Being rejected by jobs you didn’t even want.
BEING REJECTED BY JOBS YOU DID’T EVEN WANT.
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We all arrived at these hallowed institutions with a certain narrative ingrained: hard work, good grades, an Ivy degree, and then, success, neatly packaged. For years, campus life was a curated bubble, a challenging but largely predictable path of academic rigor and extracurricular triumphs. We excelled, we networked, we built impressive resumes, confident that the world would simply unfold as planned.
Then comes the ‘weird transition’ – that abrupt shift from campus comfort to career chaos. The job hunt after Ivy is not the smooth ascent we pictured. Suddenly, you’re navigating opaque application portals, enduring endless interviews, and facing a reality far messier than any academic challenge. The pressure intensifies, not just to land a job, but to land the ‘right’ job, the one that justifies the past four years and the perceived expectations.
But here’s the kicker: the unique sting of being rejected by jobs you didn’t even want. You submitted that application to a niche corporate role only because it was vaguely in your field, or because a recruiter emailed you, or just to keep busy. You knew it wasn’t your dream. Yet, when that rejection email lands, it still hits. That’s the bizarre reality. It’s not about the job itself, but the unexpected blow to an ego accustomed to winning, a reminder that the post-Ivy world plays by different rules. You are not alone in feeling this. It is a shared, bizarre rite of passage.
Embrace the messiness. Your path is your own. It’s okay to feel disoriented.
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