Let me tell you about my experience.

I worked tirelessly at a Fortune 500 company for almost 15 years. Constantly telling myself, “Someday, they will see my experience and promote me”. Well, that never happened. Throughout those years, I interviewed for various senior-level positions. I sent out hundreds of resumes and cover letters and spent weeks prepping and going through days-long interview processes.

I remember my last interview experience with that company. It was for a management position (which I knew I was overqualified for based on my expertise and knowledge of the company). I interviewed with the team for about 16 hours over two days. Don’t get me wrong, everyone was friendly, and this was the dream company I had worked at for more than half my life, but it was exhausting. I contacted the recruiter multiple times over the next month looking for feedback, being completely ghosted. Finally, after about five weeks, he got back to me, but instead of feedback, I received the dreaded, “They decided to go with someone else.”

I was deflated, defeated, and felt worthless like the last 15 years had been for nothing. I know what it’s like going through the job hunting process and investing all this effort and getting zero input back – not able to learn from the failure. The lack of feedback causes you to lose self-confidence and have anxiety, and the longer you don’t find your dream job, the more severe the toll.