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Job hunting today is relentless. You can ace an interview and still hear nothing.
My daughter is in the middle of her search. She approaches it like the hustle it is, and her interview ratio is enviable. She skipped the usual run of student jobs and went straight for proper roles, fearlessly charting her own course. That streak of determination can be challenging when you're the parent on the receiving end, but it's a relief to see it channelled into something that works so well for her. Along the way, she even coached her then-boyfriend into overhauling his CV, which helped him land a better job, too.
Her instincts are spot on. She's already doing many of the things I only figured out years into my career. For the better part of mine, I freelanced in creative fields, sometimes lucratively, sometimes not. Then came the crash course in corporate job applications, complete with its soul-crushing share of vexations. That was an education in itself.
Some of those lessons are worth passing on. If not for her, then for my younger self. Or maybe for someone discouraged by the search. Follow our stories, and take heart.
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It saves a lot of frustration to truly grasp what my daughter seems to know instinctively: if they don’t choose you, it’s never really about you.
They don’t know you and decisions are made for reasons you will never know.
The silence can be brutal. My daughter is unsentimental about rejection. If she doesn’t hear back, in her words, "that’s on them." Resilience plays no small part in her success. It's also about economy of effort: knowing where to put your energy and when it's better spent on the next application than on answers that may never come.
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