What to do when you don't the job

So you've inquired about that dream job. Sent in your resume and cover letter. You get the call for an interview and assume they(HR manager, etc) must like something about you. You meet and greet with the interviewer and some of the staff you might be working with. You have your best interview game-face on and answer all the questions like a real pro. You leave satisfied believing you just aced that interview. Then the call or letter comes informing you that they decided to hire someone else. Surely your disappointed and racking your brain over what happened. You’re left asking yourself, ‘Was it something I said or didn't say?’ That's for another blog post.

So you didn't get the job, now what?

• First and foremost, don't get mad, get gracious. Although its easier said than done, remember you are still a professional, even when things don't go your way. Don't post anything negative about the interview and/or company online. This is one of those times when you need to keep your rant to yourself. Negative or disparaging remarks can come back to bite you in the "ca-reer".
• Send a thank you letter. Send a what? Remember, you're a professional. Thank the interviewer for giving you the opportunity to meet with him or her. They already know you're disappointed, but it shows the good character in you. Keep your letter brief and to the point. There's no need to sell yourself again. A short and simple email or even a phone call may be suffice. Do this for every interview.
• Turn a negative into a positive. Keep interviewer's contact information in your files. Even though you didn't get the job this time doesn't mean you won't be considered for other positions in the future. The contact you saved can be a great source of inside information on upcoming positions. Should you decide to work for yourself, the company you didn't get the job with, could be a possible client for your services.
• Stay in-touch. If the company or interviewer has an account, follow/connect with them on Facebook,Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. This will keep you up-to-date of any changes and developments going on inside. Information you could use in a possible future interview with the company. Its also a good idea to contact the interviewer periodically. Make an effort to send a brief email or even a phone call to say hello. Remind them that you're still job-hunting and still interested in a position with their company. Update the interviewer with any changes in your professional status, i.e. a degree, license, or certification you earned, an award you received, work you may have published, or a professional organization you recently joined. These are all valid reasons for staying in-touch. Reasons which can work in your favor for an up-coming job-opening.

  Some may think of these efforts as a waste for time, particularly for the busy job-hunter, but its these tasks that will pay-off in the long run. By staying in-touch with the interviewer or other company representative, you're keeping your name in the fore-front of other job candidates. Its more likely they will hire you rather than someone they don't know. Should you do this for every single job you interview for? My advice: focus on the companies where you honestly believe you have a real chance of being hired. In reality, there are some companies that are worth the effort more so than others. Only you can make that determination. These tasks are simple, quick, and can be done during the convenience of your free-time.

  Footnote: the truly best jobs within most companies are not advertised in the classifieds and they don't go to strangers.

What movie stars can tell us about marriage

In spite of the many celebrity-splits we see, movie stars may actually hold the key to why people of similar educational backgrounds tend to stay together.

Social scientists have known for years that married people tend to be sorted by their levels of education, but the reasons for it have been elusive. It could be all about money. People may assume that a partner with similar education will have a salary that matches theirs. Or it could have to do with lifestyle factors. Similar education may lead to similar interests in books, music, and hobbies.

On the other hand, sociologists might argue that sorting by education has less to do with personal preference and more to do with who we're likely to meet. People often meet their future spouses in college or grad school. Also, people of similar educational backgrounds tend to end up side-by-side in the workforce, leading to ample opportunities to strike up romance.

Movie star marriages can help sort all this out, according to Gustaf Bruze, an economist at the Aarhus School of Business and Social Sciences in Denmark.

Bruze assembled a large data set of top movie stars' marriages, earnings, and education levels. He found that level of formal education has no correlation with a movie star's success, either in terms of box office earnings or the likelihood of winning an Oscar. Yet despite the disconnect between education and success, movie stars who marry each other still tend to have similar educational backgrounds, Bruze's analysis shows. His data also show that actors are unlikely to meet their spouses in school, or be cast together in movies due to their education level.

The findings suggest that sorting on education isn't all about the money or solely an artifact of professional affiliations. "What it says is that men and women have very strong preferences for nonfinancial partner traits correlated with education," Bruze said. "And educational sorting would remain even if the tendency of men and women to work with colleagues of a similar educational background were to disappear or if the role of educational institutions as a meeting place for future husbands and wives were to disappear."

It also means that if you're looking to marry actor and Ph.D. student James Franco, you might want to hit the books instead of the Hollywood social scenes.

Source: University of Chicago Press Journals, 2011