I've made a lot of foul-ups in the course of my career. When people ask me about mistakes I've made and what I've learned from them during interviews it's gener

I've made a lot of foul-ups in the course of my career. When people ask me about mistakes I've made and what I've learned from them during interviews it's generally an easy question to answer because I have this overstuffed mental file folder of examples. I can't speak for the US but, in the UK, don't misrepresent your work in a job interview. I can't say you'll never miss out on an offer by being honest, though I don't believe I ever have, but would you really want to work for people who'd prefer you to lie or misrepresent mistakes you've made than be open and truthful about them? To me that's something of a red flag: it's at least indicative of a culture where mistakes are likely to be covered up, leading to a lack of reflection, learning and improvement... and also quite possibly storing up bigger problems for later. (FWIW, I started as a developer and am now the CTO of a mid-sized multinational market research and insight company. This is nowhere near as grand as it might sound, and isn't meant to be a boast, but hopefully illustrates that being honest doesn't appear to have done my career any long-term harm. Some things that have, if not derailed my career, caused me to take some fairly substantial detours: (i) taking things too personally, (ii) placing too much weight on others' assessments of me, (iii) and I say this as somebody who is wary of people who change jobs too often, but... staying in a job way past the point where there was anything else I could learn/give/progress. I am, of course, but a single data point.)