bonus
Talent Trade Tidbit - Explaining a Bad Career Move
We all make mistakes, and everyone understands that. But it's how you EXPLAIN those mistakes that could make the critical difference in your next interview. Here's how to avoid casting yourself in a bad light...
Transcript
Hi, this is Stephanie Maas, partner with Thinking Ahead Search Firm.
Speaker:Today, I wanna talk to you about explaining a bad move.
Speaker:For most of us, at some point in our career, we may make a move that we look back and say, "That probably wasn't the best move for us." It might be something, hey, we realize we got there six months later and we're ready to make a move, it may be, hey, we were just there a year, or it may be, hey, we didn't make that move and it probably tarnished our reputation a little bit.
Speaker:Either way, wanna talk to you a little bit about how do you handle that, especially once you get into an interview situation.
Speaker:First and foremost, you have to put it in perspective.
Speaker:Again, most people at some point have had one kind of bad move, one bad decision that they made in their career, especially if you're gonna be in any industry for any length of time.
Speaker:It usually happens once.
Speaker:Second thing is I generally find honesty absolutely is the best policy, but be smart with your honesty.
Speaker:Here's what I mean by that.
Speaker:First and foremost, you can't ever blame anyone else for your decisions.
Speaker:You made the decisions.
Speaker:You know, it's funny, I'll have people say, "Well, I didn't know this," or, "I didn't know that," and my first thought is, "Well, why didn't you ask?
Speaker:Why didn't you ask better questions?" You're interviewing.
Speaker:It's a job.
Speaker:I mean, gosh, if I'm gonna make a job change, you better believe me, a ton of questions I'm gonna ask.
Speaker:But that's okay.
Speaker:My point is you need to own whatever decisions you have made.
Speaker:Also, in owning that, you need to make sure that you aren't speaking poorly of anyone else.
Speaker:Here's a couple examples.
Speaker:Let's say you did make a move, and you got over and you realized the hiring manager was a nightmare.
Speaker:Even the market knows they're a n- nightmare, but maybe you just didn't ask enough questions to figure it out, or they did a really good job of hiding it in the interview process.
Speaker:Either way, doesn't matter.
Speaker:But the point is, when you're talking to that next person about that move, what you can say is, "Hey, to be candid, there were some cultural issues that I knew pretty soon on I wasn't gonna be a good fit for them." Most people know when they say cultural issues, it was probably some kind of personality conflict.
Speaker:It's just the way that it is.
Speaker:Last thing about explaining a bad move, don't dwell on it.
Speaker:This is a big mistake I see a lot of people make.
Speaker:They wanna over-explain.
Speaker:Keep it simple.
Speaker:Most people can forgive a bad move.
Speaker:Now, if you've got three or four, at some point it's probably you.
Speaker:You just gotta own that.
Speaker:But most of us have at least one somewhere in our background.
Speaker:So keep it simple, don't blame anyone else for your decisions, and honesty, smart honesty, is the best policy.
