Rejected? Walk out with your head up. The door closing doesn’t get to decide your posture.

Rejection is a judgment about fit, and the temptation is to let it become a judgment about your worth. How you leave the room is one of the few parts still in your hands. Composure there is not a performance; it is refusing to hand over more than the answer already took. The outcome was theirs and the posture is yours.

When the next no arrives, thank whoever delivered it and go without editorialising. Feel it properly afterward, somewhere private. Nothing about the answer requires you to shrink on your way out.