When I was applying for internships, grad schemes and even experienced roles, I like everyone else faced rejections in applications. I remember looking at my university tracker and seeing red lines of rejections all over it but what I realised was that there was value in those red lines of rejections which helped me land my internships and grad schemes at some of the biggest companies across Asset Management, Consulting and Insurance.

Think about it - if your job search isn’t going well - the only way you can get out of it is to understand what is holding you back and where you need to improve.

And the key to doing that is getting feedback.

Why is feedback so important? Feedback will help you identify where you are going wrong on your search and give you clarity on what to work on to improve your success rate.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting to see a different result, which applies to your job search. Applying and receiving rejections without trying to understand why that’s the case will only lead to more rejections.

So what you need to focus on is ensuring that you get as much feedback as possible from all your failed applications to help you move forward.

So how do you get feedback? Firstly reach out and email. Unfortunately, you have to be proactive in getting feedback from companies as you’re unlikely to be given feedback without asking due to how busy recruitment teams are. This avenue is more impactful for when you get through to the interview stages as they are more likely to have personalised feedback.

Secondly, diligently track at what stages you are getting rejected. Have a tracker which you can use to track whether you’re failing at the initial CV application, online assessment stage or at the final round interview stage. The data collected will guide you on what area you need to work on. E.g. if 80% of your rejections are at the initial CV application stage then you know you need to focus on that section.

Let me give you a real-life personal example of how I used feedback to help me land my grad job.

As a graduate I fell at the last hurdle for M&A assessment centre for a company in Canary Wharf. It was a tough rejection but I asked for my assessment notes and feedback and the key feedback I got was the need to work on my presentation skills. This was important as I had received the same feedback from a previous interview at RBC. This feedback helped me realise my key areas for improvement. I worked hard on this, using Zoom to record myself and practice my tone and pace. This helped in my Wellington management presentation where I was able to pass my presentation interview in front of senior investment analysts.

So if you take anything away from this, make sure you continue to gather and leverage your feedback - the key to your next job will be found in it.

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