I worked for a company affiliated with a very publicly failed project. Should I take it off my resume?

Question

I worked briefly for a company that had a recent highly publicized failed government project (I'm sure you can probably guess). While I did not work on that particular project, I think all the bad press about this company negatively affects my resume. I was only at the company for about 6 months before I realized I needed to get out.

If I remove it from my resume, I may avoid having it tossed out prematurely, but I'll have to explain the missing 6 months eventually. Which option makes the best overall impression?

Answer 1

Recruiters don't assume that everyone associated with a 'failed project' is incompetent. I very much doubt that your resume will be tossed out because this company name appears on your resume. If you were actually involved with this project then you can expect questions at an interview about your role. You might get general questions about why the project failed, so be prepared for them.

If you leave this work off your resume, that leaves a six month gap in your work record. You will probably be asked about that gap, in which case you will have to lie (which I strongly don't recommend) or own up to the association. I very much doubt that either of those scenarios will be better for you than putting the work on the resume in the first place.

Answer 2

If I remove it from my resume, I may avoid having it tossed out prematurely, but I'll have to explain the missing 6 months eventually. Which option makes the best overall impression?

I've never rejected a resume or interviewee based on working for a company that was a public failure. As far as I know, none of my friends who are hiring managers have ever rejected an interviewee for this reason, either. I can't imagine ever rejecting for that cause, unless I somehow believed the individual was directly responsible for the failure.

I've worked at many startup companies that no longer exist. As far as I can tell, their demise has never been held against me when I was seeking employment. Often, the hiring manager and I would find that we each had similar failed startups in our background.

On the other hand, if I spot a lie on a resume I'll immediately put it in the "reject" pile. And if I detect an omission or inconsistency on a resume, a huge red flag is raised in my mind - one that isn't easily explained away.

For me, this is a no-brainer. Leave the company on your resume. Be prepared to discuss the company (with a laugh) during an interview.

Answer 3

I worked briefly for a company that had a recent highly publicized failed government project (I'm sure you can probably guess). While I did not work on that particular project, [should I remove this experience from my resume?]

Great question. And my answer is:

Categorically 'No'.

Here's why:

• When a recruiter screens candidate resumes for a potential fit, he/she is scanning for keyword technology matches and requisite levels of education and experience. Recruiters typically do not filter out candidates with experience at companies with sullied reputations. [And if they do, then they are foolish.]
• When a hiring manager interviews a candidate, he/she wants to know: Can this candidate help my team complete work and solve problems? Any hiring manager with a modicum of common sense knows that office politics and poor executive decision making can cause a project to fail. Such factors have nothing to do with a particular candidate's utility to his/her next company.
• Experience on a failed project can often help a worker make informed decisions when he/she faces similar problems in the future.
• During the interview process, a good hiring manager should be able to discern if a candidate: 1) Had anything to do with the problems on the failed project; and 2) Learned anything from the experience.

Hope this helps!

Answer 4

In short, if every programmer who worked on a failed project or a lousy company was blackballed, there'd be no one left to hire.

Be forthright and honest about you, your role, and your skills and you will probably not have an issue.

Answer 5

Honestly, why would any hiring official that you would want to work for assume that a big disaster was your fault just because you happened to work at the company at the time of the failure. And really after about two months no one will even remember what company this was. A six-month gap is a far bigger problem to explain. Plus you can't use any of the new experience you actually got at that job to sell yourself.

Getting caught in a lie about what you were doing during those six months would be a deal breaker. It is a small world in many professions, it is entirely possible a hiring official might know someone who worked there at the same time or may have worked there in the past himself and find out you are lying about that time. Sometimes even good people get involved in failed projects, so what.

Why would anyone care unless you have nothing but failed projects on your resume and only poorly thought-of employers. A pattern of failures is more important than only one company that had a failed project. Really if you are not getting interviews from your resume, this one company is probably not the reason. I would look at how well you are selling yourself rather than some outside negative force.

Answer 6

I hire based on honesty, competency, and clarity of communication -- in that order. While I can appreciate the deliberation this raises in you, any distortion of your history would negatively impact my perception.

Besides, consider the outcomes:

• If you put it on there and I don't know about the debacle, no harm no foul.
• If you put it on there and I do know about the failure, it would provide an interesting talking point for me -- I could understand your perception, and such perception might be valuable to me in my projects. Perhaps you could help my company avoid similar disasters.
• If you don't put it on there, that opens a big can of worms through which you will have to dance.

In summary: put it on there. Use it to your benefit. Good luck!

Answer 7

Actually having worked on failed projects (this seems not to be the case here) is often seen as a positive experience for following employers (well, maybe not so much for the head of such project).

The general idea is that any good candicate should learn from his errors, or the errors of others he have seen. If he is any good he should avoid doing the same kind of error in the future, and having seen other fail he will probably avoid being overconfident, which is dangerous.

Henceforth, you really shouldn't remove that experience from your resume, but be ready to speak about it, of what you believe were the root causes of the problems and also of what was done right and the intents of the people. Just avoid being too negative about it that is usually not well perceived by recruiters (despising other people, even after a failure is not an interesting quality in anyone).

On the other hand being good at failure analysis is a great quality for a candidate and it is luck to have such good subject likely to be discussed in an interview.

But of course it won't ever be the only subject and you will have to show your skills as in any other interview.

Answer 8

The omission will be noticeable and if you're found out, as you almost certainly will be, that's a huge black mark.

Don't underestimate the value of memorable résumé. Even an association with a famous disaster will keep your name in the hiring manager's mind. If you're bold, you can hang a lampshade on it:

Accomplishments
- led scrum-reorganization project
- diligently and successfully avoided association with Healthcare.gov
- finished second in company 10K run

Answer 9

No. Even though there isn't actually an employment gap, removing the company would create the appearance of one, and this is worse than having a failed project on your resume.

What you can do to offset possible pain from this is to work on your story. How were you involved with this project? Did you see the failure coming? If so, why didn't you stop it? If not, why didn't you see it? Either way, what have you learned? What would you do differently next time? What wouldn't you do differently?

Recruiters see hundreds of successes every day: you need some, to be sure, but they're boring. A well-handled failure can make you interesting, and that can be its own kind of advantage. The trick is in showing that you did in fact handle it well.

Answer 10

The folowing is purely my own thoughts, and does not reflect the position of my employer:

I wouldn't advise you what to do with your resume, it's up to you. Often people do have a long list of companies they worked with and that makes resume too long, so I don't see a big problem not mentioning some of jobs. However since you indicated this position that you carried is likely of interest to prospective employee, I can't ethically justify not mentioning it.

it's very individual as to what will each person think of your involvement in certain project. However, good companies tend to be picky, and it could take a single person out of whole team disliking you to be rejected. It's better to pass on several good candidates than to hire someone who ends up a bad fit. One a-hole could ruin the whole team dynamics. It's much easier to find a different candidate, than to fire somebody you already hired

I rarely do interviews, but if I did, then 6-month involvement in a knowingly dysfunctional and incompetent organization would actually be a red flag to me. Think about it yourself: say you interview someone who previously worked in TSA, would you hire him for work which requires initiative and independent thought?