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\u00a0 The \u201cfailure\u201d essay can feel like one of the most daunting and fraught parts of your application. After all, the purpose of your application is to convince the reader that you are an excellent, qualified, and prepared candidate, and on its face writing about your biggest failure would seem to undercut this mission. How do you navigate this problem? The first thing that I stress to candidates is that you should re-conceptualize your mission slightly. Your purpose is not really<\/em> to write about your biggest failure, but to write about your biggest comeback. In the end, if done well, this isn\u2019t a story of defeat, but one of adaptation and resilience. Here are four tips to help you pull this off:<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the most common questions on an interview is \u201cwhat\u2019s\nyour biggest weakness?\u201d Among the worst answers you can give is something like,\n\u201cI care too much\u201d or \u201csometimes I just get too passionate about my work.\u201d It\u2019s\nvery obvious here that the candidate is just trying to take a strength\n(commitment, passion) and package it as a weakness. It\u2019s phony and comes across\nthat way. It\u2019s so transparently self-aggrandizing that you might as well say, \u201cI\u2019m\njust too smart\u201d or \u201cmany people think I\u2019m too awesome to be around.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly, many applicants struggle to identify an\ninstance of actual failure, so they will talk about a time they almost <\/em>failed\nuntil their better judgment, cleverness, and talent saved them, or they will\nidentify a failure so miniscule that it will seem to the reader that the candidate\nhas never done anything that\u2019s challenging or important. After all, a pretty\ngood assumption to make about life is that the more you\u2019re tested, the more substantial\nyour failures will be\u2026 and everyone (!!!) will fail sometimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given this, don\u2019t duck the prompt. Think about your\nlife and work history and identify an actual moment where you came up short or\nexperienced a genuine disaster. Importantly, the essay should not ONLY focus on\nthe failure. In fact, I would say that at least a third (and probably more) of the\nessay should focus on how you dug your way out, thought about your mistake, and\nchanged. Thus, in some sense, the bigger you make your failure, the better\nopportunity you have to demonstrate self-awareness, resilience, adaptability,\nand resourceful problem-solving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A key element of this essay is owning your mistake.\nTalk specifically about the bad choices you made, the insufficient mindset you brought\nto the moment, and why they led to your failure. A mature leader recognizes\nwhen they have failed and then seeks to adapt, and the first step in this\nprocess is obviously naming your shortcomings, so be specific in this regard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So here is where the essay begins in earnest. Parts 1\nand 2 listed above are about setting the table so that you can now demonstrate\nyour resolve and excellence. You\u2019ve owned and described the failure, and now is\nthe part of the essay where you explain in specific detail what you\u2019ve learned.\nIn this section, look to pair big-picture assessments of where you failed with\nparticular things you can do in the future to not make this mistake again. For\ninstance, if you realize that your mistake was not relying on the expertise of\nothers in your group, then state that and follow that up by writing that on\nfuture jobs you made a point of noting the areas of expertise of everyone on\nyour team so that you could reference their knowledge, skill, and experience\nwhen things got sticky. If applicable, you should also join this with a bigger\ninsight into your thinking about problems and challenges. So, using the\nprevious example, you could note that you now recognize that asking for help is\nnot a sign of weakness, but the mark of a resourceful leader seeking to\nleverage maximally the experiences of their group and network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you can, provide an example of how you applied\nthis new self-knowledge. Ideally, this would be by writing about a specific\nsubsequent experience in which you applied a new mindset, skills, and approach and\nmet with success. This is important to include because it allows you to frankly\ndiscuss your failure in a manner in which you both fully own that failure and\nuse it as a way to position your journey positively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, remember that a failure essay\nshould be a positive story in the sense that it shows growth, self-awareness,\nand a willingness to use setbacks as a means of ensuring eventual success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brian\nis a seasoned Personal Statement guru who has helped hundreds of applicants get\ninto top business schools. In last year\u2019s admission cycle alone, Brian\u2019s\nclients earned admission to such prestigious institutions as Harvard Business\nSchool, Wharton, Said Oxford Business School, Kellogg, UofMichigan Ross,\nStanford, Sloan, and Duke Fuqua, to name but a few. You can find Brian and\nother excellent consultants at Gurufi.com, or you can reach him directly at\nfobi@fourthwrite.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 The \u201cfailure\u201d essay can feel like one of the most daunting and fraught parts of your application. After all, the purpose of your application is to convince the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47401,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47399\/revisions\/47401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}