Hi there,

Q: I ran a small business for a year and a half up until summer 2021. The business essentially failed. Is it a good idea to mention this experience if I am asked  “tell me about a time you failed” in my interview?

It is fine if you have concrete evidence that you learned from that. If the only learning is “I know a lot more now” or a variation of this, it would not be a good story, as the interviewer will wonder if you really learned something. If you can show how you applied the learning to a concrete situation and benefit from that, the story should work fine.

Good luck!

Francesco

Hi there, 

This is a great example!

The whole purpose of telling a ‘failure’ story is to show that you have a growth mindset, that you can reflect on the situation, do root-cause analysis to figure out what went wrong and then design a set of actions to to prevent it from happening again in the future. 

Additionally, sharing this sort of story also makes you come across as being genuine and honest.

Best,
Cristian

Absolutely - we learn from our mistakes and many people applying for consulting have little “real-world” experience so this helps high-light that. Would def share as long as you can explain what went wrong and what you would do differently in a structured way!

We learn a lot from the times that we fail - and this sounds like a great example! As long as you can talk about it in terms of the specifics of what you learnt and how you'd do things differently then it sounds like a good example. 

Good luck!

It's a good example of failure, but you should elaborate your story by giving evidence and proof of what you've learned.
It is not enough to just say that you now run your business plan before starting some venture. 
Besides, it is quite a blunder not to run a BP before you start a business, so I fear that your story can show your weaknesses more than your learnings. 

Hey there - 

Absolutely. Speak about it from the learnings and if you did it again, how would you go about it.  

I shared my story about my failed start-up as well and it was very well received in all the interviews I spoke about it. 

The overall story of failure is a valuable one and you can leverage that. However, you will need to really soften it around the edges. 

Based on your description, your failure was “I didn't consider numbers before starting a business and assumed that profit will materialize automatically.” And your takeaway is “I will make sure to consider numbers from now on!”. This is not a very impressive insight I'm afraid - because it's pretty close to common sense. 

Your initial mistake could even be construed as recklessness and utter incompetence when presented in the way you wrote it. So make sure you talk more about the nuances that ended up throwing a wrench into the whole endeavor - maybe there were some things that were really unforeseen - highlight those. Then you can add that you have also refined your approach on how to develop robust business plans 

Hi there,

Of course, that's totally okay!

It is as important however to showcase the reasons behind the failure and how much you grew because of it (the learnings). 

Mario

Hell yes! Explain it the way you suggest in your post, throw in some story telling and you have a winner.

Yes of course. All businesses have difficulties and there is nothing wrong with failure. The point to focus on will be learning from your failures and adapting your approach in future endeavors (could be new business or at work does not matter).