Harvard Business School: Tell us three setbacks you have faced. (600 words)
This question is new for the 2011/2012 application year, and transforms the classic HBS mistake essay into a broader topic. When you think about three setbacks in your life thus far consider that a setback is anything that hinders or impedes your progress. Additionally, the choice of setback can be personal, professional, or extracurricular.
Some applicants face writer’s block when thinking about discussing imperfections in their overall story. The truth is that your challenges and setbacks have made you a more resilient person, and the admissions committee will learn the most about you and your personal qualities from these stories. Many talented, high-achieving individuals who show early promise in their academic and professional careers plateau after a few years in the workforce. There can be many possible explanations as to why, but quite often the failure to realize early potential is based on an inability to recognize, take accountability for, and learn from mistakes and difficulties.
Making mistakes and facing setbacks is an inevitable consequence of leading. By definition, the leader is blazing a new trail where guidebooks and guidelines simply don’t exist; so missteps are sure to occur. The admissions committee will be very leery of a candidate who claims a flawless string of successes and no blunders. All of the possibilities are red flags: the candidate is being dishonest; the candidate is incapable of recognizing a mistake and lacks self-awareness; the candidate is so cautious that he or she never makes a move unless success is assured. The opportunities for growth for this person are slim; the chances of admission to HBS are even slimmer.
Mistakes or disappointment occur when one’s assumptions about how the world works are off base or unrealistic. The mistake is a reality check. Some people cling to faulty assumptions and continue to hit brick walls, while others learn something new, course-correct, and move forward. Moreover, a leader who is capable of admitting when he is wrong is showing his followers that making and admitting mistakes is okay. Facing disappointment and solving the problem that led to your feelings shows introspection and maturity. It’s easy to see why these leadership characteristics are paramount. Major corporations have been brought down by leaders who neglected their gut feelings or felt their missteps were best brushed under the carpet or fed through the paper shredder.
Essay Tips
Tip #1: Mistakes and setbacks are related but different.
Tip #2: Demonstrate self-awareness.
Tip #3: Lessons learned and evidence of growth are paramount.
Tip #4: Show initiative and resilience
Mistakes and setbacks are related but different.
The HBS question requires you to think of three setbacks in your life and explore them in this essay. In the past, other schools such as Wharton have asked applicants to write about a failure or setback. The admissions committee’s motivation for asking about mistakes, setbacks and failures is similar. They are attempting to gauge your self-awareness, resiliency, and ability to respond positively to adverse circumstances.
While a mistake is an incident that required you to act, a setback can be something that happened to you. For example, failing to consider all aspects of your business strategy before starting a business is a mistake, and being laid off when your business fails to gain VC funding is a setback. Often your own mistake can lead to a setback, so you are able to use much broader topics in this new version of the HBS essay than you could in past years.
Demonstrate self-awareness.
By its very nature the setback essay is a test of your maturity and self-awareness. In a situation where you are marketing yourself, it may feel awkward to highlight your challenges. It’s much more fun to share your accomplishments, and it’s natural to want to highlight strengths. What many applicants don’t understand is that the ability to recognize, accept responsibility for, react to, and learn from difficulty is a tremendous strength – one that not all early-career, high achievers possess.
In some ways, the setback essay exists to weed out that subset of future leaders who will rise to the top based on tremendous willpower and self-confidence but will ultimately be brought down because they don’t have the ability to recover when things don’t go according to plan. The setback essay then is the “yang” to the accomplishments essay’s “yin.” The admissions committee has offered you an opportunity to share your strengths and tout your achievements; now it is time to demonstrate a different kind of confidence: the confidence to admit that you are fallible and that you can learn from the inevitable missteps that will test even high achievers.
Lessons learned and evidence of growth are paramount.
Especially in the early drafts, you may struggle to simply properly describe your setbacks and how you responded in less than 600 words. Often times, applicants spend the majority of the essay explaining, or worse – defending – their challenges and only a sentence or two sharing what they learned. Try to reserve enough space to share what you learned and how you grew both personally and professionally as a result of your setbacks. Try to extract the universal lessons from the experience, and when possible tell the reader how what you learned has changed the way you approach similar situations today.
Show initiative and resilience
Think about the times you have been faced setbacks at work or with an organization. Did your challenge lead to positive change? If so, you have found an excellent topic for the setback essay.
Problems with a team or a process can lead to positive change in many situations. If you have an example that fits into this construct, make sure you are never blaming others for the setback. Rather, you will acknowledge how you felt and then spend most of the essay talking about how your feelings led you to create positive change in your organization.
Facing difficulties like professional setbacks can often lead to growth and development, and demonstrate maturity to the admissions committee. The ability to recognize that something is not working for you, and taking the steps to create a better situation shows initiative and proactive leadership.
If you have faced a challenge in your career – whether a job you disliked or something more serious like a layoff – it was likely a period of soul searching and realizations. You can use this material to write an excellent introspective essay to demonstrate how you handle adversity. Resilience is a core personality trait of successful people, and demonstrating your own ability to rise above a challenge will serve you well in this set of essays.
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