So your last employer terminated you, and your interviewing for a new job? Forget full disclosure. Think spin. Do I think this works? I know it works becasue I did it repeatedly.
From Businessweek magazine
By Liz Ryan
Read her entire article here> link
Here is the summary:
It doesn’t matter how horrible the bosses were at Acme Explosives or how badly they treated you. Something about the words “I was fired” makes prospective managers’ blood run cold.
If you left your last job on less-than-sensational terms, there’s got to be a way to address that issue without summarily ending your candidacy, right? As a longtime HR director, I can tell you, there is. First, shake off some misconceptions.
There is zero requirement ever to tell a hiring manager or HR person that your previous employer let you go.
Here are some ideas on explaining why you left your job.
Option No. 1: The Learning Was Done
“It was a fantastic learning opportunity for me—I credit those folks with teaching me everything I know about SEO, for instance, but it was time for me to go, and we agreed on that just as I was getting interested in social marketing.”
The “we agreed on it” is key. If the “agreement” took place only in your own mind as the security guard escorted you out of the building, that’s fine. In the first place, your new employer’s HR folks probably won’t find out you were fired—that information is typically not conveyed to a prospective employer in an employment verification process. And if they do find out and end up claiming the “we agreed on it” was a lie and terminating you because of it, you’ll know those people are pure evil. You don’t want work for them.
Option No. 2: My Interests Shifted
“I got to do so many fantastic projects at Acme Explosives, but my focus was shifting into project management, and the opportunities for that were very limited over at Acme. I didn’t know what I would do next exactly, but my friend from college was starting a consulting practice, and I decided to collaborate with her on that as I shifted to the next thing.”
This way, you never mention who said what to whom, or in what order. What does it matter, truly?
Option No. 3: We Went in Different Directions
“When I got to Acme Explosives, the mission had everything to do with building the brand fast, and we had great results on that front. Two years later, I was becoming a zealot for branding and customer evangelism, but Acme was moving more into OEM work, where the branding piece was almost nonexistent. I was very glad to have been around to help the company advance its value to the point where the Motorolas of the world found it and formed partnerships with it, but as the business moved more and more backstage and away from the customer-facing arena, it wasn’t a great fit for me anymore, and we decided to move apart. I still have tremendous relationships there, of course.”
Those relationships are with managers who “get” you, and with your amazing colleagues, not with the turkey who fired you, but that’s a whole ‘nother Oprah.
The idea that Ms. Ryan is proposing is that you must be creative. Practice that interview with someone who will be critical of your words and behavior.
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