After conducting some research on a potential candidate, you've gathered enough information to craft a personalized email in an attempt to reach out. Filled with optimism, you hit the Send button and waited patiently. Instead of a favorable response, all you heard were the mocking sound of crickets.

To be honest, upfront rejection would have been so much better compared to having no response at all. The former provides closure and at the very least, feedback on what you can impove upon. The latter? It kept you in the dark. Was it your pitch? Was it the right email? What went wrong? Who knows.

Having received the same old cookie cutter templated reach out, I thought I could do better as a recruiter. But from time to time, I do wonder if the effort is justified. Based on my experiment, there's not much difference between sending personalized email versus a generic template. That gap in not knowing what went wrong or why you're not getting results can really put you in a miserable spot. And it's easy for people to say things like

See? That's what we've been trying to tell you. It's a number's game. Send a 100 email, hopefully someone would respond. It's just bruteforce and luck.

Knowing myself, it's not exactly the kind of answer that I would settle for. At the same time, that's not the point. The question is, how do you prevent yourself from falling into that endless loop of misery?

It all comes down to perspective. Getting ignored, ghosted or rejected is just part of the life of a recruiter. You can't exactly run away from it so your best bet is to embrace it. Your goal here is not to get attached to the outcome. That's exactly the type of expectation that would drain you out emotionally. How are you going to function from day to day if you're just focusing on all the people that never got back to you? Exactly. You can't.

And think of it this way. You're operating in a candidate driven market. Like any market, the law of supply and demand applies. You could have crafted the best email in the world but it would be pointless if someone is not looking out for opportunities The least they could do is reply back with a no, right? Sure, that would be great. Except, it doesn't matter at all. That's out of your control. Having a clear call to action, sticking to your process, those are things that you can control. Focus on that instead.

Is it going to be easy? Definitely not. There will be days where it does get to you. It all comes down to how you choose to handle it. For me, going out for a run seems to do the trick, apart from just writing my thoughts on a notepad. The idea is to vent / let it out by finding the right outlet to do so.

There's no reason for you to hold back. Who knows, it could build up to something that's less than what you bargained for. The last thing you want is to accidentally lash out on others from all those latent frustration.

Such is the life of a recruiter but hey, you chose it in the first place. Rejection is tough but the battle begin and end in your mind. Change your relationship with it, for it's going to be your best friend and your daily meal every single day.

Take a deep breathe and smile.

Embrace it.