Should You Highlight Failures in Your Resume

Should You Highlight  Failures in Your Resume Should You Highlight  Failures in Your Resume But, when you consider the benign context that the failure  resume emerged it doesnt sound quite as bonkers a notion. It seems it has its roots in the mentoring protocol of one Tina Seelig, Stanford Technology Venture Programs executive director. She encourages, well empowers if we are to be accurate, all her students to create a failure resume, allowing them to embrace all their experiences. It is something that can be created alongside the typical success resume, (which we all know about), and the students are required to address their failures and understand what they have learned from them and see how they have applied that learning to help them be a more effective individual going forward. The purpose of this tool is to help students understand that failure is a crucial part of the learning process, but it wasnt explicitly intended to see the light of day; that is, land on the employers desk alongside a success resume. But, this isnt to say it cant have some application in the outside world in the job seeking and personal development process. It is clear that more and more employers are seeking to assess candidates not just on their achievements, but on how they have responded to challenging situations and failures, such as the challenging nature of the modern business environment. They feel it gives them a more authentic view of the candidate, enables them to see whether theyd like to go to war with you, or see how you respond in a fire fight. Now, I am not saying that candidates should whip out their failure resumes when asked the questions about “weaknesses” or “biggest failures”, but having prepared a failure resume enables you to produce a reassuring response as you will be able to recall the most relevant failure, your key learning and how it has made you a more effective person today. So,  on this basis, a failure resume can be an excellent personal development and job search tool. But, can its use be extended? Should employers ever sight your failure resume; could it actually enhance an application? Now, unless asked for, I think it might be too strange, (and just a bit too ahead of the curve), for the typical recruiter to receive a list of failures in your job application, (even if it is written to the failure resume format). A time pressurized busy recruiter probably wont get it and wont have the time to get it. Theyll be looking for qualifications, achievements and experience to see how well it matches the job description. Failure resumes are interesting but potentially a distraction in this setting. Thats why if you intended to use a failure resume as some novel way to stand out, I dont think you  should push  it on employers at this stage by emailing it to them. Candidates should draw employers to the failure resume by inviting them to view the document as published in the context of a personal branded blog. You could make the invitation in your cover letter or link to it in your success resume. Id recommend that you head up the failure resume with some context, perhaps referring to this article or Tina Seelings piece on the failure resume to put it into context. Overall, I dont think you should include failures in your resume; it is too distracting. But, if presented effectively on a personal blog so that employers can choose to read at will, it may enable you to appear like a more genuine applicant, able to survive a dog fight, who can come back from failure and apply their learning to make themselves a more effective individual. Of course, this is an experimental approach to job applications, and if you use it, monitor it closely. if you think it is hindering your applications you should probably put this down as a worthwhile but failed initiative from which you have learned something new, and move on.Master the art of closing deals and making placements. Take our Recruiter Certification Program today. We're SHRM certified. Learn at your own pace during this 12-week program. Access over 20 courses. Great for those who want to break into recruiting, or recruiters who want to further their career.