How to praise when son doesn’t like it

Hi Nicholeen! I'm really sorry, but I think I accidentally sent my question without finishing it so this is the completed one. 😅 I hope you had a lovely Christmas! My question has to do with my adult son that doesn't like to be praised. He lives with us but hasn't been working or doing much of anything, so we took your advice to heart from previous calls, and we've been having mentor meetings with him. I've actually been very surprised at how these meetings have gotten him to do things! One of the things we've been doing is letting him know what we need him to do that week, and then asking him how we would like to go about getting it done. Then we have a quick mid-week check in where he gives up an update on his progress. He's been remarkably good about following these instructions, even though he's not excited at all, haha. Anyway, this last week he checked in and let us know that he had applied for three jobs and I gave him some praise for doing that. Unfortunately he did not like this and told me he basically hates praise and he prefers negative feedback. He said I should have told him something like "it's about time!" referring to him looking for jobs. This left me unsure of how to speak to my son because my natural response when someone does something good, is to commend their efforts. I would love your perspective and advice on how I can praise my son in a way that perhaps he might accept without me having to try and be negative as he wants. Thanks!