Latest / The Internal Move Podcast with Fexingo: Lateral Roles, Internal Transfers, and Staying at Your Company / How an Internal Transfer Can Help You Write Off Failure
Transcript
- Lucas: There's this moment that a lot of people in professional services know well. You're in a client meeting, the partner is presenting your analysis, and you realize—maybe ten seconds before everyone else does—that the numbers don't tie. There's a calculation error, or a faulty assumption, and the whole recommendation falls apart. Luna: And you can feel the temperature in the room drop. Lucas: Exactly. The partner covers, you regroup, but you know your name is now attached to that miss. In the external job market, that kind of visible failure can be a near-fatal stain on your resume. But inside your own company, the calculus is different. And that's what we're diving into today: how an internal transfer can help you write off failure. Luna: Before we get into the mechanics, we should note something. This show exists because we believe in helping people navigate these career moves without the noise. We deliberately don't run ads on these episodes, and if that approach has given you a useful framework or a new way to think about your next move, you can support the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: No pressure, ever. But listener support is what keeps this ad-free, so if it's helped you, that's the link. Alright—back to failure. Luna, you've seen this up close. Luna: At my old consulting firm, we had a senior associate named Rachel. She was on a high-stakes due diligence project for a private equity client. She built the operating model that would inform a billion-dollar bid. And she made a formula error that cascaded through the model. The client caught it during a dry run. The deal didn't fall apart, but Rachel's reputation took a hit. Lucas: And in a consulting firm, your reputation is your currency. But rather than leave the firm, Rachel tapped her network internally. She found a role in the firm's internal strategy group, where she'd be working on longer-term projects with less client-facing pressure. She moved within three months. Luna: And what's interesting is that the internal hiring manager—a partner in the strategy group—had worked with Rachel before on a different project. He knew her track record wasn't defined by that one error. He was willing to look past it because he'd seen her succeed. Lucas: That's the core insight here. When you apply externally, your resume is often reduced to a single narrative. A failure becomes the headline. But internally, you have a history. People have context. The hiring manager might have been in the room when you nailed a presentation three years ago. That memory offsets the recent miss. Luna: It's not just about having a history, though. It's also about how you frame the failure in the internal conversation. Rachel was very open about what went wrong. She didn't try to hide it. She owned it, explained what she'd put in place to prevent recurrence, and then highlighted what she'd learned. Lucas: That's a critical step. If you try to sweep a failure under the rug, it becomes this unspoken thing that everyone knows but nobody addresses. That erodes trust. But if you address it head-on, you can actually strengthen your candidacy. The internal hiring manager sees someone who is self-aware and resilient. Luna: And there's a timing element. Rachel moved within three months. If she'd waited a year, the narrative might have hardened. People would have remembered her as 'the one who blew the model.' By moving quickly, she gave herself a fresh start before the story became permanent. Lucas: So the window matters. But you also need to be strategic about where you go. Not every internal role is a good landing pad after a failure. You want a role where your past mistake is less relevant. In Rachel's case, moving from client-facing due diligence to internal strategy meant she'd be dealing with proprietary firm projects, not high-stakes external deadlines. Luna: And the internal strategy group had a different culture. More collaborative, less blame-oriented. That was deliberate on her part. She scoped out teams where psychological safety was higher. Lucas: That's a good point. The destination matters as much as the move itself. If you jump into another high-pressure, high-visibility role, the failure might follow you. But if you find a team that values learning from mistakes, you can rebuild. Luna: Let's talk about the role of sponsors. Rachel had a senior partner who vouched for her internally. That partner didn't just say 'she's good.' He specifically addressed the failure, saying 'she's learned from it and she's stronger.' That kind of sponsorship is gold. Lucas: And you can't just expect a sponsor to emerge. You have to cultivate those relationships before the failure happens. Rachel had been building that relationship for years. When she needed it, the partner was willing to stake his own reputation on her. Luna: So the takeaway isn't 'fail and then find a sponsor.' It's 'invest in relationships consistently, so that when failure happens, you have people who can contextualize it.' Lucas: Right. And there's also a structural advantage to staying inside. When you apply for an external job, you're competing against people who may have spotless records. But internally, the hiring manager knows that everyone makes mistakes. They've seen plenty of failures in their own teams. So they're less likely to hold one against you. Luna: I think that's the key psychological difference. External recruiters are looking for a reason to say no. Internal hiring managers are looking for a reason to say yes—because they already know you, or they know someone who does. Lucas: But let's be realistic. Not every failure can be overcome with an internal transfer. If the failure involved ethical lapses, or if you've had a pattern of mistakes, the internal brand damage might be too deep. In those cases, a fresh start externally might be the better move. Luna: Absolutely. This strategy works best for what I'd call 'honest failures'—mistakes that came from trying hard, not from negligence. If you took a calculated risk and it didn't pay off, that's something an internal hiring manager can get behind. Lucas: And there's one more angle. When you transfer internally after a failure, you're not just escaping the stigma. You're also signaling to the organization that you're committed. You're saying 'I believe in this company enough to work through my mistake here.' That can actually enhance your long-term standing. Luna: Rachel eventually became a partner at that firm. She's spoken publicly about that moment as a turning point. She said the internal transfer gave her a second chance that she might not have gotten externally. Lucas: So if you're sitting with a recent failure, the first question isn't 'should I leave?' It's 'where inside this company can I go where this failure is a footnote, not the headline?' And then you start having conversations. Luna: And those conversations should be honest. Don't pretend the failure didn't happen. Say 'I made a mistake, here's what I learned, and here's why I'm excited about this new role.' Lucas: Exactly. That's the playbook. And it's one that a lot of people overlook because they assume the damage is irreparable. But inside your own company, the repair is often possible—if you move smartly. Luna: I'd add one more thing. Document your learning. Write down what went wrong, why, and what you'd do differently. That not only helps you in interviews, but it also builds a narrative you can believe in. Lucas: Good advice. And if you're on the other side—if you're a manager considering an internal candidate who's had a visible failure—remember the context you have. You can see the whole arc, not just the low point. That's a gift the external market doesn't have. Luna: Alright, that's a solid framework. Any final thought? Lucas: Just that failure is inevitable in any career with ambition. The question is whether you let it define you or whether you use it to redirect. An internal transfer can be the vehicle for that redirect. It's worth exploring before you update your resume.