How to Handle Rejection and Stay Resilient in Your First Year as a Recruiter

If you’ve just started your career in recruitment, let me share a hard truth: you’re going to face more rejection in your first year than you probably ever have before.

Candidates won’t call you back.

Clients will turn down your CVs.

Offers will fall through at the last minute.

Some days, it will feel like all you hear is ‘no.’

But here’s the good news, rejection isn’t a sign you’re failing, it’s proof you’re doing the job.

Every recruiter, no matter how experienced, faces the same challenges. The difference between those who burn out and those who build long, successful careers isn’t talent or luck…

It’s resilience.

In this blog, we’ll explore why rejection is such a normal part of recruitment, how to reframe it so it doesn’t knock you off course, and the practical steps you can take to bounce back stronger every time you hear ‘no.’

Rejection is inevitable

Recruitment is a numbers game, for every placement, you will face dozens of no’s.

Some will be a verbal no, and others will be the silent type. It could be a prospect saying no on a cold call, a client rejecting a CV, candidates ghosting, offers rejected or last minute drop outs. All of these are hard to take, especially when you aren’t getting any placements to cancel them out.

Unfortunately, this is just part of the job, and all recruiters, new and experienced, will face these on a regular basis.

Reframing rejection

One of the first things I do when I’m coaching recruiters is discuss the idea of reframing.

Reframing can be used for lots of different aspects of recruitment. In this case, when I talk about reframing, I’m talking about changing your perception of what rejection is. Instead of seeing a no as a rejection, you see it as a data point.

If you take it as rejection, then you will end up being buried by rejection and start to lose motivation, confidence and excitement. Viewing it as a data point helps you to analyse what you are doing. You can start to look at all of the time you have been told no, and start to find patterns. Are there any trends and commonalities with your rejections? You can then see where you need to refine your approach.

If you are seeing lots of rejections after your ‘pitch’ on a cold call, then maybe you need to revisit your script. Or if your CVs never convert to interviews, then maybe your candidate matching is off, or your presentation needs work.

Using these data points will help you to refine your process and increase your chances of success.

Practical Strategies to Build Resilience

Every successful recruiter has come through the first year of recruitment, and the never-ending sea of rejection.

This was just because they got lucky, or because they just simply don’t get affected by it. Every recruiter gets angry, despondent or frustrated by rejections, it’s just part of the game. They just seem to not be affected because they have found an their way of dealing with it.

There is no one way to deal with it, so find a way that works for you.

Here are some practical methods that I have used and helped recruiters to implement.

Debrief Every ‘No’

Look at every rejection. What happened? Why did they say no? When did they say no? What can you learn from it? How can you adjust your process to increase your chances of avoiding this no again?

This is often hard for recruiters to do. You need to allow yourself to be honest and vulnerable. It is easy to just put it on the client or candidate and say that there was nothing that you could do. I obviously understand that not every one will say yes, but there are things that can be done to gain full clarity over the situation, or turn a no int a maybe or a no for now.

With this approach, you should take notes after the rejection to help with reflection and spot patterns.

Track Wins as Well as Losses

Some days it seems like all you got was no after no after no. It can be hard to remember the small wins that you had throughout the day.

I always encourage recruiters to keep a log of all the small wins that happen. When you look back at your day, you will be able to see everything that went well that day. It’s easy to recall all the failed cold calls, or CV rejections, it’s not so easy to remember the time that you nailed your cold call opener and got through to a prospect, or when you had a great conversation and overcame some objections and turned the no into a maybe.

Make sure that you document them and review it when you are starting to face a wall of no.

Develop Bounce-Back Rituals

You will have seen it happen, all of a sudden as if from no-where, someone in the office will jump up and shout at the screen or phone. They have hit their limit of rejection and lose control of their emotions. At first it shocks everyone, then it makes people laugh, then it happens again and it’s not as funny this time. This time it hits a little differently. Someone lese then does it. The office vibe is starting to change. It’s no longer a focused office that is powering through and generating great activity. It now feels like there is a dark cloud overhead and you start to feel the rejections hit you harder. You start to change your tone and approach to your calls. You can feel the emotions growing and you feel yourself getting closer and closer to being the next one to have an outburst.

Not having an emotional reset strategy is a shortcut to failure. Finding your reset strategy and make sure that you take time to use it. It could be something as simple as going to make a coffee, or taking a quick walk around the block. It could even be a song that always picks you up, or reading some motivational quotes. It doesn’t matter what it is for you, what matters is finding it and using it. By ignoring it and powering through will make you carry the negativity through to you]r next call which will eventually build and take over.

You need to have a reset to be able to start each call motivated, excited and positive.

Lean on Your Team / Mentor

A problem shared is a problem halved.

Lean on your team, your buddy or your team leader. Share your rejections, talk them thorough. You will be able to find the learning opportunity in the rejection. You may even be able to swap rejection stories and I bet they have a worse one that makes yours seem insignificant.

You will quickly see that rejection is normal and that it happens to everyone. It will help you see that it’s not just you, even the top biller will face rejection regularly. You will feel less isolated and you may even learn how to avoid it next time.

That’s what your team is there for, leaning on each other when you need help.

Keep Perspective

One rejection can feel huge when you are new.

You may have had a bunch of bad calls and been hot with a big no on every one of them. Yeas it doesn’t feel great, and feels like you are failing, but don’t lose sight of the end goal. Your goal isn’t to win every call.

Your goal is to build pipelines and relationships with your prospects and clients.

So yes you may have got a no on this call, but you still have an opportunity to leave the call with a positive. Focus on how you can build the relationship, even if just a little. How can you build your pipeline from this call?

Just because the call wasn’t a complete success, you can still take something form it.

The long term pay off

Building resilience is key if you want to have a long successful career in recruitment.

As I have mentioned, you will hear no far more than you will hear yes. Building resilience will help you to maintain your positivity and motivation throughout the day, the week , the month, the year. You will be able to build relationships, win clients and create pipeline with clients who originally said no.

This resilience will build your confidence, which intern will provide you with the opportunities to be consultative. You will have great conversations with prospects and clients. They will start to see that you are an essential asset to their success. They will value you, your time and your service. You will be able to turn a no into a yes.

This will help you build out your client base and pipeline as you will have a huge database of clients. This database of clients will bring you more vacancies and more opportunities to place candidates.

All of this will provide consistency and stop the feast or famine of recruitment.

Resilience isn’t something that you either have or don’t, it’s a skill.

Just like all skills, you can learn it, improve it and perfect it. You just need to be intentional about it. You won’t just become resilient.

It takes time and effort, but it is worth it.

Rejection will always be part of the job, but it doesn’t have to knock you down.

Resilience grows with time; what feels crushing in month one will barely register in year two.

Look back at your last rejection, what can you learn from it and apply today?