A Princeton psychology professor has shared a CV of his most epic fails, and it's brilliant
When you think of the traditional CV, what comes to mind is a Word doc
of career and academic achievements, and that weird 'hobbies' section
that nobody quite seems to know what to write under, so they just put
'socialising'. But now a super smart Princeton psychology professor has
shared his CV of failures and it's making us feel so much better about
our own fails.
Under headings such as 'Degree programs I did not
get into,' Academic positions and fellowships I did not get' and
'Research funding I did not get' he lists all the crappy things that
happened before he landed the top job he has today.
The idea, Haushofer explains, is that our setbacks are often 'invisible' so 'This sometimes gives people the impression that most things work out for me. As a result, they are more likely to attribute their own failures to themselves, rather than the fact that the world is stochastic, applications are crapshoots, and selection committees and referees have bad days.'
He was inspired to share his own anti-CV by a lecturer at the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, Melanie Stefan, who believes that keeping a visible record of your rejections can help you and others to better deal with setbacks.
Makes sense, right? When you consider that JK Rowling was rejected from countless publishers before Harry Potter got picked up (she has since shared her rejection letters on Twitter to inspire other authors), Steven Spielberg was rejected from film school not once, but twice, and Walt Disney had to file for bankruptcy after his first film flopped, it seems being a 'failure' would put us in pretty good company.
JK: If at first you don't succeed: FAIL
