

Question: What did you do before the interview?

Author:  Barbara Perone

              Writer | Editor | Reporter | Technical Writer | Proofreader

Okay, you’re deliriously happy because you’ve just had a fantastic interview you feel you’ve aced. Now you’re just waiting for the call back. You’re spirits soar as you quickly email thank you notes to all the appropriate people. Then, you wait, and wait, and wait, and wait some more.

After two weeks, as you come back down to earth from that cloud you’ve been floating on, you email the hiring manager. You ask whether he or she feels you are ready for the next round of interviews; or, you boldly ask if you actually landed the position.

Then, no response. So, you wait, and you wait, and you wait some more. Inside your head you’re screaming at the tops of your lungs, “The suspense is killing me, just tell me is it yes or no!” You feel as though you cannot move on with any aspect of your job search until you have a definitive answer.

Sound familiar? Waiting for the job interview call back is a lot like waiting for someone to ask you out for a second date.

During the “first date,” everything seemed fine, even lighthearted. You were all smiles, “your date,” the interviewer, was all smiles, too. You both ended things on a high note. You left the interview feeling giddy with delight, over the moon. You were excited, too, because things just seemed so hunky dory.

Then, you received the dreaded news. You found out that you didn’t get the job after all, even though it was the one you really, really wanted. Instantly, your hopes were dashed. Naturally, you felt devastated by this terrible, heart-wrenching news.

So, you ask yourself, “Why does this keep happening to me?” What am I doing wrong?” “How much rejection is one person supposed to take in life?” “This really, really stinks!” “This just isn’t fair!” “Life isn’t fair!” “Quick, somebody put a cookie in my mouth, NOW!”

Okay, let’s calm down a bit. Let’s talk about rejection and heartbreak, two subjects where I appear to have real expertise.

Over the years, I’ve been rejected for all sorts of jobs I thought I was perfect for; jobs I really, really wanted and knew I could perform easily. But, I never seemed to get those jobs. Instead, they always went to somebody else. Story of my life …

Whenever I didn’t get that plumb job, each rejection shattered my confidence to smithereens and truly broke my spirit. It seemed to happen to me over and over again. I’ll admit, it was truly painful. But, I powered through and soldiered on because that’s what you do in life. What else could I do, cry into my bowl of tapioca?

How did I cope? I tried to remember that a moving target is hard to hit. So, like all the deer and Canadian geese in New Jersey, my advice to you is to just keep moving, no matter what. And, maybe, just maybe, the tractor-trailer of life won’t flatten you.

It’s funny, but the same thing keeps happening in my love life. When it comes to  matters of the heart, mine has been broken about a million times over. If a surgeon opened my chest today, my poor ticker would look so fractured it’d probably resemble a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle.

But, mind you, I’m not complaining about it. I’m merely making an analogy here. There seems to be a definite link between waiting for the interview call back and waiting for that special someone to be part of your life.

Love does not come to all who seek it. It only comes to a select few. For whatever reason, I’m just not part of that special group. As they say, “it is what it is.” I’ve learned to just accept it. For me, it’s no biggie. This kind of rejection happens to millions of other people all around the world. Enough said. 

Once, when I was at a terribly low point in my life, heartbroken over what some guy I was seeing did, or said to me, my beloved aunt took me aside, gently lifted my chin with her fingertips, looked into my tear-filled eyes, and asked me this one simple question: “What did you do before him?”

The wise old fox explained that I had a life before him; I had friends before him; I went out with other guys before him. The statement made a great deal of sense to me then and it still does today.

So, just relax a bit. Try to think of the job interview call back from that perspective. Ask yourself this question: What did I do before the interview?

Remember, you had a life before the interview. You had fun with family and friends before the interview. You even had a whole host of other interviews before that interview.

So, in the grand scheme of things, what’s so special about that particular interview? If you don’t get that job, will the world suddenly stop rotating on its axis? Will it violently spin out of control and crash into the sun? Will life on earth, as we know it, suddenly cease to exist?

Will the aliens land in New Jersey, take over the Garden State Parkway, and force us all to wear those stupid-looking silver jumpsuits? Will I ever stop talking like an old-fashioned soap opera announcer? Okay, I think I’ve gotten that announcer thing out of my system now …. whew!

Look at it this way, this one rejection may only mean that there is a much better job waiting for you around the bend of the river. Don’t you see? You weren’t supposed to get that job because the perfect job is on its way. Just think about the call back that way. If you do, I guarantee you won’t feel as hurt or devastated or disappointed as you did before you read this article.

Trust me, bunky, it’ll all work out just fine and dandy, you’ll see. But, if it doesn’t, I’ll gladly lend you my bowl of tapioca …