Hannah encourages everyone about starting careers and getting into the creative industry….

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Breaking into any creative industry is incredibly difficult. Anyone and everyone will tell you this, from careers advisors at uni, to the non verbal expressions you’re greeted with when telling others you studied a Filmmaking degree, to even your friends who although want to help you, are often unaware of just how much time, effort and money goes into your creative work.  There’s no set route into the industry, and when you’re doing something you love, it doesn’t feel like work. Which is probably the reason why it’s SO frustrating to receive daily rejections and feel like you’re not progressing – in such a competitive industry full of talented people it can be hard to stay motivated, but there are ways to turn the seemingly endless job hunt into a positive journey. Over the next few weeks, I’ve decided to share some of my top tips and bits of advice I’ve come to learn whilst struggling to get my own foot in the door within the Film/TV industry – things that hopefully will be beneficial for some of you to read about too 🙂

1. TURN REJECTION INTO MOTIVATION

Yes it sounds impossible. And I’m probably the worst at taking my own advice on this, but if I really think about it it’s something I’ve learnt and that’s helped me to stay positive. I’ve gone through a stage recently where I apply for as many things as I can, and expect to hear nothing in return. If I do, it genuinely comes as a bit of a (nice) surprise, and I can then take the time to focus on it instead of having spent the in between weeks worrying about the outcome. I’m not sure this is the best approach to take, but ultimately everyone who wants a creative career has to be able to take rejection and learn to accept it (and often regularly). My top piece of advice for dealing with rejection, though, is this:

If the worst happens, and you do get a rejection, ask yourself why? Read emails carefully and if feedback is offered, always take it. Noone likes to hear negatives about themselves, but more often than not there is something positive within a rejection , and these are worth looking out for. I’ll always remember the one time I went for an internship interview that I really wanted – convinced myself I’d not get it due to nerves, did exactly that and yet still asked for feedback and received a genuinely helpful response. It wasn’t a nice experience, but one I learnt from, and since then have got better at dealing with nerves.  My point is, if you can recognise your strengths as well as weaknesses, you can use these to fuel your next interview or experience. Need to drive to get a job? Use this as motivation to spend your week’s income on learning (unless like me, you’re trying really hard but your instructor’s car keeps breaking ), don’t have any experience? Make your own work with a group of friends(more on this in my next post). When you start to train yourself to think this way and focus more on what you can do from now instead of viewing what went wrong as a future barrier to doing the same again, you’re able to see things more clearly and it can help to lift that post – rejection, sinking lack of confidence feeling (we’ve all been there).

Whatever the reason for your last rejection from an opportunity you really wanted, don’t take it personally  and try to move on– it’s much easier said than done, but when you look for the positives – you made the effort to apply in the first place, which proves your dedication, you got to the interview stage and tried your best, you  keep on applying for opportunities and being persistent instead of giving up – it really can make all the difference.

By Hannah Grencis