How to remember past professional experiences

There are two clear ways to incorrectly remember your past professional experiences - first by denying they ever happened and secondly by only remembering them in a negative light.  None of us are perfect and our past includes both positive and negative experiences.  So how can we use these experiences to shape our future?

We all know the saying that hindsight is 20/20.  So why not use that to our advantage?  Regardless of whether it is a client or a candidate, I hear all the time about a recent bad experience.  A client who hired the wrong person for a role and wants to avoid doing that again at all costs.  A candidate who felt was promised a lot in the interview process, only to have those promises unfulfilled once the job is taken.  An initial response for either party could be predicted as I outlined above - deny the experience was bad at all, or only focus on how bad it was.  Neither move you forward.

Don't hear what I am not saying - we can all learn from past mistakes.  But simply dwelling on them or trying to hide them will not propel you forward.  Let's first explore why it is a bad idea to go down the path of denial.  If you are a candidate or an employer that feels like a bad job or bad hire was a one-time experience, you could be sorely mistaken.  Without having it be a recurring theme of an interview, it is okay to explore why something did not work out.  The manner in which you approach this topic makes all the difference in the world.  I had a candidate recently take a new position, was happy for about three months, and then the bottom fell out.  She admitted that she saw some tendencies in a new boss during the interview process that reminded her of an old boss.  But she chose to ignore those tendencies in the new boss and really hoped things would be different.  Instead of admitting that it might be another bad career move.  Something that could have been easily avoided through a little introspection.

The second idea here is even more dangerous - only remembering a past experience in a negative light.  I had a client recently go through significant turnover in a department.  The common thread was that a few of the new employees were coming from the same type of employer.  Hence the idea surfaced that everyone from that employer must be considered a bad option for a new hire.  You can probably see where I am going with this.  I sourced a candidate from that employer that happened to be fantastic.  The client would not even consider an interview as the experience was so bad with the other employees from that company.

The bottom line here is that regret is not something I recommend when looking in the rearview mirror of your career or your hiring patterns.  Instead learn from negative experiences, acknowledge that they are okay, and instead look forward to build a better future.

Have you ever looked back with regret or thoughts of negativity?  If so, what did you gain from it?