Ask HN: I made a mistake, role is not a good fit | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: I made a mistake, role is not a good fit

When I chose my current role all the interviews were online over Zoom. Once I started, in person, in the office, I found that it is radically not what I expected. It is fractically a bad fit and I mean that the fractal surface of this poor fit is infinite. I feel like I don't belong here but there's a terrible recession and I need the money. But my big question is what do I say in the next interview? I won't be able to name a single positive thing I did here. I was taught if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all. How do you "spin" a total and complete bad role fit?

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How long have you been there?

If you leave quickly enough, you can just decline to mention the job, if you like; you're not obligated to give anyone a complete accounting of your work history, and nobody will care about a few months' gap between jobs.

It's also likely not going to be as big a deal as you think to explain that "the position turned out to be a bad fit", so long as you can talk about why that was, in a neutral, professional way which demonstrates that you are a reasonable person who knows what a good fit would look like.

Well, sticking with it until you find something new is a positive since it shows you're willing to put in the work, BUT do not do so at the expense of your health. It's okay to quit early if you can afford to and can't afford not to. Don't look loyal if it's killing your life.

As for "spin," something like learning what you dislike in a position or company, or how your current position has reinforced your passion for the position you're applying to - things with intent between the lines are fine. Avoid saying anything like "I needed the money" or "that place sucks so bad."

Above all, learn from this (of course). Was anything weird during the interview and hiring process that you can see in retrospect was suspicious or misleading? If they had said one extra sentence in the job description, would it have tipped you off that the role was a bad fit? Is it really the job or is it the people that are a bad fit?

They left out a lot of details in the interview. They never said we'd be working on Christmas Day. They never said we'd be working on the weekends. You can be sure in the future I am explicitly going to ask whether we work on Christmas Day.

Politely mentioning that you don't want to work on holidays could be a great answer if they ask why you're looking to change companies. You could just say something like: "I'm looking for a job that allows me to spend holidays with my family." (and leave it at that)

It's a totally normal expectation, the explanation doesn't reflect poorly on you or your past employer, and it sounds like it is genuinely important to you.

How much of the bad fit is due to their misrepresentation of the role, vs. how much is due to your, ah, "optimistic naivety", vs. how much is due to "this role/team/organization is just plain dystopian"?

Not that you'd want to talk up any of those in a future interview...but there are often ways to allude / hint / talk between the lines. And obviously you want to be sure that you don't repeat the mistake.

Not an answer to your question, but GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT.

(One of my three major regrets in life that I did not.)

There is not a recession.

You gotta, gotta learn to bullshit. Say anything. You integrated well with your teammates and were able to innovate and plan ahead in order to tackle new problems as they arose. It doesn't matter what you say. Just sound confident. None of this is real.

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