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> "why did you leave your previous role?" I would suggest you say, "it was a situation where I was unable to excel." Resist the temptation to go into details or

> "why did you leave your previous role?" I would suggest you say, "it was a situation where I was unable to excel." Resist the temptation to go into details or to disparage your former manager or company. Or just make some shit up no reason for you to start being honest in a situation where your future employer will likely start by lying to you about the state of things as well

JohnFen 3y ago
I usually go with "I was no longer a good fit there."
- amf12 3y ago
  Why not "it wasn't a good fit for me"? The first one kinda implies they didn't find you a fit? Not sure if I am reading too much into it.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    I was paraphrasing. How I actually say it depends on the circumstances and the personality of the one interviewing me. But you're right, you need to be careful of implying things you don't want to imply. And if you've worked there for more than a year or so, you have to be prepared for the natural followup question "What changed to make the fit no longer good?" But the key thing is that you aren't being deceptive, you're just giving the most general answer possible. So the followup question is probably not a stumper. For instance, when I interviewed where I currently work, I gave this response for why I left my prior job, and got the followup question. My response to that was the honest -- but still vague enough -- answer "the company had been acquired, and I found the new management style difficult to excel in."
- chii 3y ago
  "it was no longer an environment where I perform at high levels" is my go-to.
belval 3y ago
No need to fall into us vs them rhetoric, you can just say the truth in a way that does not sound like you blame everyone but yourself and that will be good enough for most interviewers. The truth is most people are not complete sociopath, if you say "After working N years at X I felt the projects were not interesting anymore and that impacted my motivation at work. I want to explore a different tech stack/area/industry". Sure you can interpret that as "this guy will leave my company if he gets bored", but most people will hear "I just wanted a change" and as long as N > 2 years you are likely fine.
- charles_f 3y ago
  > No need to fall into us vs them rhetoric Sure. My point is that there is a lot of pig-lipstick application when you get generously offered two minutes at the end of an interview to ask questions. Not because they are sociopaths, I think a lot of it comes out of a sense that they should not bad mouth their employer, or that they have to seduce candidates or they won't come. > you can just say the truth in a way that does not sound like you blame everyone but yourself People are generally bad at interviewing. You might get lucky and find someone who has the finesse to understand the situation you were in and how it's not generally relevant to your performance in their own context - in my opinion and based on a significant number of data points, I wouldn't risk it. I have heard interviewers in debriefs for developer roles telling that the candidate wasn't motivated because they weren't looking at the camera or because they didn't ask strong questions during the last of 4 interviews, or that they were lacking a sense of humour because they didn't laugh at their joke, or that they had a weak personality because they were anxious during the interview.

JohnFen 3y ago

I usually go with "I was no longer a good fit there."

amf12 3y ago
Why not "it wasn't a good fit for me"? The first one kinda implies they didn't find you a fit? Not sure if I am reading too much into it.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  I was paraphrasing. How I actually say it depends on the circumstances and the personality of the one interviewing me. But you're right, you need to be careful of implying things you don't want to imply. And if you've worked there for more than a year or so, you have to be prepared for the natural followup question "What changed to make the fit no longer good?" But the key thing is that you aren't being deceptive, you're just giving the most general answer possible. So the followup question is probably not a stumper. For instance, when I interviewed where I currently work, I gave this response for why I left my prior job, and got the followup question. My response to that was the honest -- but still vague enough -- answer "the company had been acquired, and I found the new management style difficult to excel in."
chii 3y ago
"it was no longer an environment where I perform at high levels" is my go-to.

belval 3y ago

No need to fall into us vs them rhetoric, you can just say the truth in a way that does not sound like you blame everyone but yourself and that will be good enough for most interviewers. The truth is most people are not complete sociopath, if you say "After working N years at X I felt the projects were not interesting anymore and that impacted my motivation at work. I want to explore a different tech stack/area/industry". Sure you can interpret that as "this guy will leave my company if he gets bored", but most people will hear "I just wanted a change" and as long as N > 2 years you are likely fine.

charles_f 3y ago
> No need to fall into us vs them rhetoric Sure. My point is that there is a lot of pig-lipstick application when you get generously offered two minutes at the end of an interview to ask questions. Not because they are sociopaths, I think a lot of it comes out of a sense that they should not bad mouth their employer, or that they have to seduce candidates or they won't come. > you can just say the truth in a way that does not sound like you blame everyone but yourself People are generally bad at interviewing. You might get lucky and find someone who has the finesse to understand the situation you were in and how it's not generally relevant to your performance in their own context - in my opinion and based on a significant number of data points, I wouldn't risk it. I have heard interviewers in debriefs for developer roles telling that the candidate wasn't motivated because they weren't looking at the camera or because they didn't ask strong questions during the last of 4 interviews, or that they were lacking a sense of humour because they didn't laugh at their joke, or that they had a weak personality because they were anxious during the interview.