I’ve been on a roll. Trying to explore a lot more opportunities. My main focus has been on fellowships and short term engagements in the form of seminars or volunteering opportunities.
The motive is to explore more opportunities outside our borders. Also to explore other opportunities other than job opportunities.
But most personal to me is an idea of a 100 rejections this year. A concept I fell in love with after a certain Mosotho writer shared it with me. Why You Should Aim for 100 Rejections a Year — Kim Liao explains it better.
I took the same concept and now I apply it to various opportunities where I might be a perfect fit.
Amazingly, I have had some energy to work on a number of applications more than I did previously. Sent them in. Got feedback on a few. Patiently awaiting feedback on others.
The Application Process
In early 2017, I applied to become a Volunteer for FIFA at the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup and 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. I was keen on becoming part of their ICT Team for both events.
For the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup, I was knocked off early in the selection round. Later in 2017, I got a call up for an interview. My application was progressing further for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Volunteer selection.
A second chance was too much to miss. The interview lasted 30 minutes via Skype and I was notified right away that I nailed it and my application was progressing to the final stage. That meant waiting until March 2018 to be notified of the final selection of volunteers. Looked liked I had waited forever up until I received the final selection results.
The Final Selection
A few days ago I received the decision regarding my application and it wasn’t sweet. However, I felt different about this rejection letter. And I’ve shared it below:
“Dear volunteer candidate,
Thank you for applying to be one of our volunteers at the 2018 FIFA World CupTM.
It will probably not come as a surprise that the high-profile nature of the event resulted in an unprecedented level of interest in this role. We were overwhelmed with the response to the Volunteer Programme and have spent the last year sorting through over 175,000 applications. The standard of applicants has been excellent, but unfortunately, we do not have enough positions to satisfy everyone.
We are sorry to say that we are unable to further your application to become a volunteer. We appreciate this may come as a disappointment and thank you once again for the interest and enthusiasm you have shown.
You passed all the stages of the selection process, but the knowledge, skills and experience of other candidates was likely the factor that swayed our decision.
There are many reasons why an application might not accepted. Often they included, but are not limited to, filling in the application form incompletely or incorrectly, not meeting the language requirements, withdrawn from the event, insufficient skills or experience for the volunteering positions, or an unsuccessful interviews or test. Our decision may have been based on one reason or a combination of them.
We regret that the Local Organising Committee is unable to provide you with results of the tests or interview. At this stage, the Local Organising Committee has completed the selection process for volunteers in all functional areas at the 2018 FIFA World Cup. It is not possible to switch your application to another area.
In the meantime, keep an eye on the FIFA.com website and Welcome 2018 portal, as well as our Facebook pages FIFA World Cup and Welcome 2018 and Twitter feed for updates and more information.
Thank you,
Volunteer Department”
Why am I sharing this?
There’s obviously nothing to celebrate. It’s like losing your soccer betting entry with a single game prediction gone wrong. Rejection sucks. But I’m learning that we can’t always be recognized as the best and we have to continually improve. This is important to me.
At the same time, we can’t undervalue ourselves and sabotage our confidence and feelings of self-worth. A lot of us throw ourselves out there and get exposed to vulnerability. Others don’t. That in itself is worth celebrating.
Sometimes, we have definitely done all we could. Gave our best shot. And still fail.
It’s true for a lot of us who apply for various job vacancies. Sometimes we don’t get call-ups not because we’ve failed our interviews. At times recruitment processes run lengthy debates on maybe picking you or another candidate.
But at times you’d still get hit by, “You passed all the stages of the selection process, but the knowledge, skills and experience of other candidates was likely the factor that swayed our decision.” Flip the table around and get going on another application.
At the same time, we have to embrace transparency and feedback. Obviously that’s hard most of the time. But if the feedback can help us improve then we’ll have to accept it. It’s frustrating if you don’t get that job or chance, but even more so if you don’t know why.
We all deal with rejection. As we pursue more competitive opportunities, it’s wise to never get swayed by it. I agree with Robert Genn that ‘it is necessary to put yourself out for rejection, and accept that you will be rejected.’