Ask HN: How do you talk about past jobs you regret in interviews? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you talk about past jobs you regret in interviews?

92 pointsnewacc250218111 comments

I'm currently interviewing for new roles and while I did do some pretty cool work in my last role, I really struggle to talk about any of it in a remotely positive away. It's a period of my life where I was mostly unhappy and the endless arbitrary deadlines only compounded it, resulting in me staying there for several years too long just from feeling too busy to look at alternatives. While I don't think very highly of the company or upper-management, my disappointment and regret is mostly directed towards myself for not getting out of there years earlier.

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.

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An interview is a sales pitch for a product. The product just happens to be you. Set aside whatever negative feelings you have about this previous job or the people you worked with there. The interviewers care if you will do their job well and with consistency and professionalism. Your personal feelings are irrelevant as long as you can keep them to yourself, or maybe tell your dog.

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.

Agreed 100%. People can effectively never decipher between genuine happiness (or positivity/etx) and faking it. I adopt a YouTuber/twitch streamer kind of mentality - the dumbest little things put a smile on my face and I am in general very happy. Recruiters and interviewers then like spending time with me, even though I’m 100% faking it.

I'm glad I'm encouraged to "inject just the right amount of humanity", but I think I'd prefer to inject just the right amount of lead into my cranium.

Or find a way that works for you, gets you jobs and keeps you from breaking your moral framework.

I compare it to driving in traffic. A lot of times I'm not in a hurry and can just stay in one lane and crawl along. Other times, I am in a hurry and I can weave in and out, getting flustered and angry and nearly crashing and still end up 4 cars ahead of where I'd have been without all that.

Exactly this. You can either work really hard and likely get minimal benefit and cause yourself a lot of pain, or you can work considerably less hard, and largely end up in the same place.

Rarely, you can do all that extra work and get meaningful improvement that justified all the effort. It does happen. Sometimes it presents itself in the form of a severance package.

let us know how you fare with this interview strategy

lying during interviews about things with no actual objective truth is a really key skill

lying on the job too like this is an important political skill too. referencing past projects rhetorically and abusing the fact that your "professional opinion" is fluid is a powerful way to motivate people. You are allowed to over- or under-sell how good or bad an engineering decision/project/tool/process worked.

Why is this needed. Nobody acts like this in college, where do people pick up on the eldritch horrors of Corporate behaviour policing?

This was very much taught in some of the business school electives I took. Some of the projects are quite literally to give a realistic pitch for products or businesses that you never intend to actually build. It might be only be taken as subtextual in the most charitable view, but being able to bullshit like that is definitely taught.

learning how to play to win on the job

This is part of maturing into the real world. Politics (for lack of a better word) is part of any group of people who spend a lot of time together. We try and try to distill politics out of the workplace as engineers, which, ironically, is precisely why interviews are so positive-biased that they feel slightly fake for some. We don't like those dirty unquantifiable "feelings". Popping up all the time.

This isn't from business schools, this is just basic understanding of politics and how status and other things work amongst groups of humans.

Ignoring this key aspect of humanity isn't virtuous

Bullshitting is a skill. For some, it is their only skill, and they are very, very good at it.

As someone who did a lot of hiring in my last job, I would push back against the narrative here that it's about lying or behavior policing. Although there is plenty of truth that there's an unfair bias against negativity, I do think there's a very valid reason for hiring managers to care about whether or not an applicant can remain positive or at least objectively neutral in an interview, and be diplomatic about negative experiences.

Invariably, at any company, even if they are a fantastic workplace, you are going to disagree with your lead or coworkers at some point. You will be asked to do work you aren't excited about or don't see value in, and you will be asked to work with people you don't particularly like.

If you aren't able to maintain a fairly positive attitude for a one hour interview, it makes sense that a hiring manager might worry about how well you'll be able to be a team player when things get rough. I used to think it was bullshit, and I learned the hard way. I hired someone who was fairly unpleasant during his interview, because he was the most competent applicant, and it seemed wrong to me to look at anything other than job skills. He was an excellent programmer, but he sucked so much time and energy out from the rest of the team with complaints and arguments. Of course I don't think that's always going to be the case, sometimes people have gone through genuinely negative past work experiences or just have brusque personalities, but I was certainly wary after that of people who couldn't put on a positive attitude for an interview.

Totally. If you say something too negative in an interview, they might take notice. If you go with a couple of white lies to smooth over a bad job or project, nobody will think twice. Most of the time nobody is paying attention, so don't give them a reason to.

> a couple of white lies

Don't ever approach it this way. You never need to lie, and preparing for an interview with "lies" in your mind is going to backfire on you.

You can use the technique of "mental reservation". There is always something positive or complimentary that can be said about every bad situation, every horrible supervisor. It is simply a matter for you to examine it dispassionately, extract the good, and frame that nicely without introducing insults or the real negativity and pain that you felt in the moment.

If your supervisor overworked you and you were induced to come in for 70-hour weeks and you ultimately burned out with no vacation or weekends, you could say that the management "was quite dedicated to the company's goals and productivity". If you considered your coworkers to be slackers and they never seemed to work, "the company accommodated a wide range of talents, skills and abilities." If you never saw your supervisor and had nearly no guidance on projects or tasks, "the management believed in me and trusted me to do the right thing in nearly every respect."

These are not lies and you should not lie, because if you go counterfactual, that will be found out. If, on the other hand, they know you had a difficult time and you still found ways to compliment those bastards, then perhaps you will do the same favor for them one day.

> preparing for an interview with "lies" in your mind is going to backfire on you.

> the management "was quite dedicated to the company's goals and productivity".

I see no difference between these things. One is what you say instead of what you think, the other is what you say to mask what you think. shrug

If the management was not dedicated to the company’s goals and productivity, then you don’t say that. There is your difference.

If you think they're not lies, that's fine. However, what you describe are exactly the sort of "white lies" I'm talking about. At a previous company, half of my coworkers literally did negative work, creating a mountain of technical debt that a couple other people had to clean up. My complaints about this were ignored, repeatedly. I was told my complaints were invalid by someone who had roughly half my level of experience, but a fancier fake title for less pay. They were, indeed, very accommodating of people of all skills and abilities. ;)

> These are not lies and you should not lie, because if you go counterfactual, that will be found out.

You can go counterfactual with your "professional opinion," which is useful in debates with no clear answer when your opinion has sway. It's a great way to put your thumb on the scale, and unless you say wildly inconsistent things very visibly, you will not be found out.

>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.

If you marketed a system or strategy to get people moving into that train of thought, create self-motivation, and actionable advice, you'd be a millionaire.

When you're in the what's what of the stress-detach-burnout cycle, sometimes it's hard to think creatively, which I think is the injection sometimes needed in this situation.

> An interview is a sales pitch for a product.

While I see your point, I as a candidate am absolutely transparent and honest about anything work-related, be it in the present or past.

To me the relationship employer-employee is very important, I spend more time working for a client/company during the week than I do with family and friends. Thus this time has to be spent in a mutually satisfying and healthy way.

Pitching and selling myself as anything different than I am does nothing but put me in uncomfortable positions.

This is true, but the degree of freedom that remains is what part of yourself do you wish to show at work.

I don't know anyone that shows their whole self in every situation, so some reservation/ choice is made implicitly. The discussion here is about an explicit choice, which must be maintained, at least for the most part.

And even then, there are appropriate and inappropriate times to bring up certain pieces of information.

For example, I’m not embarrassed about the fact that my mom died when I was young. But it would be deeply weird to open a job interview by saying, “Hi, I’m [name] and my mom died when I was young.”

I’m not hiding that information from employers. But maybe we should know one another a little better before I bring it up.

> When you feel burnout creeping in, deploy strategies to counter it

Like?

Having been on both sides of the table, I can offer a few pieces of advice:

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.

This is great advice.

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.

For 2 what do you say if there is some kind of exit contract like NDA.

Just say it was covered under NDA and I'm can't elaborate. Having a ton of NDAs will hurt you in the interview process except with other companies that are NDA heavy

+1 for recognising where you’re going.

If you’re going somewhere that isn’t NDA heavy, you can speak in general terms without violating the letter of your NDA and it’ll be fine.

If you’re going somewhere that is NDA heavy and has a culture of corporate secrecy, demonstrating that you will not pierce the veil of your NDA of your previous employer at all, neither in letter nor in spirit, will actually help your prospects.

For that, I’d lean more heavily on point 3. Totally fine if it’s an NDA, but dig more into what you learned from it. You should be able to describe the situation without adding concrete details that would violate an NDA.

In those cases, I would still talk about it, but let them know that you can't give certain specifics because of an NDA, but that you will talk about it at a high level.

For example, if the company was doing something you felt was evil That you can't specifically mention, then just say That you disagreed with an important strategic decision. Explain what you did to handle it in generic terms, such as talking with your manager, writing up a memo, quitting the company, etc

Some things are obvious it's a negative situation though. If you're looking for a new job after a year what can you say?

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.

Using your example, tell a selective truth.

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 “

Why are people at their jobs so fatally allergic to honesty?

There’s two reasons to do this - as an interviewer, the way you present yourself to me is the way I expect you’ll present yourself as a representative of the team or company. It’s not good to air dirty laundry publicly, and if you can’t keep it under control when it’s almost an explicit “don’t trash talk your old job” the. There’s basically no hope of it when things are more relaxed.

Secondly, there’s three sides to every story. Yours, theirs and the truth. If I say “my manager is an asshole so I’m leaving his team”, it’s probable that my manager has a different take on it, maybe “maccard said they wanted to be kept in the loop so I am telling them what happening but they accuse me of changing my mind”.

Neither of those answers seem at all dishonest. They just skip past the diagnosed cause to focus on the impact.

Maybe the boss being a raging ass is the root cause of the team moving in the wrong direction. But that may be debatable, and knowing that doesn't answer the interviewer's question. The more relevant piece is that you and the director disagree and that you don't want to waste your time working on something you aren't inspired by.

In an interview setting you should frame negatives as growth. You are doing marketing, not a retrospective or post mortem so put on the LinkedIn-style, vacuously-half-a-person mask. The interviewers know their job isn't perfect so a valuable thing to evaluate is "can this person keep a positive and effective attitude through both good and bad". Obviously different roles have different knobs to turn here for the right message (like a generic ic vs a "wartime manager").

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.

> Software jobs are generally pretty nice jobs. If your leaving one it's not for some positive reason.

Eh? It might be nice, but there might be nicer (or at least better paid) opportunities out there.

Why are you leaving your current job questions are typically inartful checks whether there's "something wrong with you." Refusing to meaningfully answer can come across as, "I'd prefer not to discuss whether there's something wrong with me." Not explicitly damaging, but certainly not confidence building.

The most useful answers I've heard in the wild were dispassionate, one sentence expressions of why <objective fact> made the existing job irreconcilable with your <valid need>. Done well, that shows the hiring manager you're able to approach conflict constructively, and gives reason to believe the bad fit is unlikely to recur in this role.

AskAManager[0] also suggests "I’m not actively looking, but I saw this job and was really interested because of X," as a reasonably broad spectrum solution to this problem. (Though after just a year, I as a hiring manager might still worry you are flighty).

[0] https://www.askamanager.org/2023/02/how-do-i-tell-interviewe...

You can keep it vague and blame larger macro issues. "Many people have left the company recently and I am keeping my options open in these times of uncertainty." Allude to instability, layoffs, canceled projects...

>“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.

Do you think this is helping you select better people?

I think this is selecting for fakers and cheaters.

I don’t see why it would select for fakers or cheaters. I’m totally fine with a job not ending well, but if you leave it as an innuendo like that without explaining, it makes me wonder why it went bad. Makes it sound like you got fired or something, or that you don’t take it seriously.

>Makes it sound like you got fired or something, or that you don’t take it seriously.

My background in academia colors me but the level of office politics some describe in the private sector genuinely sounds like a middle school drama club at times. I've personally witnessed incredibly talented individuals at FAANG companies get the boot for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with their competence. Think messy personal dynamics, bosses having affairs with coworkers aiming for a position.

It makes me wonder about this ingrained necessity for pretense and obfuscation in private sector communication. Why the need to constantly play these games as if acknowledging reality is somehow detrimental? In academia, while not devoid of its own issues, the selection process for students at least attempts to prioritize merit and potential. The idea that some of the most brilliant minds I've encountered might be filtered out by arbitrary corporate "standards," while incapable but politically savvy individuals thrive, seems counterproductive.

So once again, I’m not advocating for games or denying reality. I’m simply advocating for as much clarity as is feasible.

Let’s take your example - boss has an affair with a coworker, you speak up about it, then you get the boot and sign an NDA. In that scenario, I’d probably say something like the following:

“There was an interpersonal incident that was out of my control, and unfortunately I’m not legally allowed to speak about it in detail. What I can say is that I learned how important it is to stand up for what’s right even if it comes at a personal cost.”

This isn’t playing a game, it’s having empathy for the person sitting across the table from you. They have to make a decision on very limited information, and you’re trying to help them make that decision. If I were to just say “hehe let’s just say that something crazy went down, and I’m out of a job.” Well technically I told the truth, but I certainly didn’t help the interviewer make their assessment.

You helped me understand a position I never wrapped my head around before. Thank you!

I've never made a decision on few points of information, often I know researchers or their output for years before we interact, so it makes sense I don't have to care what language they use as this is a low correlation signal on their output.

One:

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.

Yeah, kill them with kindness.

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.

> Shifting financial realities meant we had to pivot our product deep into the deployment process.

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".

You've gotta know your audience. Fellow IC techs? Your version. Managers? Demonstrate your ability and willingness to use their jargon.

One isn't better than the other. They're just used by different groups.

Seriously why the silly insuffer theater, demonstrating willingness to perform ritualistic sodomy of your ego?

Why try to communicate with the people you're asking to pay you a salary using language they're familiar with? Great point. I can't think of a single reason to do that. It’s a great hill to die on.

Why is this the language they're familiar with? Serial dishonesty?

It's frequently referred to as "tact".

Is this tact by chance circular in nature? Does it happen to be utilized more frequently during the course of group activities a given management hierarchy is known to regularly participate in?

Not trying to be a jerk, just curious.

You’re saying the same thing that the GP is recommending, just phrasing it differently.

The GP is suggesting to talk about the problem, rather than “the owner blew all the cash on blackjack and hookers, screwing the rest of us in the process.”

The recommendation isn’t corporate speak, the recommendation is to focus on talking about the problem, not the people responsible for the problem.

Right. Interviewers do not want to hear blame during the session.

They very much might want to hear the unedited version afterward once you're their coworker.

I'd pivot my face deep into an industrial vat of sulfuric acid long before my financial reality can shift enough to make me start talking like that.

Pass me the cyanide, these people are ghoulish.

As an interviewee, good advice and examples.

As an interviewer, I love open smart people with balanced perspectives. I start half-listening when it sounds like pseudo-positive sales speak. Then again I'm not in California, which may impact the attitude here.

1) It sounds like you have a decent amount of negativity built up from your previous role, and you haven't quite vented it all out. Get it out of your system -- talk to a friend that gets how annoying that was and vent until you're tired of talking about it. Get heard and you'll feel like the negativity is finally behind you.

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!

talk to a friend

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]

The truth is, while you had past jobs you hated or regretted it, you got something out of it. You learned to deal with difficult people, you learned to manage hard situations, you navigated through tumultuous times, you learned a ton about growing, and you found out what you were capable of even in the darkest times. If anything, this can be super positive. You can also just say your past roles "were a good start to your career but didn't fit my future goals as much as this role does" and then jump in to what you want to do in your future and how this role fits.

This is the right answer. You should be able to identify at least one positive lesson you learned from every situation. Talk through what you learned and how the experience made you a better employee going forward. This not only avoids the original problem but demonstrates the ability to be introspective.

There is always a positive takeaway after you get enough distance from something. My last studio was a complete catastrophe. I was angry for a while after they laid us all off. But I realized that I had been given a college education in how Big Gaming really works and been paid 2 years of salary to attend. I took that education to do my next thing that I'm working on now.

Major red flag to say anything negative about prior employers during interviews.

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)

First rule of interviewing- NEVER say bad things about past employers (or anything else, always be positive). Second rule of interviewing- ALWAYS say good things about past employers, or say nothing. Unless you are specifically asked about employer you prefer not to talk about- then ALWAYS say only good things about them. You talking bad things about past employment means you will also talk bad things about people you try to join. And it also potentially can backfire if recruiter figures you was actually the problem.

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.

Isn't that a cliché? So basically, you are adhering a cliché, and everyone knows it. Is it a good thing? Not sure.

I live these rules for 30 years and never got rejected. You can do whatever you want, like go and use interview time to vent out your bad internal state, who knows- maybe you'll get better outcome.

From experience, people who can't hold their tongue and tell bad things about their past bosses or coworkers, will also tell bad things about you behind your back.

You just have to play pretend for a few hours, while you interview. Think of it as a game.

Exactly. It just shows you know the rules of the game. But it might exclude neurodiverse as well as people from different cultural background.

Start by writing down everything that annoyed you in this job. Treat it like a journal/therapy session where you just “vent” all your frustrations out onto the paper/screen. Then take a breath and a break. Go back to it later and review each situation and find something positive in it. In every situation you at least learn something, or you strengthened a skill, or you helped the business by just getting it done, etc.

It’s an incredibly privileged position, I accept, but I don’t want to work somewhere that doesn’t want to hire the real me, and so I’ve always just been 100% honest and assumed things will work out.

I don't. This is simply not the place for that.

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)

when i interviewed candidates for software engineering roles in $non-tech-megacorp i was primarily interested in how folks did in the problem solving / coding / API design interviews.

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.

“I learned a lot” - this has the advantage of being, hopefully, true. And you probably worked with some interesting and talented people. Think about your positive interactions with them.

Realise that most people have these experiences at some point in their career. You don't need to explain the frustrations you had to your future employer or coworkers.

Focus on the accomplishments, how you navigated tough situations, how you helped make things better.

Cut all the 'extreme' truth about the reality of the situation out. There is no benefit in over sharing how you felt about this, that or the other thing while working there.

You’ll have to muster some positive energy from yourself: write the experience in a positive way: “I learned here that authenticity is important to my leadership style; I expect that my team to be motivated by serving the customer, rather than checking off busywork for made up deadlines.” And practice giving that positive statement with a friend or in a less important interview.

If you did do "pretty cool work" be prepared to say what was cool about it. It may be a struggle but it's what you have to do.

From the behavioral interview standpoint, all you have to talk about is what you did and how well you did it in STAR format.

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.

A long time ago I was invited to a job interview. After a nice chat, I told them that I had left the previous company because of internal conflicts and too much office politics. I asked if they had the same problem and they assured me that they did not. I also talked about a security breach that defaced our website, but put it in the context of the overall success of our security practice.

In conclusion, I think it's important to be specific about the key negative factor (if asked about) and to frame negative things in a generally positive light, while remaining honest. After all, it's our perceptions and our attitudes that we can change. An interview is not the place to unload your negative feelings. It also helps to remain objective when things get uncomfortable.

Given the context, I am assuming this is on the "behavioural" side of the IV (aka what most companies call culture fit). And I am assuming you are applying to "traditional" companies, that is companies that have a defined hiring process and are large enough. This includes all FAANG and what not.

My advice:

  - write down the stories (use cases) before the actual IV
  - for each story, focus on what you learnt / succeeded
  - for the really negative ones, focus on the learning
  - for the other ones, focus on the outcomes, mentioning  things that worked and maybe some things that did not work  and how you did it

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.

The thing about these situations is that it’s a small world, and the interviewer isn’t necessarily your friend. That cuts both ways. The interviewer may know people at your place and love/hate them. You may be the 25th person from your company to come through the place for all you know. Demonstrate that you add value and GAF.

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.

> Demonstrate that you add value and GAF.

GAF stands for “give a f***”(censored for clarity).

Try to separate your feelings from objective facts. And focus on facts in the interview. Be very biased towards facts that show your best sides and achievements. It helps to prepare a list of such facts and stories in advance.

Why cant we just be bilaterally honest? Everyone has at least one. Whats so wrong witb simply answering, "If I could do it over I'd spend my time differently." That seems pretty neutral and good enough to me. I trash talks no one, and you have conveyed honestly you would have spent that time better if you had a redo. I'd rather hear that answer over contrived, tell me what you think I want to hear any day.

I have learnt after trying various levels of honesties in interviews that you just don't talk about "negative" things as negative things, you talk about negative things disguised/spun as positive things, however much it may disgust you.

This is a different kind of example than you have kind of mentioned but here you go - try telling someone that a manager just earmarked you and bullied you into depression or ran you out of the team or company and your regret being complacent[1]. You saw it coming, a poster on the wall but you didn't act in time and you let it fester and that it was a huge learning. That's exactly what had happened and see the result - you will instantly be assumed to be the problem employee; not even for a moment the hiring manager would think, or take into account, that the manager was the problem.

At best you can show them as "challenges" and how those "opened doors" for you in various new "dimensions" of "learning" and "growth" and enabled you to "mature" further and helped you start your journey on the "path" to "leadership" roles. I don't know about you but it disgusts me just typing here. But that is what I have done and that is what I will do.

But the best way to handle it is - not to talk about it if you can help it and fill your CV or the "tell me about challenges in your last roles" section of the interview preparation with completely made up instances, if you can handle the yarn; I can't and I go bonkers spinning them, so I try to stick to what really happened with little or a lot of "colour".

[1] Heaven forbid, if you tell them "you regret not standing up to that manager and not fighting and making a stink" :)

We ask this question in interviews too. One purpose is we want people who disagree and can handle this maturely. Everyone has negative experiences. People who don't have likely never tried anything difficult. But you have to be diplomatic about this.

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.

I'm not sure how you would handle your specific situation, but my general take on interviews is that the interviewer isn't just screening you, in the sense that they want to know what you did and your skillset and skill level, they're also trying to figure out how well you can navigate interpersonal politics. And the problem is that for a lot of people those two things seem contradictory, because with interpersonal politics we'll intentionally spin things just slightly, not like a politician but just to maintain a good vibe and keep everyone comfortable and engaged. Like imagine if you were in a social gathering, and there's also a girl you like in there that you're trying to impress, and someone asked you about that previous role, you wouldn't drift off into a rant or anything negative because you don't want to kill the vibes of the meeting, you want to look your best because there's a girl you like there, so maybe you'd say something like "ah, it just wasn't a good fit". And if that came up while you were dating that girl you like, and she wanted to dig deeper on it, you wouldn't just repeat the same thing, because it would look like you're being evasive and she would then be on the defensive because she would've felt like she's prying too much, and it would kill the vibe, you'd just say something a little bit more, also keeping it short, and maybe mention something good about working there that you learned, and then not forcefully but try to make some room to move to another subject, or if you can do it slickly without making it feel awkward then you just shift to some other topic that feels engaging without making it look evasive. Again, it's all about maintaining a good vibe. And companies want to know the ins and outs about you, but they also just want to know that you have some social skills in doing stuff like that, because they're running a company with different kinds of people, sometimes from very different backgrounds, and they need the team to work together and feel cohesive. The company and the management are already trying to keep the company afloat and profitable, it's own engineering problem, on top of marketing, on top of operational concerns, they don't want to have concerns around political drama in the office, they want to know that you can be cool. Unless you're a boy genius from Southie, then maybe they'll tolerate a lot of weird shit from you, but you aren't a boy genius from Southie.

>you aren't a boy genius from Southie

Is this a Good Will Hunting reference?

It's about telling a story, and it's important to tell the right one. They don't want to hear a data sheet of facts or an emotional unloading of regrets and dissatisfaction. They want to know that you are a professional, you know how to work with others and how to get the job done. If all that stands between you and unemployment is taking creative liberties in how you explain your employment history, well that's your choice to make.

There are many interview guides available on the internet. They often contain good advice for how to behave in an interview.

There's no secret, actually. Be kind and be honest.

List the top 3 to 5 learnings or growth experience and be able to explain each of them in detail, write it down and practise saying it. If you haven't done this already, I'd be a little surprised, do you just wing it? It can get hard to talk about the best demonstrations of your ability when you've worked for several years

Find positive and useful things you did or learned there and invent a story around them to tell at interviews.

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.

  Bat shit crazy management = top management's strategic goals were frequently updated
  We did everything in Excel = tooling was not optimal, budget restrictions limited out tech
  My manager was a fucking moron = although we had different approaches on topics, we worked to complement one-another, for much better outcomes

But basically as other(s) said, don't focus on "they were assholes" but (whatever YOU did in some nice detail) "I updated the SOP to deliver X, Y, _and_ Z using so-and-so, and at half the time, freeing up 0.25 FTE that we collaborated to enhancing A, B, _and_ C operations.

My work buddy has a gift for corporate speak. We were toying with the idea of preparing an updated 'english to corporate' dictionary.

I think that in the fullness of time, at the appropriate juncture, I could circle back to that. Leveraging such a resource would confer significant benefits to my own abilities to contribute my opinions to the woefully inadequate management outreach program.

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.

These kinds of interview questions mostly test whether you understand that you’re supposed to, ahem, perform your stories a certain way, and are willing and able to so-perform them.

What a normal person would do would be to explain how the experience they gained at their last job helped qualify them for the job they are applying to. Just typical average normal shit that every fucking normal semi-competent person does when applying for a job.

What you want to do is publicly shit on your previous employer and still get another job. That's not too smart, now is it?

Every company that's looking for people to hire can see exactly how you're going to treat that company once you've moved on and no longer work there.

Everybody has issues with their previous job. The way you deal with it is you discuss those issues with your self-help group at the local bar. When you're in an interview, every single thing in your work history was great. The people that you worked with were great. The companies that you worked with were great. Everything was fucking excellent. Just totally fucking excellent. Brilliant.

When people hear, "It's a period of my life where I was mostly unhappy", that's a guy they don't want to go to work every day and work with. At least I don't. I got my own problems.

I fucking want to retire tomorrow at the latest. I don't fucking want to go in to work tomorrow. I really don't. I might call in sick. Easter Bird Flu or some completely made up shit. You think that's what I tell them? I tell them everything is going great. Everything is fucking excellent. I'm probably going to work tomorrow.

I hate lying to such an extent that the moment an interviewer starts digging into why I left past roles I just accept I'm not going to get the job. If the interviewer is trying to find out how much I am willing to play political games, then the answer is not at all. My experience is that something like 25 to 50 percent of people in leadership positions are there because they enjoy lying and playing games, are fundamentally difficult to work with, and are at best utterly mediocre at other aspects of their role. Perhaps the ratio is better at more prestigious companies, I wouldn't know. If interviewers (or anyone else) believe that makes me the problem because it's my duty to suck it up and smile then I no longer care (well, other than the amount of money such an attitude costs me...)

You don't, the job market is one big lie. There is no loyalty. Try to get the most money and best position. Make yourself look as good as possible without looking unbelievable.

Omit employers with bad breakups.

If nothing else, spin it as 'experience'.

Focus on the stuff you learned at the bad company. Even with jobs I’ve had that weren’t great, I still learned a lot.

Focus on the cool work and not the circumstances. That's it.

The advice here about hiding negative things is not good. It will only get you in the same mess again.

When I moved to a big corp to a small org, I said politics were bad and middle management was horrible and I got screwed over and I hated it. And pretty much everybody I talked to responded something like “yeah I am with you, we’ve all been through this shit”.

They interview you as much as you interview them. If they don’t get why you were miserable in your former job, you probably don’t want to work for them. Unless there is considerable money on the table and you’re happy to do the grind.

It’s also easier to come across as a team player when you express yourself freely rather than if you fake positivity all around.

What you have to do though, is to show a positive attitude about what you want next. “I am so excited about this because in my previous job I didn’t have that”

You do have to talk about the bad things in a distanced joyful manner. Like “my former boss really made me think of Steve Carrel in The Office”. Things like that.

Godspeed.

I just go with honesty. Hasn’t been a problem yet.

So seems like the consensus is never say anything negative about the previous employer.

I'm not saying that this is bad advice, in the sense that doing so probably decreases your chances of getting an offer.

However, this reminds me employers who demand that all applicants can do multiple leetcode hards. Much like demanding that all applicants can do leetcode hards skews for people who cheat, dropping applicants because they say something negative skews for people who lie/spin/bullshit.

> I'm currently interviewing for new roles

> 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?

no way - if you start complaining, they'll think you're pathetic and won't hire you. If you praise, they'll think you're stupid. If you talk badly about your boss, they'll decide that you'll do the same in your new job and won't hire you. You only need to say things that have to do with money. For example, you took the fact that they don't want to raise your salary too much to heart, or you can justify this move in a different way.

Lie.

Politicians call it the "spin". Word creativity works better here than lying. You can get tripped up in lies.

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