After 420 rejections, Indian woman lands New York job. Here’s her career lesson

An Indian graduate has shared how she secured a job in New York after sending about 420 applications, offering a candid account of the rejections, visa hurdles and personal choices that shaped the start of her career.

Divya Bansal, an international student who graduated from New York University (NYU), said she received only three interview calls from hundreds of applications but eventually secured two job offers.

In a video posted on Instagram, Bansal was seen walking through the streets of New York as she reflected on her first day at work. She said she had secured the job just one week after graduating from NYU.

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The achievement came at a difficult time for international students, who often face a restricted pool of vacancies because of work authorisation requirements and uncertainty surrounding visa sponsorship.

Bansal acknowledged that finding employment in the current economy can become closely linked to a person’s sense of self-worth. Securing a role after repeated rejection, she said, was therefore an important milestone.

However, she made it clear that she did not want her career to become her entire identity.

Bansal said the job would challenge her, help her develop and allow her to pay her bills, but it would remain only one part of her life. She wanted her work to fit around the life she was building, rather than allowing her life to be organised entirely around work.

She said she planned to continue dancing, going to the gym, cooking meals that reminded her of home and spending time with the people she loved.

According to Bansal, people can gradually lose interest in their work when they begin treating it as the sole measure of who they are.

“I came to New York to build a life and not just a career,” she said, adding that her career was something she did, but not who she was.

In the caption accompanying the video, Bansal spoke further about the difficulties she had faced as an international student. Despite limited opportunities and visa-related challenges, she said she had managed to secure the role after hundreds of rejected applications.

She described the outcome as a dream come true, but said the experience had also reinforced her belief that a career should form only one part of a person’s identity, rather than defining it completely.

The video drew supportive responses from social media users, with many congratulating Bansal on securing the role and wishing her success as she began her career in New York.

 One user commented, “Congrats. Getting a job isn't nyc straight out of university is big. Nyc is dream. Job is nyc is even better”.

Another user sought advice for a family member hoping to follow a similar route, writing, “My daughter is an international student from Jindal , please elaborate career path for her”.