My Résume of Failures…
These days, when most people write their resumes, they tend to fill it with all the cool stuff they’ve done, which often starts with a description of one’s professional goals/skills/profile. This description typically depicts the person as having ‘a great & crystal clear vision’ for his/her career — even though this may not really be true. Next follows the professional experience section: someone has interned at an amazing company, another has scored stellar grades in a demanding major; yet another has played violin at Carnegie Hall in front of a crowd of thousands. Some folks have done all three at once! In addition, to show how ‘well rounded’ one is, one might also include a few ‘extracurricular activities’ that have no relevance to the job: trekking, dancing, public speaking, etc. all work!
The word résume is of French origin. It means to summarize. A resume is thus a summary of your professional life. Naturally, any decent summary should include both the ups and the downs of your story arc. A summary of Titanic that leaves out its sinking due to hitting a iceberg, but vividly mentions all the grand ballrooms & the gold staircases is a poor summary indeed. But, at some point, a resume began to mean only one’s accomplishments.
I would like to take a break from this trend. As job application season heats up and while others are polishing their ‘resumes’, I have devoted significant time and effort to creating my very own resume: a resume of failures. In it you will find an exhaustive summary of all the degrees I didn’t get, the professional experience I lacked, and the awards/honors that I was passed over for. This is inspired by Prof. Johannes Haushofer, a Professor at Princeton and Prof. Melanie Stefan, a Lecturer at Edinburgh Medical School; each of them also wrote their own resumes of failure. (available here)
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Education (degrees programs I was turned away from )
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- Graduate Programs: UC Berkeley (MS in IEOR), Carnegie Melon, Columbia, Georgia Tech, Harvard, MIT, New York Univ., Stanford, University of Washington , UCLA ……………..……………………..2019
- Undergraduate Programs: Penn, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Cornell, Northwestern, UChicago, Columbia, Oxford, LSE…..2015 ______________________________________________________________
Professional Experience (internships & jobs I never heard back from)
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- Grainger, Intel, Asana, TransUnion, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Facebook, Schnieder, P&G, LLamasoft……………………………………..2020
- eHealth, AppliedMaterials…………………………………….2019
- Applied Materials, Boeing, NBCUniversal, ZS Associates, Applied Predictive Technologies, GE Transportation, Alcon, 1001Data, GECapital, GEEnergy, GEDigital, Citadel…………………………….2018
*(Actually took a break in summer 2018: enrolled in two side electives + research in the last few weeks of summer)
- Applied Predictive Technologies, CBS Interactive, Columbia Business School Research Intern, Google BOLD Intern, MindMeld, Oracle, Quantcast, Theorem LP ……………………………..………………2017
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Academic Coursework/Standardized Tests I performed poorly on
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- GRE (Took twice as didn’t receive adequate score the first time round)………………………………………………………2019
- Rejected for a dual degree in business administration from Haas School of Business………………………………………………….…..2017
- Turned down from adding EECS double major to IEOR due to insufficient grades……………….………………………..2017
- Advised not to start IBM Watson AI DeCal (student-led class) due to low grades………………………..……………………………….2017
- Struggled academically my first three semesters, B’s in most technical subjects, C in algorithms/data structures course, GPA took a hit that required rest of undergrad to recover……………….2015–2016
- SAT (Took twice as didn't receive adequate score the first time round)………………………………………………………………..…………2014
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Awards/Recognition I did not receive
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- Women in Logistics Scholarship (men could apply too)….……….2018
- Delta Upsilon Memorial Scholarship ……………………………….2015
- California Alumni Association Leadership Scholarship…….….…..2016
- Leadershape Institute Scholarship…………………………………..2018
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I hope you enjoyed reading my resume. I strongly suggest taking the time out to write your own as well. Writing such a resume may not highlight all the great things you have no doubt accomplished, but at least it will not leave you guessing about one important thing: that you tried!
To end, I’d like to leave you with a witty quote from Adam Grant in his book Originals:
The greatest regrets in life are not errors of commission, but errors of omission.
