I Got Rejected. For an Article About How My Dad Died After Years of Job Searching.
Lindsay sobbed while writing the Theory of Hireability piece. A reporter she trusted passed. Business Insider said 'The 5 Principles of Career Ascension would be perfect for our audience.' Same words, different room.
I got rejected. For an article about how my dad died after years of job searching. I'd just laid out my Theory of Hireability inside it.
I sobbed while I wrote it. It was the scariest thing I'd ever published.
My friends and family said send it. So I got brave. Published it on LinkedIn. It took off.
So I sent it to a reporter who'd featured me in March.
She was kind. "We'll pass, but thanks for offering."
I sent the same piece to Business Insider.
They said: "The 5 Principles of Career Ascension would be perfect for our audience. Want to do an 'As Told To'?"
(That's the most epic way to be featured in BI. They publish your IP under their banner.)
The feature went live this weekend.
What you don't see from the outside: BI has the most rigorous standards in journalism. I had to send paystubs from my Amazon days (9 years ago). I had to verify employment from 2001 until now. That's 25 years, for anyone counting.
But the payoff is huge.
Because the piece one person passed on became my biggest feature ever. If you google Theory of Hireability, you'll find it attributed to me. Google trusts it implicitly.
Same words. Different room.
The little girl in the picture is me before life got hard.
Before a company's layoff destroyed my family.
Before my childhood home got foreclosed on.
Before my dad got a terminal cancer diagnosis. Before he died feeling like he had failed his children.
If I could go back to her, I'd say: it's going to be hard. You're going to lose more than you can imagine. And by the end, you're going to get to help thousands of people make sure it doesn't happen to them.
That's what the Theory of Hireability is.
The framework that gets people hired for six-figure remote jobs in a market where qualifications stopped being enough.
Be brave enough to keep going. One person's vote doesn't determine your worth.
You are important. You are worthy. You are brilliant.
I'm proud of you.
For the full framework, read The Why Behind the Theory.
If this hit close to home, come get the whole framework at TheoryOfHireability.com.
