when am i ever going to be employed?

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for making your time for the interview.
We have given it a careful review.

However, we are sorry that we cannot offer you the position at this time.

We wish you every success in your job search.

Rejection is the worst feeling ever. The sight of this email is so devastating.

So the story goes like this:

I applied for a job at Mitsubishi Chemicals from a brochure during the career fair, because it was related to what I was doing in Exxon and I wanna do something I'm familiar with. I got an email and a call for an interview.

It was my first job interview since I started applying for jobs so i was rather excited. I had all my answers well prepared beforehand and I did very well in the first interview with 3 Japanese managers. What surprised me halfway was the fact that it was a position in Japan and they were going to send me to Japan to work in the event I was hired. And I only got to know this during the interview, so I suppressed the 0_0 within me and went through the rest of the interview pretty well. The managers were very happy with my response and I was called for an expected second interview.

Seconds after the interview I was still in culture shock and started a brain hurricane with the idea of working in Japan. There are too many considerations, like my university fees, radiations and earthquake, living expenses etc, although the visions of working in Tokyo tingles my excitement nerve. Ramen, sushi, seasons, learning Japanese for free. An opportunity of a life-time, really. I just had to leave my home and everything for 5 years. A tad too long huh.

The second one came a week after, I didn't expect anything because they have already asked everything they need to in the first one. I would have thought it was about my qualifications and expected salary, but it was with 2 other different managers which I think was more senior management and the same HR manager (who remembers me quite well from the 'how i learnt japanese' answer)

The same question were repeated, but I didn't answer them as well as I did because I see no point in repeating what I have said in the first. Then a series of weird questions came, some were really challenging and not expected of an engineeering company. I stumbled a few, but did okay. Overall I didn't impress them as well as the previous interviewers because they were very serious.

That email was just sent to me on Good Friday. Sighs, whats good about that.

well I think the main reason was that I was a mechanical engineer applying for a sales and marketing job, which I think by Japanese culture is inappropriate (they were quite shocked when i said i wanted to do sales and marketing) because they would expect you to do what you have excelled in school, like mechanical engineering and be an expert in your own field.

But I really wanted to do S&M because I have the experience and qualifications. Or maybe I was too complacent about the smooth first interview that I had lowered the reaction mechanism in my mind.

Oh wells, at least I have kept this known to minimal individuals, there's no need to announce anything. Japan doesn't need me. For now.

Lessons learnt:
- Always emphasize and sell your strong points like experiences and qualifications
- Don't hold too high an expectation
- Never underestimate the interviewing questions. Always prepare for everything.