Obviously complaining about the company or my personal situation at that time to a new prospective employer is an absolute no go. With how long I stayed it's virtually impossible to talk about older roles or just blitz my way through listing out the technologies I used; I have to talk about this one role, in detail, multiple times with every company.
Has anyone else had to deal with a similar issue? What kind of solutions did you come up with for it and have you done anything since to ensure you don't wind up in similar situations again.
ANY negativity during a job interview is going to work against you. It is expected that you find a way to spin every situation and every project in some kind of positive light. Even when interviewers ask for weaknesses or about conflict, the “right” answer is to be able to talk about that negative thing in a way that lets your true brilliance shine through. Skilled candidates know how to inject just the right amount of humanity and relatability in an otherwise perfect employee.
If you are having trouble separating your feelings from your ability to keep to your talking points, then a good therapist may be able to help you learn better emotional regulation skills.
In the future, keep working to proactively manage your career. Keep yourself in roles where you are learning and thriving. When you feel burnout creeping in, deploy strategies to counter it or at least get yourself into a new situation.
1. It’s probably best not to mention negative experiences unless it’s prompted by the interviewer. In some cases it may be super relevant and unavoidable, but aside from that, best to leave it alone.
2. Be clear and unambiguous about what was negative. Don’t be vague. I once had a candidate say something like “yeah and that job didn’t end very nicely…I’ll just leave it at that.” This is not a good thing to say in a job interview.
3. Always tie it to something positive. The story should end with a note about how you grew from the experience.
Unfortunately, most people you’re going to encounter don’t have the depth or maturity to be good interviewers.
Some do though, and they know the truth. There is rarely a job in the world where everything is positive. If you can communicate the negatives in a way that I can understand, empathize with, and that demonstrates your ability to handle it with grace, maturity, and humility, I would probably value that more. At the same time, if you’re someone that harbours a grudge over it, like if someone decided against your advice and you’re bitter over it, I’ll take notice too.
Basically, you need to be a team player, but not an automaton. If we wanted that, we have AI now.
My approach would be along the lines of "if you have nothing nice to say don't say anything" which would probably lead to some vague statement like "it wasn't a good fit"
Software jobs are generally pretty nice jobs. If your leaving one it's not for some positive reason. I feel like people know that.
Some basic examples of describing negative situations:
I ended up learning a lot there and I'm a better engineer now because of it.
We had a lot of challenges to overcome and you can never nail all of them but we really managed to produce a lot of great work there within some pretty serious constraints.
I accomplished a major thing and was learning X on the side so it was a perfect time and opportunity to find an opportunity to learn that more in a real world setting and/with experts.
I joined that team with the intent to learn X first hand and, while there is always more to learn, I got enough hands-on, production experience with it that I feel like it's firmly in my toolbox.
We had some unexpected changes/setbacks early on that changed our goals but it ended up being kind of a blessing in disguise since it pushed me out of my comfort zone and gave me an unexpected opportunity to level up my leadership/management/architecture/in-the-weeds skills.
If you join a team as an IC and it’s a dumpster fire and clearly never going to ship, then “I joined expecting the project to be in a different stage of development. I gave it a shot but I’m looking for something <more mature/earlier in development>”. If your director is a raging ass, then “leadership want to take the product one way and Id rather go another “
You talk about bad situations, not bad people. “Shifting financial realities meant we had to pivot our product deep into the deployment process.” That’s not anyone’s fault. It just happens sometimes. Talk about how your team struggled to deliver success despite a challenging external speed bump.
Two:
Talk kindly about people you can't stand. Your coworker wasn't an asshole. He was an assertive person with a different perspective than yours, and you worked to find common ground so that you could succeed despite your competing visions. Bonus points if you can internalize this mindset and start seeing said assholes as people you merely impersonally disagree with. This makes life much happier.
Don’t lean into the negative. Lean into the positive results you managed to scavenge even with those obstacles. That's what a new boss wants to hear that you're capable of.
Fwiw, I hate working with people who talk like this, and would much prefer:
"We ended up changing the product at the last minute because we needed the money".
One isn't better than the other. They're just used by different groups.
Moving forward from a bad experience can be difficult, but feeling the need to badmouth means something is holding you back from being great right now, and you’re the one paying the price.
2) Think about the opportunities that your previous job gave you. Specifically opportunities. Every time a negative thought comes up, ask "What was my opportunity at that moment?" and write down your answer. Opportunity to disagree and commit? Great. Opportunity to solidify your understanding of your own values? Great! Opportunity to challenge yourself and work on something outside of your comfort zone? etc. Write those down and brag about them to your next amazing job!
Or a therapist because the experience has a negative impact on the ability "to function" to the degree that finding a job is "functioning."
["Scare quotes" to clarify I am not making value assumptions about the OP]
It’s pretty simple. Just put a positive lens on everything. Yes, you’ll need to paint a new (positive) story in your mind that might be different from what you’ve told yourself after leaving the job.
The main thing you’re trying to avoid is making the interviewer wonder if you were actually the problem all along. (When you’re interviewing a candidate it’s impossible to know “who was in the right” - so, avoid putting interviewers in a spot where they have to judge whether your complaints are valid)
If they were bad, I would say that they were not (whatever you seek - technical or challenging or whatever) and move on. I will mention that I did them right and I am looking for a more (take your pick from above) position.
Really, this is not a psychologist cabinet.
FWIIW, I hire technical or semi-technical people for my teams, from besides basic to get senior. Not a lot because people tend to stay a long time - one of the things I am truly proud of (just after having a fantastic team)
IMHO, if you do have negativity in you it will leak out later and make your situation worse. Better treat the core problem- which is you not being able to leave past where it belongs- in the past.
but, we also asked some behavioural questions about past experiences. we don't say it explicitly, but we're looking for responses like --- can you say some words that suggest you have demonstrated initiative at work, or you can sometimes influence others and build support for a decision rather than unilaterally doing stuff without consultation (we're $megacorp, not $startup...) . you don't need to be able to talk at length about all aspects of your past job, but you do need to be able to offer a few examples of That Time When I Demonstrated Initiative, or That Time When I Influenced The Stakeholders that can be mashed into a digestible Situation / Task / (your) Action / Result format & where you can give a few reasonable answers to follow up questions from interviewers who probe and ask annoying questions like "so, what exactly were your responsibilities?"
another thing we'd be probing for is "growth mindset" type stuff. a bad response to "if you were in a similar situation in future, what would you do differently?" is "nothing, everything i did at $oldjob was optimal". a response that shows some reflection, a willingness to admit not everything you do is perfect, and concrete ideas for improvements to behaviour or process comes across much better. no need to enumerate all your worst failings, cherry-pick and offer one or two lesser ones.
for these kinds of behavioural questions based on past experience, we didn't really care if junior / intermediate hires struggled to give strong responses. We would be a lot more concerned about poor responses to these questions for engineering managers or other positions with a leadership component.
having a prepared short form answer to "why are you applying for a job here" is also a good idea.
if you have friends or acquaintances who regularly interview folks who you can hit up for a favour, you could see if they'd be willing to conduct a mock interview and then give you feedback about things you could improve on.
My advice:
This is the part where you have to act the game and avoid being too transparent. Mentioning too much the negative will be seen as a red flag by most hiring managers or recruiters.Having been in this situation, the way I handled it was treating it as a business problem. My story was that I loved the work and feel a great reward from delivering great products/outcomes, but we got pulled into a bad cycle of poor time management that compromised the work. You’re here to deliver excellence. It’s not about blame, it about finding a place to win.
If you can deliver a narrative like that which doesn’t sound bitchy, it’s really powerful.
GAF stands for “give a f***”(censored for clarity).
Practice it. Write the answer. Go over it for 20 hours. Treat it like a presentation because it is. I go so far as to make an AI "interviewer" in Vapi so I can voice it out, and you can mod the tone to be supportive, indifferent, sarcastic, etc.
If you're disappointed with yourself, say that. Humans make mistakes. Someone out there started smoking or drinking once. Someone had an affair. You don't know which of your interviewers did which, but you can assume that everyone has done something they knew was a bad idea.
It's also reasonable to assume that an applicant is leaving for reasons. Bored? Wants more money? That's a pretty bad reason. Unhappy? That's a much better reason. What's the catch? Why is this property on the market for cheap? A trick is to imply what people want to hear - you're looking to work with smarter people, better processes, get your shit together, etc.
There's no secret, actually. Be kind and be honest.
While you don't want to lie about your qualifications, achievements, titles, responsibilities, I don't see an issue with inventing a story to get these points across. It doesn't matter.
> I have to talk about this one role, in detail, multiple times with every company.
Ok; so how do _you_ talk in interviews about this past job that you regret? If you've had to talk in detail about that one role multiple times, haven't you yet come up with a way to talk through it? Haven't you yet developed, either deliberately, or spontaneously, just through the sheer fact of repetition, some kind of a story around it?
I have asked a question both in interviews and one on ones with current employees, “If you had a magic wand, what are the three things you could change about the company?”.
That’s the time to be more honest about unrealistic deadlines.
But even then I’m going to ask a follow up question about what did you do to try to influence change. I don’t think there has ever been a time in my career (29 years, 10 jobs) that I couldn’t have talked to higher ups and negotiate between time, cost and requirements. I didn’t always do a good job at it early career.
There are two strategies, first ask the same “magic wand” questions. The second is to have an emergency fund large enough to confidently say “no” and knowing that your bills will be paid while you look for another job.
Oh and the third - keep an up to date resume, a constantly updated longer form career document that lists out your major accomplishments in STAR format, an up to date skillset, and a solid network.
My current style of communication has failed to gain much traction when managers have run it up the flag pole. That’s always assuming that people had any interest in other viewpoints, rather than their own sacred long standing beliefs.