Phone screen · Candidate chair
Why did you leave your last job?
The truth, at the right altitude.
Maybe you left. Maybe you were let go. Maybe it fell apart along with the rest of that season. The question is not asking for a confession. It is asking whether you understand your own history, and whether it is finished.
Recruiter: “And why did you leave the position at your last company?”
Owning it without an autopsy. You told the truth, claimed the lesson, and pointed at proof. It is the same name-it, own-it, turn-forward shape that tested best in the research (Ali, Lyons and Ryan, 2017), used on a job ending instead of a record.
Even when it is partly true, blame is the answer bosses trust least, because they have all heard it from people for whom it was not true. And if the real story turns up in a reference check, the blame version costs you twice.
It survives a phone screen and goes thin in a final round. 'Not the right fit' is so common it tells them nothing, and when they learn nothing they fill the space with a guess of their own. Give them one true sentence to hold instead.
Now you, out loud
Write your one-breath ending sentence for your last job. True, at altitude, finished. Then say it out loud until it stops hurting.
One way it can sound
“That chapter ended badly, mostly because of what I was going through, and I have handled that. I would rather be judged on my last year than my worst one, and I think most people would.”
Say it to the mirror, a friend, or the wall. Nothing here records, transmits, or stores anything. That is a promise built into how this site works.
Keep these
- Own it without the autopsy.
- Your last year against your worst year is a frame almost everyone respects, because almost everyone needs it.
- If a reference will tell a different story, learn that before the interview, not after.