Hoda Kotb Recalls Getting 27 Job Rejections in 10 Days While Driving Across ‘the Whole Southeastern’ US

For Hoda Kotb, success didn’t come easy.

The former Today host, 61, delivered an emotional commencement speech at Fordham University on Saturday, May 16, where she reflected on the painful early days of her career and how far she’s come since.

Per Today, the journalist explained that after she got her college degree in broadcast journalism from Virginia Tech in 1986, she borrowed her mother’s car and set off to a nearby TV station in Richmond, Virginia, to get a job. But the news director told her she was too “green and inexperienced,” and suggested she inquire about a position in Roanoke. The process repeated over and over.

“Does anyone know where Dothan, Alabama, is? OK, good for you. I got rejected in Dothan, too, and then throughout the whole southeastern United States, OK?” she told the crowd. “At the end of it, 27 rejections, 10 days, and my mom needed her car back, so I started driving home depressed.”

But on the way, she stopped at a CBS affiliate in Greenville, Mississippi, where a newly minted-news director named Stan Sandroni took a chance on her. “He took my resume tape, he played it, and he watched it. He watched the worst tape in the history of the universe, and when it was over, Stan looked at me, and he said… ‘I like what I see,’ ” she recalled.

“And I exploded in tears and realized this first life lesson, guys: You don’t need everyone to love you, you just need one. Find your Stan, find the one person who believes in you,” she advised.

As per the report, Kotb added: “Believe in your ability to make it anywhere. You belong in every boardroom, every mountaintop, every C suite.”

Other advice she handed out in her speech included “Figure out what you love and find a way to get paid for it,” and “Your trip’s not someone else’s trip. Don’t worry about who’s next to you”.

The mother of two followed on from the likes of fellow celebrities Harrison Ford, Henry Winkler, Tom Brady, Lindsey Vonn and Eric Church, who all delivered commencement speeches at college graduations this spring.

She has previously spoken about her 27 rejections and they were part of a profile piece in the Washington Post in 2018, revealing that the Greenville gig paid $12,000 a year.

“I made more money working at Ponderosa than I did at my first job,” Kotb said in a 2009 commencement speech at West Virginia University. “I couldn’t pay my bills. I had to juggle which bills I paid. But I was in love.”