If Only We Expected to Succeed As Much As We Expect to Fail

A lesson learned when I fumbled an opportunity to have my dream job

Shannon D. Smith
3 min readFeb 8, 2024

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Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

The phone rang

It was the call I had been waiting for

I was fresh out of graduate school with a Masters in Instructional Design.

I applied for a position at one my dream companies…Deloitte.

Most of my career had been in the financial industry.

My first job was at a mortgage company as a file clerk.

Roles that followed were administrative and customer service jobs for banks and non-bank financial companies.

I really wanted the role.

I prepared well, interviewed well and then I had to wait for the decision.

Waiting is the hardest part.

You rehearse everything you said, picking it apart and critiquing yourself.

So as I looked at the phone ringing, I stopped breathing for a sec.

Oh my God, it’s the recruiter.

I answered.

The recruiter asked me how did I think the interview went. (Why do they always ask that?).

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Shannon D. Smith

L&D Consultant who empowers mid-career corporate professionals to find the career alignment they deserve. https://thealignmentactivator.com