Try again, Fail again, Fail better. - Samuel Beckket

This quote from Beckket best describes what CVs of Failure by Johannes HausHofer and Ankur Warikoo symbolise. We are often taught to run after goals in life. Some people succeed in achieving these goals, while others do not. This does not mean that the people who didn’t succeed in one go will never succeed in life. For some people, success comes sooner and for others, it comes later. The CVs referred to throw light on the importance of recognizing these delays and failures that everyone faces in life.

Who is Ankur Warikoo?

We all know Ankur Warikoo better as the founder of nearbuy.com. He is an entrepreneur, public speaker, content creator, and now also a social media-based mentor.

Why is everyone talking about Ankur Warikoo?

Social media is talking about Ankur Warikoo because he has released his CV which he calls “My Failure Resume”. In this resume, he talks about all the failures that he encountered during his academic and work career.

Why is the “Failure Resume” such a big deal?

Contrary to the conventional resume, this resume talks about the failures rather than the achievements of an individual. For example, Ankur Warikoo’s resume has very well-defined four categories including his failures during his school life, corporate life, entrepreneurship phase, and other failures.

·        Schools I Did Not Get Into – talks about not cracking entrance exams for IIT JE/ AIEEE, NITs or St. Stephen’s College, DU.

·        Corporate Roles I Did Not Get – mentions rejections at Citibank, Convergys, McKinsey, Google, Tishman Speyer, Goldman Sachs, Accenture, Infosys, Facebook among others.

·        Investors That Said No – he claims that Indian Angel Network, Mumbai Angels, 9 HNIs rejected him for “all the right reasons”.

·        Other Failures in Life – in this category he talks about how he gave up on coding, something which he used to enjoy doing in school, and claims that he is “not an expert at anything. Nothing!”

What is the relation between Ankur Warikoo and Johannes HausHofer?

Johaness Haushofer was an assistant professor of psychology at Princeton University but now works as an Associate Professor of Economics at Stockholm University. Ankur Warikoo mentions his “failure resume” that he is inspired by Johannes HausHofer. In 2016, Johannes HausHofer tweeted his CV with a caption – New “publication”: My CV of Failures!" In his CV he claims:

This CV is unlikely to be complete – it was written from memory and probably omits a lot of stuff. So if it’s shorter than yours, it’s likely because you have better memory, or because you’re better at trying things than me.

What are the takeaways from Ankur Warikoo’s “Failure Resume”?

As noted earlier, everyone’s career trajectory is distinct and unique in itself. What may work for someone might not work for others. We cannot predict the future, but we surely can prepare ourselves by building on our skills and protecting ourselves from the uncertainty in future. As Ankur Warikoo mentions in his resume claiming that everyone has similar problems and challenges in life but “What may be different is the reaction to it. Or their acceptance in the first place”. It completely depends on the individual whether to feel dejected by the rejections or to use these as stepping stones to make progress towards their specified goals.

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