Hunting victim

It was bound to happen sooner or later and now it has. Today I received my first rejection letter or actually: rejection e-mail, paper is just so last century. It's all part of the game called job-hunting, I'm well aware of that, but that doesn't make the process any more fun. And I must say, the first one is a hard hitting one. Not because I particularly had my hopes up for this job but because of the big flashing Neon letters in which the message was brought home to me. You see... I only put in my application yesterday!

I found the position advertised on the website of another one of the big consultancy firms yesterday afternoon. From what I could tell the job looked potentially interesting and the profile encouraging enough. Since only two weeks ago I had already polished and shined my resume for a fairly similar position, my CV didn't need that much tweaking and I sent it off some time late last night. Now of course I can only speculate what happened next but I imagine the scene will have been somewhat like this:

Somewhere in London an alarm clock goes off. It's 7:30 AM and the still slightly groggy company recruitment officer drags herself out of bed. Time for another day at the office! A shower, a bowl of Weetabix and a cup of tea later she gets on the overcrowded tube, wedged in amongst the other city workers for an uncomfortable half hour journey to the office. Once arrived there she pours herself a coffee and has a quick chat with her colleagues. It's just the usual chitchat: men, kids, what happened on Gray's Anatomy this week. Then, just before 9 AM, she turns on her computer and checks the company e-mail account. She glances over the new harvest, opens a standard reply message, adds a name to the heading and presses 'send'.

At exactly 9:01 AM this morning I was informed the company "will not proceed further" with my application. Wow, I don't think I have ever been rejected that rapidly before! I'm sure it must be some sort of record. No waiting, no anticipation, just a lightning fast resounding NO. I get no explanation and worse, am informed that I will not be able to ask for feedback or further comments. Such are the rules of the game. I'm sure this will not have been my last rejection either so I'd better learn to get used to it and develop some thicker skin. I do hope though that the next person considering my application will at least take somewhat longer than a minute before giving me the thumbs down.