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Comment by itamarst | Hacker News Reader

A company I worked for once interviewed someone who had just started at a different company. We asked why he was leaving so soon, he explained he had some differences of opinion and that it wasn't going to work out well. He seemed great, we hired him, he was indeed great.

After we'd hired him, we asked about the old company again. "Oh, it was an utter shitshow" and he went on a long and very compelling rant about how badly managed it was... in far more detail than he had when interviewing.

I feel like this is a reasonable way to do it; don't badmouth your current employer while job searching, but no need to stick around unnecessarily.

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This. You're only unprofessional if you start ranting about it at every opportunity you have, specially during a job interview.

Agreed and agreed.

I actually interviewed someone who had jumped from both previous employers in an 8 month time frame. In the interview he was very negative to both those groups and wanted to tell me why his ideas where so much better. My interview with him did not last long.

Try to understand that no one in life probably even understands what they are going through. A shrink won’t get the intricacies of the project, your friends and family won’t, only another software developer might. Understand they have literally no one to share the situation with.

"I'm not doing what I was hired to do" is my rephrasing of "utter shitshow" for the interview.

Yep, this is how I left my first job. Interviewed at another place, said "not a great fit", left. When I got there I was perfectly happy to explain how the CEO was literally grabbing people by their throats if they didn't meet quotas.

I dunno, unless some criminal stuff is involved, I feel like it is not the business of an employer to probe why a candidate left their previous job in six months. Maybe it is a red flag if their entire resume is filled with 6 month stints, if it is just one job, why bother?

Also, the candidate can say something like "the contract ended" or something generic. What is the point of talking about the shortcomings of their previous job? The interviewer and the interviewee should be interested in what they can do for each other, no?

I left a job after nine months, and have to defend that decision 6+ years later.

It's literally the only thing people are likely to put on their CV that's a possible indicator the person in question might not actually be a good fit for certain positions. Of course it's their business to ask.

There are perfectly good answers (which can include "it was a six month contract", although that stuff can be checked...) and there are even answers with the right amount of objectivity/detail which give the impression the reason why the employee left or wants to leave makes them a particularly good fit for this new job, but there's also a good chance the employee's answer raises red flags about their attitude/ability/expectations that they wouldn't give off in response to other questions.

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