My failure resume

Cindy Tran’s Failure Resume 

Phone number: 617 – NotBitter – AtAll

Email:  rejectedallthetime@gmail.com 

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Education

I go to a school where they say failure is not a reflection of your self-worth but everyone is scared to hell and back of anything that isn’t a success. Courseload includes APs that I don’t like and classes that I thought would make college admissions counselors happy. 

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Skills

• Receiving rejection emails and not responding. 

• I may be petty but at least I have some dignity. 

• Using the same cover letter for 20 different jobs because efficiency is all I have. 
• Creating three-page resumes because my qualifications don’t fit on one page. 
• Giving up on things that don’t come to me easily because I was gifted as a child and am painfully aware of my mediocre-ness as an almost-adult. 

Work Experience

Rejection from [REDACTED] Magazine – Writer (June 2020 – Never) 

• My mentor worked here so I thought I would get in. 

• I didn’t get in. 

• I was bitter and sent an email asking why I wasn’t selected. 
• The editor-in-chief wrote back and told me my writing wasn’t a good fit. 

• I didn’t respond. 

• I cried that night and vowed that I would never write again. 
• Now I get paid to write.  

Rejection from [REDACTED] Magazine – Editorial Assistant (August 2020 – Never) 

• This was the first cover letter I ever wrote. 
• I never got an official email but I saw that someone on LinkedIn had recently updated their profile with the position. 
• I unfollowed them on Instagram and blocked their website on my browser. 

• I know society is all about ‘every man for himself,’ but you can’t even write a generic “you didn’t get the job” email to someone after they spend two hours on a cover letter and another three polishing their resume and LinkedIn? 

• I wouldn’t have liked working with people who didn’t appreciate the efforts of others anyway. 

Rejection from [REDACTED] Magazine – Managing Editor (August 2020 – Never) 

• They said that I was qualified but they found someone who “vibed” with them better. 

• “No hard feelings,” they said, and offered me a writing position. 
• I had some very hard feelings. 

• I rejected their offer and started my own magazine. 

Rejection from [REDACTED] Magazine – Writing Submissions (September 2020, December 2020, January 2020, and forever until I write in a style that isn’t my own) 

• Honestly, it’s my fault for realizing that they didn’t like my writing style. 

• This one’s on me.

Rejection from [REDACTED] University – Student (March 2021 – Never) 

• Okay, so this one stung a bit. 
• Remember what I said about my allergy to failure? 

• Well, this one stung. 
• A lot. 

• I dreamed of going to school in New York. 

• You know, skyscrapers, sunsets above penthouses, leisure walks down Fifth Avenue. Brooklyn brownstones, the Strand Bookstore, the whole New Yorker aesthetic that overtook my vision boards on Pinterest. 

• Girls in brown blazers and trousers that fit, tote bags with groceries.
• Expensive coffee from Starbucks, Doc Martens clunking down streets, spring picnics in Central, and melted chocolates snuck into the MoMA. 
• Busy nights, busier mornings, everyone chasing down the next train, taxi, or Uber with the destination their single-minded focus. 

• I wanted that. 

• I wanted that so badly. 

• Now, I am rewriting my dreams with what waits for me in Boston. 

Awards and Recognition 

Taking Rejections Way Too Personally 

• Awarded by: Cindy’s Emotional Vulnerability   
• Awarded for: Receiving rejections like they’re a personal attack and not just a reminder that her skills are not necessarily as primed as they should be–also, she doesn’t even have a high school degree yet.

Being Surprised Every Time She Gets A Rejection 

• Awarded by: The Gods of Rejection
• Awarded for: Receiving rejections pretty regularly but still making the same Surprised Pikachu face whenever a rejection email lands in her inbox. 

Comparing Herself to People Every Step of the Way 

• Awarded by: A Very Unstable Self-Esteem
• Awarded for: Constantly beating herself up whenever she sees what her peers are accomplishing, then feeling like a terrible person because she should be proud of them but all she can hear is her very unstable self-esteem saying that she should be working, saying she’s not good enough, saying she needs to work harder.

Vulnerability and the Essence of Failure 

• Awarded by: A slowly but surely growing sense of self-assuredness 
• Awarded for: Writing this resume and reflecting on painful times of the past. She’s really grown since her first rejection. Crippling self-doubt is always around the corner, but by confronting her fears head-on, she has become a stronger person. She is realizing that with each setback, she works twice as hard to become a better person. (She thinks that perhaps in the near future, that she will become someone she’s proud of.)