There are plenty of chances to fail (even if it’s just a small one)
Even though failure doesn’t discriminate, when we talk to people, they sometimes feel like they’re too early in their careers to have failed. And while you may have had the chance to send a company into a tailspin yet, or lose a major client, there’s still plenty of opportunity to fail (even if it’s just a minor setback).
So we asked some members of the team to share a failure they experienced when they were just starting out in their professional careers:
Yannick, Global Business Development Lead
“Once, in my first job as a community manager for a major beverage company that you’ve probably heard of, I was using my brother’s computer and accidentally left the company account logged in on Facebook. Unaware of this, my brother later posted a political complaint, thinking it was his own profile.”
Jade, Global Community and Operations Coordinator
“When I first graduated from college, I did a two-week internship at one of the world’s best and oldest advertising agencies.”
I absolutely loved it and wanted to stay, so everyone was telling me to apply for the graduate program. It’s really tough to get in—they receive over 1,000 applications and only accept 10—but I felt pretty confident about my chances!
"So I submitted the application and didn't hear back for a couple of weeks, so I went back to check my application and… well, it turns out I hadn't filled out the first box on the form… my name!! So I sent them a desperate email about it, but needless to say, I got a rejection. Turns out attention to detail is pretty important if you want to work for a global advertising agency."
Rich, Social Media & Design
“The overwhelmingly positive feedback I received after finishing my internship boosted my ego and made me believe that my professional career would be brilliant and amazing.”
Four months of job hunting proved me wrong. At one point, I was so desperate and disappointed that I was willing to take ANY job, and I ended up at this creepy business association, with a miserable salary, inflexible working hours, and a terrible organizational culture based on religious beliefs… and the Bible.
At that time, I was also coming out as bisexual, and I was starting to date my current boyfriend. After several months of pretending I was straight and that he was my cousin—all while adhering to beliefs and values I wasn’t really comfortable with—and working with the worst equipment and in the worst offices, I finally decided to quit… or at least I tried.
Once again, my ego got the better of me when one of the partners told me, “Maybe this job was too much for you; maybe you just couldn’t handle the challenge.” So I decided to stick around a little longer to prove them wrong, still pretending to be someone I wasn’t in a place I really hated.
Daniela, Community Coordinator
“In my first job after college, I worked for an organization that promoted foreign investment in Costa Rica, as an assistant to the life sciences manager.”
One day, someone from China called the office about a potential direct investment, and while my boss was waiting for the call, I began gathering some basic information from them. Suddenly, the call was cut off, and it hadn’t occurred to me to ask for their phone number, email address, or point of contact.
So rather than tell my boss that I had messed up and didn’t know how to contact them, I started looking through the phone’s call history for the number. Although I found the number, I didn’t know the name of the person I was talking to. So I tried to explain this to the operator, but I spoke English and she spoke Mandarin, and it just didn’t work out.
"I ended up telling my boss that maybe it was a phantom investment, or not real."
So, what’s today’s lesson? Failure can happen, and it doesn’t have to be something huge to share and talk about it.
Do you have a failure (big or small) from the early days of your career to share? Let us know on social media and use #sharethefailure—we’d love to hear about it!
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