How to write about Career Failures in MBA Application

If you are too embarrassed to admit that your career choice or project implementation failed, then take courage from the words of the some of the greatest achievers in the field of technology, arts, sciences, and politics.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” - Winston Churchill

First of all MBA Admission Committee wants to learn whether you are a responsible and mature professional. A key characteristic of such a professional is the ability to recognize failure. Too often, the AdCom has read about applicants disguising success in various forms of failures. The only success that should come out of your failure or mistake essay is that you have learned from your mistakes. No matter how good you are at implementing a particular task, lack of coordination between the team members or a decision taken with limited information can hamper the achievement of the intended result.

“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying” - Michael Jordan

As the all-time greatest Basketball player has echoed, the AdCom also believes that trying something that is outside your comfort zone or atypical of your profile is where the real risk taking lies. If you are a tech student, and you are trying to implement something that is creative, and different, and fails, it does not show that you are a failure. Remember F. Scott Fitzgerald words:

“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

The AdCom will not consider a single defeat in a task or project, as your failure as a competent MBA candidate.  

“We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.” - Rudyard Kipling

A Key attribute of a leader, which AdCom loves, is the ability to take personal responsibility of the project or task in hand. If you take responsibility of the failures, you will be respected and considered for candidacy in top schools. There are no extra credits for making excuses.

 “The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.”  - Henry Ford

An integral part of a mistake or failure essay is your ability to articulate what you have learned from your mistakes. Another important element of the essay is the proof that you have implemented something unique with the newly acquired knowledge.