“I Didn’t Get An Interview Offer…”
7 Lessons For Students Who Don’t Just Want to Deal With The Rejection, But Turn It Into Their Strength
This message is going to apply for all grads across disciplines, but for context:
I wrote this because today, a very niche thing called ‘GEMSAS Interview Offers’ came out for students, who have waited an entire year, possibly sat the gruelling medical entrance exam multiple times and worked incredibly hard over the course of their undergrad university degree, to find out whether or not they moved onto the next stages of achieving their dream in pursuing postgraduate medicine… sort of like the pre-season draft pick of the med world?!
As someone who (honestly… kind-of just happened to and never planned to be) running a postgraduate medicine entrance tuition service (which quite literally boils down to helping students get an interview offer on this very day), experiencing GEMSAS Interview Offers days for the first time, I had no idea that Halad, this morning, would be so manic. 😳
We received a flood of messages of students absolutely elated and on absolute cloud-9 with getting an interview, but also a stream of calls from students who were beside themselves, balling their eyes out because they got rejected this year.
Naturally, we’d all be inclined to congratulate the first and be sorry for the second. But actually… after a ton of long conversations with devastated students I can truly say… congratulations to both. 🙌
Congratulations to students who received an offer because you all, indeed, did work incredibly hard and…
Congratulations to students who didn’t receive an offer because you now have the opportunity to turn the rejection, pain and loss into a strength that nobody can ever take away.
And I write this because (and not many people actually know this about my journey but) although I never expected to end up running a company in the medicine entrance space, there was a time when I did think being a doctor and medicine was the-be-all-and-end-all. I have quite literally been in your exact same shoes and received a rejection letter from (the undergrad version of) med school myself after maxing out the high school ATAR and a perfect score in biology (which, as a 17-year-old aspiring to be the next Dr Christina Yang, was hard to fathom how that was not good enough for an interview).
At the time, it was devastating…like run-to-the-park-and-cry-to-the-ducks-by-the-pond kind of devastating (and, upon reflection, just objectively sad😅).
But 5 years on, after many worse rejections, falls and challenges, as well as triumphs, successes and just really freaking big wins to be now running an incredible NFP on a 10X-in-6months growth trajectory quite literally is at the brink of making a real difference in global health education at age 22… I can truly say that: as hard as it is to digest right now ‘things truly to happen for a reason’ and I could not be more grateful for the opportunity to have been rejected a few years ago and turn that into growing exponentially ever since.
So here are the 7 HARD LESSONS I want to share with students who don’t just want to deal with rejection, but go through to the process of turning it into their strength:
1. YOU’RE HURTING BECAUSE YOU CARE
Accept that rejection hurts. That you feel like the world beneath your feet has just shattered into a million pieces, you can viscerally feel a void in your heart where your hopes and dreams once stood and you cry at the very thought of not being where you had planned next year.
Yep, literally been there, done that. But y’alllll…it’s okay.
Take the time to feel hurt and feel sad… you’re only hurting because you care. Not because you’re weak or fragile or not-good-enough, but because you care.
2. SEPARATE FAILURE OF AN ACHIEVEMENT FROM FAILURE OF YOURSELF
(Side note: I truly think this one is the difference between those who grow linearly and those who grow exponentially to a point on unstoppability [not a word, I know, but you get my point] )
No matter how many times you fail at something, you yourself are not a failure.
People who know and believe this are going to be the unstoppable ones in the long run.
3. YOU HAVEN’T LET ANYONE DOWN
…especially your parents.
Let me give you 2 scenarios, read this out and you’ll hear a world of difference:
Scenario 1: ‘My son/daughter got accepted into the med school of his/her dreams’
Scenario 2: ‘Even though she missed getting in the first time… My son/daughter didn’t give up because of that and after trying really hard again got accepted into the med school of his/her dreams’
(Not discounting the achievements of students who did get in the first time round but…)
The first scenario makes you feel happy for the child.
The second scenario makes you feel truly proud of the child for not just achieving their dreams, but more so for demonstrating the qualities of dedication and determination in real life which is the best reward you can ever give those who raised you.
So you haven’t let anyone down by receiving a rejection, you’re half way to making them proud!
4. DENYING THE FACT IS DENYING YOURSELF FROM GROWTH
Hardest thing to do at the time of rejection is not to ‘be bitter’ and try to ‘be better’. Not to start blaming this or that, come up with your conspiracy theories that the selection process was rigged AF or the examiner was bias AF… trust me, I know. The blame game is the human default mechanism of seeking comfort in something that we can not control.
Denying the fact is denying yourself from feeling uncomfortable, and as I always say to our Halad students, it is those who let themselves feel uncomfortable and be in confronting situations who are the ones who will grow.
So once you’re doing blaming XYZ, sit in the uncomfortableness of accepting the current reality/situation and you’ll for sure figure out the next steps from there.
(Practical Tip for this: Vent it all out by writing a letter to the person/people you are holding the blame on (don’t actually send it of course), give it a day before you read it back and I promise you, with even just a day of time, you’ll be able to hear how potentially irrational you sound in blaming this person for simply something you cannot control)
5. HOW SOCIETY MAKES US THINK AGE IS A BIG THING
It’s not.
Jack Ma (the richest man in China) was 35 by the time he started Alibaba.
Vera Wang (the world class wedding gown designer) was 40 be the time she opened her first bridal boutique.
Martha Stewart (the goddess of household cook books) was 41 by the time she published her first book.
Colonel Sanders was 65 by the time he started licensing his ‘chicken idea’, also known as, KFC.
So if you’re going to compare yourself, by a success:by-what-age ratio, as society often depicts how success is measured by… then at least use an unbiased sample size of people beyond the select few incredibly young and successful people the media like to feed us just because it gets reader’s attention.
Even better, compare yourself to your own timeline and not somebody else’s… and you’ll see that, worst case scenario, you’ll just be 12 months older when you planned to have your first child or 12 months wiser than your peers when you start.
So, the age thing… not a big deal.
6. REJECTION BUILDS CHARACTER
As tough as dealing with rejection can be, boy oh boy is it great for building character.
You can’t tell who someone truly is when things are on the rise, you can only tell who someone truly is when the going gets tough. How someone decides to act, perceive things, take the pain and make it a learning lesson, recover, thrive… These are all options and it is what option someone takes post-rejection that builds their true character.
So by all means, this opportunity you’ve been given to reflect on what kind of person you want to be bouncing back from rejection is far and in large, a massive advantage for you in the long run. Even when we’re interviewing our applicants to volunteer on our mission trips, you can immediately tell who has as story with real substance and learning to talk about and those who don’t… and there is a massive advantage for those who have come out the other end of a set back.
7. CONTINUE TO SERVE AND HELP REGARDLESS
The whole point of getting into med school, getting that job, that role… whatever it may be, was never really the job or role itself, but to use that platform for a bigger purpose of serving others and helping the community.
Think about your ‘Why Med?’ response. You probably wanted to get in so bad to be able to help others with their health at the end of the day… so why would you stop doing just that?
Continue to serve regardless… it might just look a bit different for now.
If you made it this far — damn you were already miles ahead of the stubborn 17-year-old me who was too upset to take on advice after being rejected. Like I said earlier… as hard as it is to digest right now ‘things truly to happen for a reason’ and it’s only when you read this back a few weeks, months, years from now, with the privilege of hindsight, will it all make sense.
So for students who didn’t receive an offer today and read through all this, I’m not sorry for you… I’m sorry for the recruiters who didn’t see your true value just yet and I’m glad that you now have the opportunity to make this a defining moment and strength of yours that can never be taken away.
Always feel free to reach out if you ever need: eliza@haladtohealth.org
Yours Truly,
Eliza Li
Co-founder & Managing Director, Halad to Health
