Talk Yourself Up: How to Frame Your Short Tenure at a Toxic Company
Written by HRuprise coach, Travis S. Johnson.
“I see you were with company XYZ for only a year… Can you explain to me why you were there for such a short time?”
We’ve all been there. Sitting in an interview face-to-face with that dreaded question. How can you respond in a way that won’t be a red flag?
Explaining to a potential employer why you left a previous company after a short time – which nowadays is usually considered to be less than two years, given that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics cites 4.1 years as the average – is one of the most nerve-racking parts of an interview. But should it be? Just because you realized that a particular company is not right for you, why should you have to tough it out in order to avoid being seen as a “job hopper”? In the time of “work-life balance” and “mirthful atmosphere” mantras, why is it still taboo to leave a company within two years?
In all reality, it’s not – or at least, not always. Companies that truly do support work-life balance and loving your job will understand. However, for employers who do not have this perspective, here’s some advice when they ask that dreadful question.
Most of the time, people leave a job after a short tenure because the company’s work environment is toxic. (While some do leave a job because the work itself is not fulfilling, it’s not as common.) But telling a potential employer that you left a job because the job itself was not what you wanted or hoped for may go over better than trying to explain how the company was, as they say in the Army, “ate up.”
Most employees do not like to speak ill of a former employer because:
They are true professionals; and
They understand how negative it can look to a potential employer.
There is nothing wrong, however, with stating the reason(s) why you walked out the doors of your last company and never returned. When faced with these questions, I filter my response through the principle of, “I will not throw anyone under the bus, but I will state the facts.” As long as you stick to the facts, you should be good to go.
Now, keep in mind, when stating these facts, keep the emotion out of it. As humans, it is very easy for us to embellish the facts because our feelings get the best of us. Before we know it, the facts soon become negatively charged. While your reasons may be legit, they’ll have essentially no merit in the eyes of a potential employer if you get all caught up in the feels. So leave your emotions at home.
Now that we know to stick to the facts/reasons as to why you left the company (e.g. the environment was toxic AF), let’s talk about delivery. For example, I’m going to use the reasons why I left a former employer and how I conveyed it to a potential new employer.
I worked for company XYZ for 20 months. At about 19 months, I decided I needed to leave. For the previous two months, I had been traveling between home and one of our new locations every week, while going through a divorce. I was flying out to the location on Sunday, flying back home on Thursday to attend marriage counseling, then working in the home office on Friday. My only “down time” was on Saturday. I worked 80+ hours each week. To say I was burnt out was an understatement. And even though I was running myself into the ground and pushing all other aspects of my life to the side, it still felt like it was not good enough.
Then one day while I was attending a military training and using my ten-minute break every hour to answer emails, text messages and respond to calls, I received an email full of negative personal feedback from the CEO. I had had enough. I let my employer know that I no longer could work there and that December 30th would be my last day at company XYZ.
So how did I convey all this to potential employers when interviewing? Just how I did to you: I stated the facts. I didn’t make categorical statements about the company not being good enough; rather I phrased my criticism as “it felt like it was not good enough.” Now, this can be seen as having some emotion to it, but in all reality, to say “it wasn’t good enough” would have had more of a negative viewpoint because it might seem like I was placing blame on my previous employer. Of course, I would often follow up my reasons with, “My job as HR was to make sure people were happy and enjoy what they do, but it is a little hard to do that when I wasn’t happy myself.” This helped illustrate how out of whack the “work-life balance” and “mirthful atmosphere” was with my previous employer, without attacking or blaming anyone.
Explaining why you left a toxic work environment to a potential employer should not be that difficult, nor should it be something that you dread doing. Much like romantic relationships, work relationships do not always work out and you have to know when to have the break-up talk. The important thing to remember is that when you talk about the “relationship” later to potential employers, keep it professional, phrase it from your own perspective, and just state the facts.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: TRAVIS S. JOHNSON
Travis S. Johnson is an HR [UnProfessional] with 12+ years of Human Resources experience, ranging from companies in size of 20 to 40,000+ employees. While loud and energetic, he believes that HR is the epicenter of any organization, and as such, it's our job to promote and foster a mirthful atmosphere. LEARN MORE
