My CV tries to sell you a success story. It lists my achievements and accomplishments, showcasing prestigious grants and scholarships, high-impact publications, and my positions at leading research institutes around the world.
This is however not the full story. For every successful grant, publication or position, I can give you (sometimes multiple) failed and rejected applications and submissions. Throughout my career, these failed attempts have taken up a lot of my energy and time – probably more than the successful ones I show off in my CV. I think this work (and all the blood, sweat and tears that went into it) deserves more attention! Here are my 'greatest failures' and rejection in academia:
- A rejected DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Prime postdoc fellowship
- A rejected DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) postdoc fellowship
- A rejected Leopoldina (German National Academy of Sciences) postdoc fellowship
- A rejected European Union Marie-Skłodowska-Curie postdoc application
- An interview for a tenure-track professor positon, which was ultimately unsuccessful
- Several rejected tenure-track assistant professor/lecturer applications
- Two rejected postdoc positions that I applied for
- A rejected application to the Kurt-Eberhard-Bode-Stiftung for my own junior research group
- A rejected Marsden Fast-Start grant by the Royal Society of New Zealand
- A rejected DFG (German Research Foundation) Emmy Noether application to start my own research group
- Some rejected manuscripts, which were submitted to other journals
- More to come…
It is also worth noting that many of these unsuccessful grants later developed and evolved into successful re-submissions and received funding. I’ll keep on trying then because I believe in the end, it is hard work, consistency and persistence that pays off. However, I also believe that we should not hide these failed attempts, as this can create a ‘false positive’ of continuous success, and an unhealthy image of spotless careers in academia.
Cheers and all the best,
Chris
* Supposedly, the dismissal of The Beatles, when manager Brian Epstein presented the yet unknown group to record label executives. (I am certainly not trying to compare my work to The Beatles’ achievements but it shows that even the best get rejected at times.)