My plan was to interview two fairly new professionals. Lets say who had been in the business 2/3 years. Two more who had 5-8 years experience and then one more professional who had 12+ years experience. My reasoning behind this was that I'd get a wide range of experience when it came to experiencing rejection and also the certain coping mechanisms used. I was hoping the participants mind-set would be different at each stage enabling more varied answers.
My friends, both of them, disagreed.
"I can see your point but the way you handle rejection changes over the years through experience so to get better information I wouldn't use the younger pros but more experienced ones." (Friend 1)
"He's right. When you're young you can take it personally and not fully understand the process. Knowledge through knowing the business and having experienced all manner of rejections will bring you the best results." (Friend 2)
I countered.
"But to see the difference between way its developed using younger pros will give insight into their mind-set and older ones into theirs."
"Yes. But...The younger ones won't be able to tell you how they've adapted or things they've learnt. They'll still be in the here and now. So in effect you'll be wasting two interviews because the data you'll collect will be short." (Friend 1)
I had to think back to my aim. What was my objective? What were the questions I would asking?
'Has the way you've handled rejection altered over the years?' This was one question and even though the younger members would be able to answer it their knowledge would be limited by no fault of their own.
The point also arose that I'd have to search for particularly unsuccessful young pros to help out as young performers who have worked may have only been rejected a handful of times limiting their worth to me.
Whereas older pros would have encountered many rejections enhancing the data I was hoping to collect.
In the end it was my decision but having taken the discussion into account I now believed the participants would be more helpful if they'd had at least 12 years experience in the profession. Asking the potential interviewees to recall certain experiences wouldn't be a problem because I know I can. The following half hour with my friends was spent recalling all manner of rejections. Some you could laugh at. Some still baffled you and others still hurt.
The subject of differing personalities was then raised. Was I to just ask random performers from my network or would I attempt to pick differing personalities in the hope the answers and data would be more varied. My thoughts were that it would be difficult to differentiate as you have no-way of knowing how any particular person would react at any one time.
"It's true. Every audition means something different to the individual but performers have different auditioning personalities. Some are extra keen. Some nervous...always. I'm sure you could tell me what I was like as I you two." (Friend 2)
"But will that have an effect on the results?"
"Who knows? But if you pick 5 performers who are the relaxed type, always at the back, trusting their talent will get them noticed they probably will be less affected after being rejected because that's what their attitude suggests. Isn't it better to try and select differing personalities?" (Friend 2)
"Yes the meaning of each audition is different to each individual so that will have an effect no matter the personalities but it could make a difference to the data with regards to coping mechanisms and time taken to recover from rejections." (Friend 1)
It was a good point and something to consider. Searching my network and memory would be a challenge to come up with the differing personalities. Getting them to participate would be a whole other ball game.
Other personalities we came up with.....
Nervous
Calm
Fiery
Bubbly
Flustered
Concentrated
Pushy
Cavalier
In the end the conversation turned out very helpful. It was my version of a SIG considering my current pathway.
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