Another trick (kind of a consulting thing) is to redefine ‘success’ and ‘failure’. Was Ernest Shackleton a failure because he wrecked his ship and didn’t reach the South Pole? Or was he a success because he managed to get his entire crew back home?
I’d go with the one who convinced me they’d learned the most from their experiences.
I was worried that this was going to be a ‘Ha! You chose Stalin over Ghandi!’ bits. I’d go with the successes.
For an American resume, the failure part of the project shouldn’t show up at all. So the resume shouldn’t have:
[ul]
[li]Managed a project that was poorly thought out and impossibly scheduled so it came in 6 months late.[/li][li]Led a team of lazy ass malcontents who never turned in a single deliverable on time and set fire to the building once.[/li][li]Designed a system that was so unconnected with reality, using it turned out to be the worst possible path for the company.[/li][/ul]
It should have
[ul]
[li]Managed a project.[/li][li]Led a team of 10.[/li][li]Designed a complex system.[/li][/ul]
If the gory details ever have to come up, it should be at the interview- where they had better be accompanied by important lessons that you learned during the process and how you’ll never make the same mistakes again or deal better with that situation next time.
Another approach on writing my resume, I could give specific details on what I have done right; such as the ones below, but note the ‘pull the rag out from the floor’ comments in italics
“Coordinating a group of 10 programmers and artists on a volunteer project for an international game competition but the team leader screwed up and didn’t work on his part although all others did”
or
“Attempting to start an independent game studios and successfully in pitching the business plan * but we never got the money and got started because the people holding the seed money refused to sign the contract, which they deemed as too draconian*”
or
“Design and deploy an interactive Flash game which is to be part of a publicity campaign for the university but it wasn’t wildly featured because of changes to the publicity plan”
“Explore and examine open-source technology such as Joomla! CMS and Moodle LMS for a company going into e-learning which never take off the ground because the person sponsoring the project is half-hearted and went on to other ventures”
or
“Built a LMS from ground-up using PHP but was never deployed as the sponsor of the project decided to postpone it as he is going into another career”
Yeah, my life is full of episodes like this.
In a sense, success/failure is not black and white, I guess. Neither can I say everything is a total failure, nor can I say I didn’t learn anything, and I could omit the part in italics out, but I feel…erm…so fake.
ETA: Yes, I suppose I could elaborate more during the interviews…
I’m gonna need you to give my resume back, please. And stop hacking into my computer.
10 successes, definitely. Though I also would want to check on them during the interview.
A few failures are expected. 10 is a lot. Not to be nasty, but a Despair poster says “The only consistent feature of all your dissatisfying relationships is you.” I’d think that someone involved with 10 failed projects either has a hard time selecting things to work on, contributes to the failure, or doesn’t know when to get out. If someone can’t read the handwriting on the wall until the building is collapsing around them, that would be a problem.
I like your edited list better - but people want to see accomplishments, not attempts. Beware the progress report that says “I started project XXX” - you need to see someone finish things. Starting it might consist of a half page of notes. Anyone can pitch, and though I’ve never done it, I’d assume that success in pitching a business plan consists of getting funding.
This particular one, it would take them half an hour to find out, assuming they started making calls on a Sunday. During the vacation period.
So there isn’t much reason to hide it. Plus, given the well-earned reputation that project has acquired, revealing the name (as I said, during interviews, not in the resume) works in my favor.
There have been three people so far who’d heard positive things about me from people involved with that project, but they’d heard those things without a name attached to them. Match the project, the module I work and the stuff I did and ta-dah, I get a recomendation that I hadn’t even asked for!
It’s advertisement. It has to be attractive and not so unrealistic that it gets you sued. It doesn’t have to be “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
After all, even on TV lawyer shows nobody starts his explanations about what he was doing at the time the events took place by describing what clothes he wore; it’s part of the whole truth but not a relevant part.
That’s the kicker…1 year of work which I am not sure if I should mention because the people holding the seed money would not sign the contract. I suppose I could mention “Success in convincing the panel of judges” and wait for them to ask me for elaboration.
ETA: Just realised that a resume is not a life biography too 