What if you get emotional?

Feeling emotional when you've made a mistake at work is completely normal. After all, you work so hard day in day out to do a good job, so when something happens that makes you look bad, it's going to hurt. You wouldn't be the first person to break down in tears after a stressful day and an annoying mistake! If you feel emotional, you might be best removing yourself from the situation briefly to gather your thoughts. Then, come back to the problem and find a solution. Once the mistake has been rectified, try not to dwell on what happened, it will only serve to damage your confidence in your job going forwards. 

Can you prevent it from happening again?

The occasional mistake at work is expected, but if you're someone who's consistently making mistakes then this could be an indication that you're not very proficient at your job, or that you need additional support/training. The best way to make sure you don't make the same mistake over and over again is to put new precautions in place.

This could be something as small as an additional check that you do each day or asking someone to check your work before you send it off. If you think that your mistake was a product of something happening in your personal life eg. because you're overtired or overworked, it might be time to think about taking a holiday! Having a break and resetting can drastically improve your performance at work.

Here at HRS recruitment, we give a lot of great advice to candidates looking for new jobs. We also help people kickstart their dream science careers! If you're on the hunt for a new job, please take a look at our current science vacancies.

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