Shots on Goal

    I've used the analogy before, but job searching is truly the definition of a roller coaster ride; It has it's ups and downs and bumps in between, it's both thrilling and terrifying and sometimes it makes you want to vomit and other times it's exciting and fun. Last week, my best friend rode full-speed into the low, sickening blows of the roller coaster and got rejected from the job that everyone was sure she would get. She had the qualifications, the network connections, the experience, and the passion on top of a carefully composed cover letter and a phone interview that left her confident and glowing. I was already preparing myself for losing my best friend to her new research job in Wyoming...too far away from me in my selfish taste, but cheering her on all the same. She was the perfect candidate, the job was hers. That is, until five days later when she received the most generic of rejection emails--not even getting the courtesy phone call she was promised.
    Her eyes welled with tears as she read the note that clearly was the same to everyone who had applied, her name stamped at the top, and ending with a dangling, "good luck in the future" leaving her feeling slightly shattered and even more hopeless. "If I can't get the job that I'm qualified for and have personal connections to, how am I going to ever get any job?" she bemoaned. I, usually full of cliches, quotes, and comforting advice, was at a loss for words. She was right. She should have gotten that job...now what? More disappointing news from other friends, made for quite the pity party/ben & jerry's feast in my townhouse living room last night. My friend Heather finally burst out with her own, homemade analogy. "Guys, it's like playing soccer," she urged. "Sometimes you have to take 10 shots on goal to make just one. But every time you make that shot, you think it's going to go in, it has to. Sometimes, a lot of times, it doesn't go in. But you know that  you'll eventually get the ball into the net, make that goal--that's why you keep playing the game." We all burst out in laughter from her sudden, motivational soapbox speech. But she was right, and her words were perfect. We resolved to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and start taking  more shots on goal and that was the end of the self-pitying...though we did finish the ice cream.




P.S. Less than 9 weeks to graduation. ahhhh!
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