Celebrating Failure

1) Tell us about a time this past semester that you failed -- whether in this class, or outside of this class. Don't spare any details! It'd be even better if there was something you tried several times this semester, and failed each time. 

While I was talking to customers at Publix I met a woman that seemed interested in getting me a job out of college.  I sent her an e-mail of the type of job I was looking for because she told me she was a headhunter that found people jobs.  She forwarded my information to someone that I assumed was going to talk to me about potential jobs I would be interested in.  

I set up a date to talk to her and waiting patiently thinking about all the jobs she would tell me about.  When she called, she immediately started talking about what the type of job she did and the type of pay and then proceeded to ask me several interview type questions.  I thought it was strange but I went along with it because I figured she needed to know more about me before she could tell me some jobs she thought I might be interested in.  

About three-fourths of the way through the conversation I realized I was being interviewed for the job of a recruiter.  I had already said that I wasn't really interested in being a recruiter early on in our "interview" but as she talked about the position, she did a very good job at making it sound appealing.

She asked if I wanted to continue with the application process and I said yes because it sounded somewhat interesting.  Well needless to say, I failed the interview and she sent me a "Thank you for your interest," e-mail a week later.

2) Tell us what you learned from it.  

I learned that recruiters seem to be very secretive about what they do.  I also learned that I do not want to be a recruiter.  The real lesson I learned was that I need to prepare a lot for the interview of the job that I do want because I didn't like getting the rejection letter even though I didn't want the job, but I would have felt pretty bad if I actually wanted a job that didn't think I was a good fit.

3) Reflect, in general, on what you think about failure. Failure is hard, isn't it? It's embarrassing, sure, but it also means that we have to change something about ourselves. Talk about how you handle failure (emotionally, behaviorally). Finally, talk about how this class has changed your perspective on failure -- are you more likely to take a risk now than you were four months ago? 

I really enjoyed the first sentence in this assignment about how Edison didn't fail 1,000 times at making a light bulb, he just discovered 1,000 ways that didn't work.  I take failure pretty hard emotionally and it puts me in a pretty bad mood for a short while.  This class hasn't changed my perspective that much on failure, I've always tried to see the silver lining on failure because otherwise I would get stuck thinking about it.  I would say I am a little more likely to take a risk now than I was four months ago due to my excitement about graduation.