Ask A Manager: how to explain to interviewers why I quit my job without another one lined up

[minoanmiss]

A reader writes:

I recently resigned from my position at my previous employer due to its toxic environment and unsupportive senior management. I was constantly being thrown under the bus. The position didn’t align with my career goals anyway, and I could no longer reconcile the fact that I was in a stressful, low-paying job I didn’t even want.

Now that I’m doing interviews, potential employers are asking me why left, and I don’t want to necessarily badmouth my previous employer. I typically say that it didn’t align with my career goals, but interviewers have been following up with questions like “Well, why didn’t you stay in your position until you found another job?”

Should I be honest? How can I answer the question without saying bad things about my previous employer, but give an answer they’ll accept?

Yeah, this is the problem with quitting with nothing else lined up: because it’s relatively unusual to do, it makes employers think there’s a story there, and it worries them. Were you fired? Forced to leave? Did you leave in a huff because you’re a prima donna? Or did you reasonably choose to get out of a situation that any reasonable person would find horrible? They don’t know. They realize that it could be that last one, but they also realize that it could be one of the others and that makes them nervous.

You can try an answer like “I wanted to to take some time and really focus on finding the right fit for my next move,” but even then most interviewers are going to assume there’s more to it. If you tack on “and I wanted to take a bit of time to help with some family issues” or something like that, it’s likely to resonate more with many people, so that’s another option.
But basically, yeah, this is one of the problems with quitting without another job. It’s not totally logical that people react that way (after all, if you’re able to afford potentially lengthy time off in between jobs, why shouldn’t you?) but it’s definitely A Thing that comes up in interviewing if you do it.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

I posted this one in part because this is one of the few times Alison's advice has annoyed me. Person writes in asking "How do I handle having done X?" and she basically says "Don't have done X." X is done, no undoing it now!

The comments were largely worth reading. Some hiring managers agreed that people who've left a job without another lined up are unemployable; others said that they didn't hold this against otherwise good candidates because some jobs do suck. And, of course, I'd love your opinions on the subject.

[jadelennox]

I was surprised at how terrible this answer was. The fact is there’s plenty of things that you can say in that circumstance:

“My last opportunity was great, but I wanted to develop in my profession, so I took some time to learn new skill ask a new skill why so I would be an even more valuable asset to my next employer. “ I mean, you have to make that one true, so spend a little bit of time learning Quicken/Ruby/how to operate another kind of dish sterilizer/a better method for pollinating the corn crop. Read an online tutorial, try to teach yourself something.

There’s plenty of others, but that’s my personal favorite.

[vass]

I really like that.

[tielan]

...there are people in the comments talking about working 65 hours a week as a regular thing...

I've been working 20 years in the IT departments of corporate Australia, and the only time I've worked more than 50 hours a week is a) in the run up to a new computer system going live, b) just after a new computer system goes live.

Back to the question interviewers ask about “Well, why didn’t you stay in your position until you found another job?”

I'd probably answer with "I needed the break in order to regain my equilibrium after my last position, and was willing to deal with the financial consequences of the break in income". Truthful, if long-winded, and hopefully neither explicitly codes your last work as toxic, nor implies that you're unable to hack standard workplace stress.

[redbird]

The problem is that the question is phrased as "How do I explain this, without telling the uncomfortable truth about my last employer?"

Other possible answers (and I am thinking of your own situation) would include "the incredibly long hours and low pay were bad for my health/ability to care for my family. I understand that $job_I'm_looking_at wouldn't require me to work fifteen days in a row," a maybe-risky "I tried that, but the long hours there left me no time or energy to look for something that did fit my goals," or (this is riskier) "I liked the work, but I was driven out by a racist bully who punished me for trying to take good care of the patients on our floor" or "punished me for taking any time for my own health issues or to care for my family." I don't know how sympathetic an interviewer would be to something like "the hospital punished me for taking any time off for medical reasons, including the time I needed to be taken to their own emergency room."

Channeling either Captain Awkward or Carolyn Hax here: often the problem is that the columnist is being asked a variation on "Someone I'm close to me is doing something that makes me unhappy. How do I get them to change that without getting them upset?" and the answer may be "you can't. They've already ignored you when you tried stopping them politely. You can decide between letting them get upset when you state your boundary firmly, continuing to suffer in silence when they treat you that way, or leaving."

A job interview isn't a good time to return the awkward to sender, both because of the power differential (especially if the interviewee is unemployed) and because the person asking the question isn't the main one making it awkward.

[xenacryst]

Hmm. So, one of the things that I'd go to AaM for, and in general, if I were looking for advice in a professional setting, is how to, for lack of a better word, spin a situation to my advantage. AaM utterly failed to do that in the answer, and a lot of the commentary is strangely focused on whether saying you were getting out of a toxic situation is harmful, neutral, or subjective. However, there's plenty we could tell the LW about what to say when asked about the situation that is some combination of truthful and satisfying to the hiring manager and also paints you in a decent light - some of the commentary touches on this. And there is a lot we could tell the LW about how to take advantage of the time without work that really improves your profile to a hiring manager - learn a skill, complete a project, etc. - and this is barely even mentioned in the commentary, much less by the AaM answer.

So color me confused by the discussion over there, and a bit disappointed - leaving a position without a new job lined up is hardly unusual in my line of work for a variety of reasons (understood that that varies), and being able to use that time and present it positively is absolutely a professional skill that should be imparted.