https://web.eecs.utk.edu/~azh/blog/allmyrejections.html

Austin Z. Henley

Assistant Professor

azh@utk.edu
@austinzhenley
github/AZHenley

---------------------------------------------------------------------

  * Home |
  * Publications |
  * Teaching |
  * Blog |
  * CV

---------------------------------------------------------------------

All my career rejections

3/21/2021

[rejection]

I've been reflecting on rejections lately. I've been fortunate to
have more successes than I had ever imagined, but receiving a
rejection email is never a fun day. I decided to write out every
single rejection in my career from industry jobs, academic jobs,
conference papers, and research grants.

Over 50 times I have been rejected in my short career. Gotta collect
em' all!

Rejected industry positions

I first interviewed for a full-time industry position in 2013 right
before graduating with my masters, and it did not go well. I've had
some offers, but quite a few more rejections.

  * Yelp, software engineer
  * ABB Research, research intern
  * Apple, software engineer
  * Samsung Research, research engineer
  * Adobe Research, research scientist
  * Impira, software engineer
  * Kite, software engineer
  * Microsoft Research, research scientist
  * Microsoft, program manager
  * Repl.it, product engineer
  * Apple, research scientist

Rejected academic positions

Typing this list out makes it feel really long. I was very fortunate
to receive numerous offers even though I didn't expect to get a
single one. Big thanks to my Ph.D. advisor, Scott Fleming, and
mentor, Margaret Burnett, for their help preparing me.

  * Texas A&M University
  * Case Western Reserve University
  * Temple University
  * University of South Carolina
  * Clemson University
  * University of Utah
  * University of Massachusetts, Amherst
  * University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
  * University of Notre Dame
  * Virginia Tech
  * Cornell University
  * Northeastern University
  * University of Southern California
  * Kent State University
  * University of Chicago
  * Boston University
  * Duke University
  * Washington University in St. Louis
  * University of California, Irvine
  * Rice University
  * Oregon State University
  * University of Rochester
  * Vanderbilt University
  * University of Alabama, Birmingham
  * University of Texas, Dallas
  * University of Colorado, Boulder
  * University of Pennsylvania

Rejected conference papers

Paper rejections don't sting anymore. I seem to have about a 50%
acceptance rate with my submissions. And with the help of many great
collaborators, I've co-authored strong papers that have won several
awards. The rejections are inevitable and generally lead to a better
paper anyway, right?

  * IEEE VL/HCC 2014
  * ACM/IEEE ICSE 2015
  * ACM/IEEE ICSE 2016
  * ACM CHI 2017
  * ACM FSE 2017
  * IEEE VL/HCC 2017
  * ACM CHI 2018
  * ACM CHI 2019
  * ACM CHI 2019
  * ACM UIST 2019
  * AAAI HCOMP 2019
  * ACM CHI 2020
  * IEEE VL/HCC 2020

Rejected grants

I've had two grant proposals funded and two rejected, so I should
probably submit more...

  * NSF SHF small grant
  * Google Research Scholar Program

---------------------------------------------------------------------


More rejections to come!