8 Strategies for Handling Psychology Job Rejections

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:00

Picture this, you're scrolling through social media and you are met with a cascade of triumphant posts from people who've bagged job offers in the highly coveted roles that you want. Meanwhile, you are left with that sinking feeling that you just didn't quite get what you wanted, but fear not. In today's episode, we are diving headfirst into the turbulent waters of job objections and disappointment in the field of psychology and mental health. Join me as we unpack the highs, the lows, and the learning points involved in each one of those rejection emails. So grab your favourite mug, mine is a herbal tea, and join me as together we dive into this journey of resilience, determination, and self-reflection. Hope you find it so useful.

(: 00:53

Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. I know that this time of year can feel really tricky. It can feel like everybody else is doing it, so why can't I? You might well notice the reference there from a Cranberries album this time of year can feel really challenging. It can feel like everybody else is doing it though. Why can't I? It can lead to self-reflection, self-criticism, and also a dip in mood. Today I'm guiding you through eight consideration points that might help you to reposition yourself and help you bolster some enthusiasm to get through these next months. Firstly, number one, I think it's really important that we normalise this experience. It does feel a lot like rejection and sometimes when you get the emails through, it can feel like you've been kicked in the teeth or in the stomach or both.

(: 01:54

That sense of disappointment, that sense of rejection is really common in psychology and really common in all career fields actually, and I really want to normalise how often this happens. When I got my first assistant psychologist post, for example, it was probably the 50th or 60th assistant psychologist job that I'd applied for maybe more. I didn't keep a note. It would've been helpful to do that, wouldn't it? And I know that it's even more competitive now, and when I got onto clinical psychology doctoral training, that was the third time that I had applied. I know some of you may be listening to this and like, yeah, I'm happy to give it three goes, but this is time number five and I know it's really hard, but we also need to think about when we start applying as well because of course we know the minimum requirements are that you need to have, for example, for clinical psychology, you need to have your degree and they recommend that it's at least a year or two after you got your degree qualification and then you also relevant experience.

(: 03:00

And so if you do start applying before you have that relevant experience, then that's going to be a no, not yet, but it might be that actually you weren't quite ready for that, but even if you are feeling like you are ready, you might still feel like it's your time and you are ready, but you are not getting shortlisted and others are, and that is really hard. I know from my work in supporting aspiring psychologists through the podcast, through the compassionate q and through my Aspiring psychologist membership, that actually the thing that most is predictive of success is perseverance. And I know it's hard. I know it's hard to keep going, and I know it can feel like self-flagellation, self punishment and kind of masochistic that. We don't know whether there will ever be the prize that you seek. But like I said, the one thing we know that makes it more likely is by continuing it hurts.

(: 03:58

I know that, and it's okay to lean into that. It's okay to be sad. Talk to people who are on your team. Talk to people who, and when I say on your team, I don't necessarily mean in your job role. I mean people that get you, people that aren't going to minimise you. People aren't going to squash down. So when people are grieving and somebody might say, oh, well they were quite old, or they had a good innings, or they've had a good life, that's not that helpful, and those might not be the kinds of people that you want to seek support from at that time. We want you to be surrounded by people who get it, who are able to sit with your sadness and don't feel that need to fix it. So make sure you've got some people in your life who can do that.

(: 04:41

So that's our first point. Normalising rejection. I've sort of strayed into the territory for point number two, which is resilience and persistence. Now this can feel dogged. It can feel like really hard work. What I noticed when I was putting together the clinical Psychologist collective and the Aspiring Psychologist collective is that time and time again, people were talking about their resilience. They were talking about their persistence. They were talking about the reflection points that they got from setbacks, from being told no. Even my own experience of being told at undergraduate level that clinical psychology was really, really hard to get and you probably shouldn't bother, go and do something else. I was like, right, right. I like a challenge. I'm resilient. I can do this. Which again is not necessarily the healthiest perspective, but if that's what you are experiencing, again, that is normalising that many of us do do that.

(: 05:45

I'm trying to tell you to do it, but don't do it my way, but I know that you are still human and you're going to be having the same thoughts, feelings, and thought processes that I did because you want it likely as much as I did and as much as I do psychology and this field of psychology and clinical psychology for me is something I'm saying yes to every day still even now, even though I qualified in 2011, and I think that's really my top tip for this resilience and persistence is are you still saying yes to that? If you are still saying yes to that, that's okay. You're choosing that. It's like that old analogy of marriage. You are choosing to keep saying yes to that person that you've married every day and we need to be looking to make sure that that is still a relationship that you want to be in with your pursuit of psychology.

(: 06:37

If it is, then you can keep going, but do make sure that you've got those people around you who help make the journey a little bit more compassionate. Point number three is self-reflection. Take a moment to look back at your job application and if that is a doctoral process, then look back at the form that you applied. Look at it with fresh eyes if you can, to try to be extracted from the process where you're thinking about that as yourself. Of course, by the time that you are coming back to reflect on this, it is likely to have been some months since you applied, so what we would expect is that you would have had new insights, new thoughts, new reflections, new learning objectives, new ways of thinking about things, subsequent supervision sessions or learning experiences with clients that have led you to think about things differently.

(: 07:28

As you look at your form, look at what you would do differently. Is everything you've written powerful, punchy? Have you written too much about something? Have you not left enough room to talk about other things? Sometimes we can be a little bit more succinct, which means we can get more bang for our buck in our application forms. As part of this reflection section, it might be that you can invite feedback from other people as well. Perhaps somebody else that has either been successful or hasn't been successful, maybe even your supervisor or manager or other people in your team who have a valid and useful viewpoint. It can be useful as well to get people who are non-expert to look at your form as well, to make sure that it makes sense from a common sense perspective, but also that it's interesting. We can forget that it's supposed to be an interesting thing to read.

(: 08:26

It isn't just all supposed to be, I don't know, formulaic and doom and gloom and boring. It's supposed to be interesting. It's supposed to be engaging and you might well find it helpful to listen back to the episode I did with Nikita where she talks about some of the lively ways that she perked up her form and that episode was called How to Get Onto Clinical Training in Record Time or something like that. We mustn't forget of course, that we do learn things from experiences that don't go our way. It feels like a little bit of an excrement sandwich that you feel like you are having to learn stuff from the stuff that goes well to make it more palatable. I really do think we can learn from the things that we don't get. It makes me think of when you are looking for something and you might say, and it was in the last place I looked, well of course it was in the last place you looked because then you stopped looking because you'd found it, but it's what do we find?

(: 09:23

What do we discover along the way? Might well help us put strategies in place so that we don't lose our keys, for example, so that we can make our next experience of applying more frictionless. We're not wasting time, we're being more purposeful, we're being more focused. We are having less chance for setbacks. It's that process of errorless learning that you might well have learned about in your undergraduate or your A level studies. That's what we're looking to do here. We are looking to make this job application, job interview experience as friction free as possible so that the next time we've got a better chance of success. Point number four is exploring alternatives. Now, I know I said that resilience and determination was important, but you also matter and it might be that you decide to down tools for a bit that you decide to go and do something different.

(: 10:24

You decide to go travelling or to explore something different and then come back to psychology at the later stage. Or it might just be that you decide actually clearly this job role that I've got at the moment isn't helping me develop or grow in the way that I need to. Or maybe I have developed and grown as much as I can from this job role and it's time to think about broadening to a different clinical area or to a more clinically relevant area or experience. Maybe you can move to a job where you are supervised by a qualified psychologist. Maybe you can move to a job where it's a training role, and whilst that might mean that you are tied in for a little bit for a few years because perhaps you've accessed higher education England funding, it might still be worth it in the long run because of what you learn and how you're able to use those skills to make sure that ultimately you are successful.

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Maybe you could look at maybe making your role so that you've got capacity to be able to engage in a different part-time, hopefully paid role money is important. It does make your life that bit easier to manage, but maybe there's potential for you to drop down to be able to give you more capacity for learning about different clinical areas, different clinical populations within your same 37 and a half hours a week. Now, I will level with you having done split posts, it does feel like you are doing more than a whole time equivalent role, so you need to go into that with your eyes open as well. But you do learn so much in the early months of a new role, and I remember when I was in training that you have such a rapid expansion of knowledge, skills and expertise in those early days, weeks and months.

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You feel like maybe you plateau by the time you're reaching the end of the placement, you feel like you're probably getting into your stride by the end of the six months. Really probably as much as you're going to learn about that clinical population has come in those first few months I would say, and in those formative conversations that you will have with your clinical supervisor, with your manager, with the people around you. So could you broaden your experience to include another job role? Hopefully, like I said, a paid job role. If you are considering honoree work, please do check out my recent video on why honoree roles are problematic when we are considering broadening our repertoire, our job search, then the Aspiring Psychologist collective book can be really, really useful in that because in that people discuss the job roles they've applied for, people discuss the job roles they've had, and if we don't know what the job titles are, it can be really difficult to search for them. So you might well find that to be a useful read. Now let's have a quick break and I will be back along very soon.

Jingle Guy (: 13:43

I way so many learn so many

Dr Marianne Trent (: 14:15

Welcome back along. Do these jingles get stuck in your head in the way that they do mind? How are you finding this podcast? I would love your feedback. I would love to have your voice on the podcast telling me about your experiences with the podcast or with the membership or even with the free compassionate q and as or with the Clinical Psychologist Collective book or the Aspiring Psychologist collective book. Please do get in contact with me. You can go to my website www.goodthinkingpsychology.co uk slash podcast and you can learn there how to leave me an audio testimonial or just drop me a voice note on Instagram or LinkedIn and we can go from there. And please also do take a moment to rate the podcast if you are listening on Spotify and if you are listening on Apple Podcasts, please do rate and review the podcast as it helps us to reach a wider audience.

(: 15:15

And one of the most beneficial things you can do for me for free, which takes you less than a nanosecond, is to click subscribe or follow on the platform that you are watching or listening to this on. So in the first half of this episode, we were looking at my top four ways for navigating your way through that sense of, oh no, everyone else is getting the job offers that I want. And I'm going to be bringing you four more reflection and thought points around this hot, painful ouchie topic number five, and it is looking after your wellbeing. I know this is really hard. I know that it feels like your whole life is on hold and I know that this is something that you really, really want, but the importance of talking about that with people who get it, but also people who just love and adore you is so important.

(: 16:16

Do other things as well as psychology, have other hobbies, know that it's okay to pursue those. So I only really got into exercise probably about four years ago, but I really wish I'd got it sooner because actually I really enjoy running and weight training and it really helps me manage everything that I've got going on. You might not be into running, you might not be into weight training, but hopefully there's some other form of exercise, maybe something that helps you do mindfulness as well, like yoga or Pilates, something that gets your heart racing but can give you space to do something different. Something where you are immersed in that moment and when you're lifting a really heavy weight, you can't really think about anything else. So that is the beauty of it, giving you a transformation of giving you a break. And actually sometimes when I'm in a really bad mood and I go and see my personal trainer, I just feel different afterwards because I've used my body and I've used my mind in a very different way and it just alters my whole being, my whole, the way I kind of spring out of there after that.

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It is transformative. And so please do consider whether exercise, and this is ability inclusive as well, whatever your level of ability is, there is something you can do that stretches your body, that stretches your mind, that gives you a best chance of using it as a wellbeing activity. Please do know that. I get it. This is really hard. One of the really great things about the Aspiring Psychologist membership is that other people are around who get it just like you do and who aren't going to try and cheer you up who just are able to sit with you. So please do consider whether the Aspiring Psychologist membership might also be a really great way of looking after your wellbeing, but also of helping you maximise your chances of success in future. Point number six is networking and professional development. Now, of course, networking is something that I do really well on LinkedIn, so do come over and connect with me on there, get involved in my comments, get involved in sharing the posts and liking them of having conversations with people in the comments as well.

(: 18:45

That's where the gold happens. That's where many of the guests for the podcast come from is from interesting conversations on LinkedIn. And when we follow people who inspire us, it can lead us to have different ways of thinking about tackling our problems. I love LinkedIn. I know I talk about LinkedIn all the time, but I really do see it as a brilliant professional networking site. But regardless of what stage of your career you are at get on LinkedIn because I honestly believe it will help you get there quicker. But LinkedIn isn't the only way to network and to think about broadening your business relationships. You can go to conferences, you can go to training events. They might well be something that's funded for you by your employer, but you may still have to search for that yourself. Sometimes these opportunities don't just end up in your email inbox.

(: 19:43

You could consider joining the British Psychological Society if that's something you felt like you wanted to do, and they will send you any relevant networking or training events. They are not free. I am part of the Association for Clinical Psychology as well, the ACP and their events. Once I am a member, they are free, but I don't actually think you can register as an undergrad. Let me just check that out for you. So I've just had a little look. And the CP is only available through trainees, psychologists, or qualified clinical psychologists or those that want to be affiliated but aren't eligible for full registration. But you might well find it useful to go to local research meetings or trust events that are happening, local aspiring psychologist meetings in your trust, maybe set your own up invite interesting people to come and talk to you.

(: 20:38

And that's something I've done for assistant psychologist groups as well. You can create what you want to see or you can come on board to already available. Having conversations is a key part of being a psychologist, and so don't be afraid to do it. Do connect with people on LinkedIn, do follow people, do the same on Instagram. Just engage, be interested and learn. Point number seven is that we are setting realistic expectations. We are pacing ourselves. We are knowing that actually maybe applying for a doctorate when you are one month out of finishing your degree or perhaps when you are in the middle of a two or three year master's study programme might not be that realistic. It's not always impossible. It isn't always impossible, but pacing yourself and making sure that really this is your time and you are ready for this next step can be really, really important.

(: 21:40

And I have had very recent experiences with people who maybe applied to courses all over the UK and maybe were offered one furthest from their home and maybe they wish that they declined it because actually the realities of living so far away from your support systems and everything isn't always as rosy as you might have expected. So really be realistic when you are thinking about which courses, which job offers you want to apply to. And you might well have been in my world for a little while and you might well have recall that I've already spoken about my experiences kind of burning out, crying on the stairs. I was applying to job offers in Birmingham in the Lake District in Nottingham, and I was living in between Northampton and Milton Keynes, and it's just a lot. You can't do it all. And so just being realistic with yourself, giving yourself the kindest journey that you can and the most compassionate is so important.

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There is no guarantee in this field, but what we know is that by keeping our hand in and trying to learn, trying to grow, trying to develop, trying to take on feedback from people that we trust and value and respect can improve your chances. Practise reflection, practise vulnerability in your supervision sessions, and that will hopefully pay rich dividends, lust, but not least, we have point number eight and it's celebrating those small wins. On my computer, I have a folder that I call the smile file, and it's whenever I get something nice happen to me or said about me or things I think about myself, I add it in there so that while I'm feeling like I've got a little bit of a low ebb, I can go along to that and reflect on things have been enjoyable, maybe things that I've got to look forward to as well.

(: 23:49

My sister-in-Law is a big advocate of using her fridge to display lists of things that she's got coming up that feel really exciting, and that might well be something you can use as a mood board. Use an aspiration. If your aspiration is to be a qualified clinical psychologist or trainee, clinical psychologist or educational psychologist or forensic psychologist, for example. Then you can set that. You can put that on your fridge as a, not necessarily as a manifestation technique, but to remind yourself day after day, where you're going, where you are heading to and why. So yes, celebrating and goal setting is 0.8. I hope you have found this useful. I would love any thoughts that you have got come along and connect with me on social media. I'm Dr. Marianne Trent everywhere. If you're watching this on YouTube, let me know in the comments what you think to this episode.

(: 24:44

Please do like share, tell your friends, do subscribe, do all those good things, and please do check out my back catalogue of free q and a sessions, the compassionate q and a. I'm on your team. I would like to be able to support you more, but I need to know how to do that. So if there's something that you would like do, get in contact, do let me know. Please, if you do find these episodes helpful, please do leave me an audio testimonial. If you've read the books, please do leave me a Good Reads or Amazon review. It's so welcomed. Be kind to yourself. This is not an easy process, but I know it is worthwhile, at least for me, because every day I am still choosing to say yes to psychology. Thank you so much for being part of my world. Be kind to yourself and I'll see you for the next episode, which we'll be landing at 10:00 AM on Saturdays on YouTube, and 6:00 AM on Mondays for the MP3 Take Care. Bye.