Phone screen · Candidate chair
Why are you getting out?
A civilian question with a civilian answer.
Behind this question is a simpler one: will you stay? The boss has heard that some veterans take the first job out and leave inside a year. Your answer works when it ties your leaving to your arriving.
Recruiter: “So what made you decide to leave the service?”
This answers the hidden question, the one about staying, without them ever asking it. A place you chose plus a reason reads as steady. If your discharge itself was complicated, know that discharge type is between you and the review boards built for it, and a boss fishing for it is outside the lane of a job interview.
Honest, human, and it points your energy backward. Whatever is true about why you left, the interview only has room for where you are going. Complaints about a former outfit get filed, fair or not, under how you will one day talk about this company.
Drifting is the exact fear behind the question, and this answer confirms it. Even if you do not know the ten-year plan, you know why this job, this month. Say that.
Now you, out loud
Finish this sentence out loud: 'I chose this because...' with a reason that would still be true in two years.
One way it can sound
“I chose this because logistics is what I am built for, my family is planted here in Hamilton County, and I want my next promotion to happen at the same address as this one.”
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
- The question under the question is: will you stay. Answer that one.
- Reasons that face forward beat reasons that face back, every time.
- Discharge details are not interview material, and you can know that calmly.