During a recent Forté Partner Advisory Council conversation about early career talent, someone said something that has been living rent-free in my head for the last week. When talking about the pressures facing today’s college graduates in the job market, someone said, it can really feel as though failure isn’t an option.
It made me think of my first job. And my second job. And all the times I’ve kind of blown it at work. But if you’re starting your career, and mistakes feel costlier than they used to, potentially affecting your role, your reputation, or your future opportunities, when are you supposed to be bad at something?
I’ve spent the last many years giving career advice that has some version of “stretch yourself.” Take a hard class. Try a new field. Apply for an internship when you don’t meet every qualification. We tell others that mistakes are how people learn, which is true, although it definitely sounds much more reassuring when these “mistakes” are abstract concepts that apply to someone else.
In one of my favorite books, The Other “F” Word: How Smart Teams, Leaders, and Entrepreneurs Put Failure to Work, the authors suggest that using language from other fields, like science, or technology, or theatre, can help organizations de-stigmatize failure. But when you’re the one making the mistake, calling it an experiment still carries a lot of emotions.
But back to career advice. We advise job applicants to show direction and connect the dots on their resume. Ideally, the pieces should fit together, even the detours, all leading to the satisfying “and that’s when I knew I wanted to work in your industry.”
I understand why an employer would want to see those things. Hiring someone you’ve met a few times and watched work on a team is difficult enough. Hiring someone based on a resume and an interview or two seems almost ridiculous when you think about it. But it makes a little more sense, at least on paper, when you see a familiar company name, or a leadership role, or a recognizable school. There’s something to go on.
But is it as important, as useful, as relevant as we give it credit for?
An internship may tell you that someone has worked in a specific industry. It doesn’t tell you everything about how they got there, how much room they were given to make mistakes, or what they did when something went wrong. And a student who tried one field and decided against it may have learned something really valuable about what they do like, or what they want to try next. Unfortunately, “I found out I didn’t like it” doesn’t look as good in a cover letter as “I developed a passion for…”
I’m wondering how often employers say, and believe, that they want people who can learn, adapt, and take feedback, but then reward candidates whose stories sound as though they never had to do any of those things.
And I’m not arguing here that recruiters should start looking for failure as a new section on everyone’s resume or LinkedIn profile. At this point, I think job seekers have enough to worry about without it.
But I am thinking that we can be more intentional about asking candidates to talk about the things that were hard. The class in which they struggled. The job where they got something wrong. The project that didn’t go according to plan. What happened? What did you do next? What did you learn that you couldn’t have learned by getting it right the first time?
An experience doesn’t have to be impressive to be revealing. In fact, it could probably tell you more about how someone learns, adapts, and (hopefully) recovers than the polished accomplishments they came prepared to share.
None of this makes things easier for job candidates or employers. Recruiters still have limited time and too many applicants for every role. But if the goal is to see someone’s potential, we have to look beyond the signs that are easiest to recognize. We have to make room to hear what a person did when they were new to something.
I keep coming back to that council member’s comment because the consequences go well beyond job applications. If every choice has to be, or at least look like, the “right choice” from the beginning, why would anyone risk trying something they might struggle with?
