You apply and you keep getting rejections! And you want to know why? 

 

To be honest this conversation was so relieving for me at least and I didn’t know I needed it but I am glad I talked to Julie. My recommendation, somebody wants to talk to you, go for it; you never know what you will learn from that person and vice versa. 

I was so desperate to know why I keep getting rejected for most of the jobs I was apply to. 

This is the conversation I had with Julie, the woman whom I liked after this conversation. Julie was working in a one of the reception centres for asylum seekers in Belgium. 

I lived in this place and I wasn’t fluent with the language as I was new in this country; but I felt it was time for me to leave the place and go somewhere in a big city where more things are moving than here. Nothing is moving in this part of the country. I bet it is until today the day you are reading this. 

We talked a little on different things; what I wanted, how I see the future and what I am trying to do to realise my future dreams. She was so reasonable that I asked her the big question. 

I THINK I don’t understand the job market here in Belgium, tell me something that I don’t understand yet because I don’t understand why I keep getting rejected even on jobs I am more than qualified to get. 

She was so honest I can tell you.

Look, we can’t ignore that some racism might have a hand into this, and some people are not yet open. Some part of the country, mostly in small villages like this, some people still think, ‘a refugee, he must be dumb as everybody else, so NO to his CV’. And some managers would look at your name and see your address and realise you are still an asylum seeker, and they are like, we are not yet sure about this guy, he is still in his dossier. WE don’t want to get involved into all this. 

I was relieved to hear this! 

The conversation  went on and we covered something important. 

She was so honest and said. 

I want to tell you something: I can see you’ve figured what you future is going to be like when you get out of this whole mess but now, take a step back and focus on today/now. What you can do today that will eventually help you to get there, to get to the future YOU, your future dream life.

I thought, this is amazing that she can sense and think in my shoes and figure out what I should be focusing on from now on. I can say that she is good for the job she was doing. The cherry on top, she was so ambitious that she wanted to continue climbing the ladder of hierarchy in her area of interest. 

After she told me what is her ‘end goal’ or her dream job, I was so happy that now I can see that we can talk. I was like … yeah.. ‘NOW WE TALKING’. Have you ever talked to someone for quite some time and then out of blue he says something and you are ‘yeah now we are talking’. That was my feeling. 

No hard feelings, NO ONE CARES! Accept the reality and just move on but never stop playing your role in this. 

 

— Jado