Why I started adding failures on my resume
Every now and then, I like to do a comprehensive review of my resume and evaluate how I’m growing, and have grown, over the course of the choices and experiences of my career to date. This exercise also helps me objectively critique myself and evaluate if I am regularly pushing myself out of my comfort zone. It helps me track if I am challenging myself enough to keep growing – in mind and in skill.
While I was going full-blown ‘Simon Cowell’ on my recent resume review, I noticed a startling, borderline embarrassing fact – my resume had all the accomplishments and shiny gold-stars that I achieved through my career, but none of the failures that got me those accomplishments.
Even more startling was the fact that every interview I was given, thanks to my resume, had a prime component that focused on how I dealt with failure. There soon appeared a glaring disconnect – my resume showed my accomplishments, but none of the failures that shaped me as an individual so far.
Why are we afraid to put our failures on paper? More so, why are we afraid to put the learnings from our failures on paper? Good hiring managers know how and where to probe a candidate on how they deal with failure – so why do we shy away from the opportunity to put it all on paper?
It was time for change.
I started writing down my failures, and a learning (or more) that I captured from each respective failure. I clustered these learnings into themes and narrowed the themes down to 2-3 – and this was just since 2019. I slotted these themes right below the experience and accomplishments section on my resume and was excited to see more of ‘me’ become articulated on paper.
As human beings we are so used to defaulting to the positive and ‘wins’ we achieve in our lives, and we usually want nothing to do with failure, let alone memorialize them on a resume. However, I think we lose prime opportunities to showcase our true selves when we circumvent failures and focus only on the successes. Through a simple exercise of articulating my failures and defining the learnings from them on my resume, I was able to appreciate every single time I fell, picked myself up, learned what went wrong, and kept going armed with new learning. These moments are bigger than any accomplishment one might get and short-changes your own self when you don’t shed light on them in a humble, objective way.
So while it may seem awkward, self-dooming to write down your failures on your resume, remember that at the very least, you know the entire equation of you is out there for prospects to consider. Having my failures on my resume has invigorated me to keep my regularly-scheduled resume review going, and now with more to measure and appreciate.
Give it a shot. The worst that can happen – you missed out on the real stuff that makes you, you.
Be honest. Be brutal. Be bold. Be humble.
Educator #Money IQ ? 1Optimizing Families' #???????????????????????????????? License# 20273548 ? ???????????? ???????????????????? ? 2I Position Students Before They Need The Job
5 年Interesting perspective, Bryan, it makes a lot of sense to focus on learnings from the failures.? The resume would certainly stand out as it's unique.?Jason, with just the resume as Bryan touts, would the resume stand on its own merit to move to an invite to interview, and what in this different approach would make it work for you?
Translating tomorrow's ideas into today's business
5 年I'm intrigued and would love to see how you did it.
Design Leader, Culture Builder, Strategy Driver
6 年It’s not the failure itself that’s important, it’s how you recovered and what you learned. As a hiring manager I look for self-reflection, humility, curiosity, and growth mindset. These foundational traits are a good indication of how successful a person can be regardless of the position. And as a manager, my role is to allow space for my people to fail on their own (so they can learn and grow), while also ensuring that they don’t become failures.
Game Studio Test Manager
6 年Love the articale and how this person thinks. On a resume - No. But having said that - You know it’s going to be an interview question if you’re going for a Director or Senior Manager position - be ready.