On where I come from, loss, detours, self-taught skills, and how much a résumé really reveals about a person.
Benjamin Trinidad Segura
11 min read
I understand problems. I find solutions. I make things happen.
Three sentences that at first sound like one of those interchangeable self-descriptions you constantly read in job applications, on LinkedIn, or in interviews.
And maybe I would skim right over them myself.
Because anyone can claim that, at first.
But how do you actually prove that you can do something?
With a degree? A job title? Ten years of work experience? A list of every employer, with as few gaps as possible?
Surely, all of that says something about a person.
But not everything.
And the longer I think about my own résumé, the more I wonder how much of what makes me who I am today is actually visible in it.
I grew up in a poor household.
I grew up without a father.
When I was twelve, my mother died in a car accident. I was in the passenger seat.
A month later, a neighbor’s apartment caught fire. Water damage made the entire building uninhabitable.
Within a few weeks, I had lost not only my mother, but also my home.
There’s a kind of security you don’t think about as a child. Because you take it for granted.
That someone is there.
That you can come home.
That there’s a place that stays, even when everything outside changes.
I lost a large part of that security when I was twelve.
Since then, I’ve moved thirteen times.
Thirteen times packing boxes. Thirteen times starting over somewhere new. Thirteen times trying to turn four walls into a home again.
At some point, moving on becomes more familiar than arriving.
And maybe that’s one of the reasons I’m still restless sometimes. Why I want to change, try out, and build so much.
Maybe not.
Not everything in our lives can be traced back to a single event.
But I know that I learned very early how quickly things we take for granted can disappear.
I lived alone at sixteen.
That might sound like early independence.
Like freedom, personal responsibility, and being self-reliant.
Sometimes, the reality was different.
I didn’t know how to manage money. Not because I particularly wanted to spend recklessly, but because there were many things I simply hadn’t learned.
How to plan a budget. Which bills to prioritize. Why it’s important to have savings. What happens when you make the wrong decisions.
I know what hunger feels like when there was no money left for food.
I know what it’s like when heating or hot water is no longer financially possible.
I know the consequences of bad decisions.
And I know what it feels like to have no safety net.
No one who can simply cover the bill when something goes wrong.
Of course, I’m responsible for my mistakes. Then and now.
But taking responsibility doesn’t mean pretending that everyone has the same starting point.
Being left to fend for yourself early doesn’t mean you grow up early. Sometimes it only means that there’s no one there to show you how being an adult works.
I’d like to claim that it immediately made me more disciplined, stronger, or particularly resilient.
But that would be a nice story, not a particularly honest one.
I made mistakes. Some more than once. Some with consequences that lasted longer than I would have liked.
I had to learn many things that came naturally to others.
And there are things I’m still learning today.
At some point, I worked at an event agency.
I managed promoters and ticket sellers, built teams, organized, and coordinated.
In the end, I was responsible for fifteen cities, each with more than fifty promoters and ticket sellers.
Finding people. Convincing people. Bringing people together. Solving problems while operations keep running.
And that probably also explains why my enthusiasm for endless WhatsApp messages and group chats is pretty limited today.
It was an intense time.
A time when I learned a lot about people, organization, communication, and responsibility.
After that, I trained as a legal and notary assistant.
Not because I’d always dreamed of a career at a law firm.
I had a startup idea at the time.
And I asked myself a question:
What training would help me with this idea while also giving me knowledge I could benefit from in the future?
My answer was training grounded in law.
So I started it. Without much prior knowledge of the subject.
And completed it.
Later, I moved into recruitment consulting.
Engineers and technicians.
Another field I knew almost nothing about at the beginning.
In my first year, I was named “Best Rookie / Best Trainee.”
After that, I built a new area of the business.
Again, without already being an expert in it.
Over time, my work increasingly moved toward IT recruiting, digital systems, processes, and technology. I also took on tasks related to SAP SuccessFactors and other tools, and kept building my knowledge.
Of course, I didn’t have an answer to everything from the start.
I still don’t.
But maybe that’s exactly where something I’ve learned about myself lies.
An idea has accompanied me alongside my professional journey.
A startup idea that I repeatedly tried to bring to market for more than ten years.
I researched, wrote concepts, changed models, won people over to my vision, and put teams together.
I learned how products are supposed to be developed, how digital business models work, how to validate ideas, and why some things that look great on paper don’t work in reality.
The idea changed several times.
Some approaches were abandoned. Some teams broke up again. Some attempts didn’t lead where I wanted them to.
Ten years is a long time to keep trying without seeing the breakthrough you hoped for.
And I don’t want to romanticize that at all.
Persistence alone doesn’t make an idea right. And not every hour invested is automatically worthwhile just because you sacrificed a lot for it.
Sometimes you have to change something.
Sometimes you have to admit that an approach isn’t working.
Sometimes you have to start over.
But I never stopped thinking about how to turn an idea into something real.
Today, I develop and design my own digital products. I work on software development, artificial intelligence, product design, user experiences, and business models.
Not because I’ve followed a traditional training path in all these fields.
But because these topics interest me. Because I want to understand how things work. And because simply thinking about an idea eventually stops being enough for me.
I want to put it into practice.
If I don’t understand something, I look into it.
If I want to know how a website is made, I learn how websites work.
If I want to edit videos, I learn about editing, design, and publishing.
If I’m interested in software development, I try to understand the architecture, connections, and tools behind it.
If I have an idea for a product, I look into the problem, the users, the market, and the technical implementation.
That doesn’t automatically make me an expert in all these disciplines.
But it does mean that my knowledge doesn’t stop at the boundaries of my last job description.
I’ve taught myself a lot.
I’ve learned a lot by trying things out.
And I’ve learned a lot by listening to people who were better at something than I was.
Outside my professional work, too.
I mentor young people, volunteer at a sports club, and serve as an assistant coach on the basketball court.
These are different roles. But they have something in common.
They’re about people.
About listening, recognizing potential, understanding connections, providing direction, and making things better together.
Sometimes that works. Sometimes it doesn’t.
That’s part of it, too.
And not every one of these experiences can be usefully included in a résumé without turning it into a document that eventually explains more than it should show.
Not every skill comes with a certificate. Not every experience has a job title. And not everything that qualifies someone is in their résumé.
There’s one more point that matters to me.
I can get up to speed on new topics.
I can analyze problems, develop solutions, bring people together, and move things forward.
But I don’t function equally well in every environment.
I need a framework.
Clarity about what we’re trying to achieve. Responsibility I’m actually allowed to take on. People I can speak openly with, and disagree with too.
And above all, trust.
Not blind trust.
Not the freedom to decide everything without consulting anyone.
But the trust to put my abilities to use, ask questions, challenge existing processes, and suggest my own solutions.
I want to understand why we do something.
And if there’s a better way, I want to be allowed to talk about it.
Because I don’t believe a person’s potential depends solely on how much they can do.
It also depends on whether their environment allows them to put those abilities to use.
Potential doesn’t unfold through abilities alone. It also needs an environment where those abilities are allowed to make a difference.
That doesn’t mean all my ideas are good.
Or that I’m always right.
Quite the opposite.
I want people to disagree with me when they have good reason to.
But I also want people to consider an idea before dismissing it just because it doesn’t match what they’re used to.
I understand why we need résumés.
They provide a point of reference.
They show experience, qualifications, and professional development.
They help match people with requirements.
And of course, verifiable skills and professional qualifications matter.
I don’t mean to claim that my personal experiences automatically qualify me for a particular role.
But I believe we make a mistake when we treat a résumé as a complete judgment of a person.
Because two people can have the same qualification and have taken completely different paths to get there.
One had support, stability, and the opportunity to focus on their goals early on.
The other first had to learn how to organize and pay for everyday life.
Both paths can involve achievements, mistakes, and valuable experiences.
The point isn’t to weigh them against each other.
It’s about recognizing that we don’t all have the same starting conditions.
A résumé shows which opportunities a person has taken. But rarely which opportunities they had in the first place.
And perhaps that’s why we should ask more questions instead of rushing to judgment.
What has someone actually done?
What responsibilities has this person taken on?
What problems have they solved?
What have they taught themselves?
How do they handle things they don’t know yet?
And what might they accomplish if we give them the opportunity?
When I look back on my life today, I see many things.
A child who lost his mother.
A teenager who was alone too soon.
A young adult who made mistakes and didn’t always know what came next.
A person who repeatedly moved into new professional fields without knowing all the answers beforehand.
Someone who has spent more than ten years working on ideas, experienced setbacks, started over, and kept learning.
I see achievements I’m proud of.
And decisions I would make differently today.
But I don’t want to be reduced to my past, my mistakes, or my achievements.
I don’t want someone to read my story and turn it into a heroic tale.
I wish I could have kept my mother.
I wish I could have been a child for longer.
I wish I’d understood some things sooner and hadn’t had to go through certain experiences.
Not everything was necessary for me to become the person I am today.
And I don’t have to retrospectively turn every painful experience into something positive.
Maybe that’s the most important distinction.
I’m not grateful for every loss.
Not for every mistake.
Not for every difficult time.
But I am grateful for what I can understand, learn, create, and change today.
And that my story hasn’t been fully told yet.
I’m not a perfect candidate.
Not someone who knows the right answer to every question.
Not an expert in everything I work on.
And certainly not someone who has always chosen the easiest path.
But I’m curious.
I’m willing to learn.
I question things I don’t understand.
I see possibilities where others might initially see limitations.
And when I believe in an idea, I try to find a way to make it real.
Sometimes I need support. Sometimes disagreement. Sometimes patience.
And sometimes just someone who says:
I don’t know yet whether this will work. But explain how you imagine it.
Maybe this is something I want not only for myself.
But also for all those people whose résumés don’t follow a straight line.
Who have taken detours.
Who had to learn things others had support with from an early age.
Who have developed skills for which there is no official proof.
Who might be capable of more than their last job title suggests.
I don’t want to be judged by different standards.
I just want us to recognize how incomplete our standards sometimes are.
A résumé can show where someone has been. But it can never fully show who that person is—or what potential they still have.
I am more than my résumé.
I understand problems. I find solutions. I make things happen.
And if I’m given the right environment and the trust I need, I can create something that doesn’t appear on any of the roles I’ve held so far.
Maybe we should ask people not only what they’ve done so far, but also what they could make possible.
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