Good morning all! I
hope you are having a great week! It’s a
pretty cool time of year up here in Iowa
as today kicks off our annual Iowa State Fair.
For all of you that haven’t heard – the State Fair is kind of a big
deal. Some claim it is the largest in the
world (To be fair it is about the third or fourth largest after Minnesota and Texas
– Thanks Wikipedia). It is also home to
a variety of unique food items on a stick and for the state of Iowa ’s pride and joy –
the butter cow!
 |
| One need not ask why we choose to sculpt things out of butter in Iowa. We just celebrate it and move on! |
Anyway, I’m excited to have a corn dog!
Moving on to the important stuff. I was reading an article today about an
interview with Ann Curry. For those of
you that don’t know, Ann Curry was the former anchor of the Today Show who was
fired earlier this summer. While I’m sure
that there were many reasons that went into her firing, from the best I can
surmise it has a lot to do with the fact that since Ann became the co-host the
Today Show had lost a nearly two decade long hold at the top of the
ratings. However, in the latest article
Ann shared that she felt she was fired because management didn’t like her
choice in bright clothing, desire not to wear heels and resistance to dying her
hair.
This reminds me a lot of what I hear from people I talk to
everyday that have been fired or let go.
They are angry and they start trashing their employer saying things
like:
- It was really their fault
- My manager was out to get me from day one
- They didn’t like X about me
- It was such a horrible place I’m glad I was fired
Folks – this is just poor form and it will get you
nowhere. Below are four reasons why you
shouldn’t trash your employer and what you can do instead:
1. It makes you look delusional
I’m going to lean on the Ann Curry example here. It may be true that they didn’t like what she
was wearing every day. She wasn’t fired
for that. Ann was fired because ratings
were slipping and the company was in danger of devaluing a huge cash cow – in short
they were going to lose money. On that
note – it doesn’t matter if she really was fired for her clothes the bottom
line is that she and her product wasn’t performing and she wasn’t heeding the
advice of her bosses. Here’s the deal –
there are very few occasions where you are fired and you did nothing
wrong. It’s usually a two way
street. Anyone that proposes that they
were innocently sitting there doing a great job and just got whacked looks
delusional. Even if this is the case you
are better off to take the high road.
2. You can use it as strength by showing what
you learned
This is really a continuation of the delusional
conversation. Instead of telling people
how horrible your boss/company was you can instead talk about why you are
better off for it and say something like this:
“Really this was a wake up call for me as it helped me
realize I needed to be in a more sales focused organization.”
Or
“It made me take a hard look at my skill set and I realized
that I was really good at X but struggled with Y – this is why I think I’d be
great at this position.”
Look – for some reasons excuses are anathema in our
society. Nobody really cares about the
explanation about why you failed. Even
if it wasn’t your fault. What they want
to hear is that you owned it and learned from it. Personally, I think that this is kind of
stupid. However, this blog is about
helping people get jobs not changing the world…
3. It looks tacky and makes you look negative
This one is pretty simple.
If you come in to an interview and devote the bulk of your time to
talking about how bad stuff is it will look really bad. How bad?
Most people will assume that since you were willing to share this on
your first meeting that things will only get worse. Not the first impression you are looking for. Furthermore, they will assume that you will
rub off on others in the office. You don’t
want this stigma.
4. They will assume that you will say the same
things about them
To be honest, whenever I hear someone start going off about
how horrible things like this was, I immediately start wondering what they will
say about me when I don’t produce an immediate result. What if I get them a result and they aren’t
happy with it – will they tell everyone and their dog about how some jerk
recruiter sent her to the worst job ever?
How many of those people will listen?
This is the kind of stuff that a hiring manager thinks too – ultimately they
start to wonder how much damage someone could do to their culture.
Bonus: When is it OK to share some of the bad
things?
At the end of the day it may be necessary to level with your
prospective employer about your situation and share some of the bad stuff. This is something that needs to come out
later in a second or third interview once you have established a rapport. At this point you can share some the
dirt. However, you still need to frame
it correctly and share it in a positive manner.
Essentially, you need to make sure that there is a reason for sharing
it. This could be answering a question
about what you are looking for in a culture or even a direct question about
leaving. If you do have some bad stuff
to say share like a reporter does – keep emotion out and move on to focus on
the positives.
What do you guys think?
Email me or leave comments at sthompson@insurance-csg.com.
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