A young person walked into a workplace looking for a job.
He wasn’t wearing shoes.
The manager took one look at him and said, “Mate, I’m not giving you a job with no shoes on. Go get some shoes.”
So he left.
And came back wearing shoes.
Still no job.
But that wasn’t the end of the story.
He came back the following week. And the next. And the next. And the next.
Each time, asking about work. Each time, demonstrating something that no résumé or cover letter could adequately communicate.
Persistence. Enthusiasm. Initiative. Determination.
Eventually, the manager did something rather extraordinary.
He created a job for him.
Not because a position had been advertised. Not because the young person had an impressive résumé.
But because he’d demonstrated an attitude the manager didn’t want to lose.
And according to the manager, that young person went on to become one of their most valued employees.
What was the employer really hiring?
We heard this story from Peter Homan at Study Toowoomba, who had experienced it firsthand in a previous role.
And it raises an interesting question.
What was Peter actually responding to?
It wasn’t experience or qualifications.
It was behaviour.
The young person listened to feedback and acted on it. He showed initiative. He demonstrated enthusiasm and a willingness to keep trying.
Importantly, these weren’t qualities he claimed to have.
They were qualities Peter had witnessed.
He didn’t tell the employer he was persistent. He showed him.
And sometimes that’s far more powerful than anything written on a résumé.
We teach students how to apply. But do we teach them how to keep going?
Think about the typical job-hunting advice we give students.
Write a good résumé. Tailor your cover letter. Prepare for interviews. Apply for suitable positions.
All important.
But what happens when they do everything we’ve suggested and still don’t get the job?
What happens when they don’t receive a response at all?
Or when they receive their fifth, tenth or twentieth rejection?
For students already struggling with confidence, rejection can feel deeply personal.
They may interpret it as evidence that they’re not good enough, don’t belong or simply aren’t employable.
And that’s when the job search can grind to a halt.
Yet rejection is an entirely normal part of looking for work.
Perhaps we need to spend as much time teaching students how to respond to rejection as we do teaching them how to apply.
Persistence isn’t just trying again
There’s an important distinction between persistence and simply repeating the same behaviour.
Sometimes a no really does mean no.
A business might be closing, have no capacity to employ anyone or have a recruitment process that doesn’t allow personal approaches.
That’s a hard no.
But sometimes the answer is, “Not right now.”
That’s a different conversation.
Learning to recognise the difference between a hard no and a soft no is a practical job-hunting skill.
So is knowing how to follow up, when to follow up, what to say and when to move on.
These are the unwritten rules that experienced jobseekers often take for granted.
But students aren’t born knowing them.
And simply telling students to be persistent isn’t particularly helpful if we haven’t taught them what persistence looks like in practice.
The confidence to hear no
There’s another part of this story that deserves attention.
Imagine the confidence it took for that young person to walk back through the door after being turned away.
And then to do it again.
And again.
He wasn’t just demonstrating persistence. He was demonstrating an ability to manage rejection without allowing it to stop him.
That’s a skill worth developing.
Because confidence isn’t about believing every attempt will succeed.
It’s about being willing to take action even when success isn’t guaranteed.
And those skills can be developed.
Through practising conversations. Learning how to respond to different answers. Understanding that rejection isn’t necessarily personal. Building the resilience to try another approach.
Most importantly, through having opportunities to practise these behaviours in environments where making mistakes is part of learning.
Students don’t just need the skills to find work. They need the confidence to keep looking when finding work gets difficult.
Sometimes the job doesn’t exist until the right person appears
Perhaps the most interesting part of Peter’s story is that he eventually created a position.
We’ve seen similar situations when employers meet students face to face.
At a student employment event in regional NSW, an employer identified a problem in their business that they hadn’t known how to solve.
After meeting the students and understanding what they could offer, the employer created six job opportunities.
Those positions weren’t advertised vacancies that students had successfully applied for.
They emerged from a conversation.
And that’s something worth thinking about.
We tend to teach students to look for existing vacancies, match their skills to the selection criteria and compete with other applicants.
But sometimes opportunities emerge because an employer meets someone who could solve a problem, contribute to their business or bring something they hadn’t considered.
Sometimes employers don’t know they’re looking for someone until they meet them.
Are we preparing students for the whole job search?
For education providers, Peter’s story presents an opportunity to rethink what practical employment preparation includes.
Yes, students need résumés, interview preparation and job-search strategies.
But they also need to know how to approach people, manage disappointment, respond to feedback, recognise opportunities and follow up.
And they need the confidence to put those skills into practice.
Because a student with excellent job-hunting skills but no confidence to use them may never take the next step.
Equally, a confident student who doesn’t know how to navigate rejection or follow up appropriately may miss opportunities.
Confidence and practical job-hunting skills need to develop together.
Perhaps we should be asking ourselves not just whether students know how to apply for jobs, but whether we’re preparing them for everything that happens before, during and after an application.
Including the times when the answer is no.
The power of showing up
There’s something wonderfully simple about Peter’s story.
A young person wanted a job.
He showed up.
He received feedback, acted on it and kept showing up.
Eventually, someone recognised the value of that attitude and created an opportunity for him.
And he went on to prove that the qualities he’d demonstrated while looking for work were the same qualities he brought to the workplace.
Not every story will end with a job offer.
But there’s a powerful lesson here about the behaviours that help people create opportunities, build relationships and recover from setbacks.
Because sometimes the most valuable thing a student can demonstrate to an employer isn’t what’s written on their résumé.
It’s what they do after hearing no.
Anita van Rooyen and Karalyn Brown are the co-creators of the multi-award-winning JobSquad program. Anita is the founder of Student Confidence and a human behaviour and confidence expert, while Karalyn is the founder of InterviewIQ and a careers and recruitment specialist. Together, they challenge traditional employability education by helping students turn knowledge into action and action into real employment opportunities.
