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I’ve been fired three times. The first time was early in my career. A site manager decided to impose working hours that (a) were in opposition to how I was rec

I’ve been fired three times. The first time was early in my career. A site manager decided to impose working hours that (a) were in opposition to how I was recruited and (b) not what the client wanted, but (c) didn’t matter anyway because the site manager had the power to do that. This was no great loss. I was better off out of there than working under those circumstances. I had a new job a month later paying 50% more.‡ The second time was a few years ago. Another employee screwed over the entire team. He did something really stupid that caused him to be fired, the executive sponsor to be fired, and then a week later, me to be fired—just three weeks after I had started. Again, this was no great loss, but the company handled the whole situation very badly (they were one of two options I had when being recruited; they won, but they treated me like crap when I was fired). I was far better of out of there because it turned out that the management team without that executive sponsor was pretty stupid when it came to technology. The third time was last fall. A new head of engineering had come in and he decided that (a) he was the only person who could be bombastic about technology opinions, (b) he didn’t like my technology opinions and (c) he didn’t like me. I wasn’t better off out of there—this was one of the best teams I had ever worked with. I was better off not working for him, for sure. In the end, what he did was truly stupid: he isn’t there anymore and neither are the three other senior software engineers that were there when I was there. Those departures probably wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t done that.• At the same time, I had a job doing something more clearly two months later. Less pay, but much more opportunity to learn, grown, and shape a team the way that I want to shape the team. Being fired hurts. Each of those times was depressing, because either I had just wound down a job search and didn’t want to spin it up again or I wasn’t ready for a job search. It sounds like Zach is doing the right thing—he’s got the tools and a bit of time to pull himself together, and he’s figuring out what he wants to do with the next phase of his career. Best of luck. ‡ More importantly, during that job search, I came to Canada the first time and met the woman who encouraged me to immigrate to Canada and whom I would eventually marry. • This last job search was interesting because the middle one was so short that it could clearly be seen as Not My Fault. This one…I had to address why I was no longer at the company clearly, directly, and without evasion or disparagement. I handled it very well, I think. I also figured out that I didn’t want to just be the “seniormost” person; I wanted to be the acknowledged team lead/dev manager. That changed the job search substantially.

kelnos 12y ago
This one…I had to address why I was no longer at the company clearly, directly, and without evasion or disparagement. I handled it very well, I think. Can you elaborate on this a bit? I could sometimes use some lessons in diplomacy...
- joshyeager 12y ago
  These two Career Tools podcasts cover several aspects of getting fired, including a very good answer to your question: https://www.manager-tools.com/2011/03/getting-fired-part-1 https://www.manager-tools.com/2011/03/getting-fired-part-1 https://www.manager-tools.com/2011/03/getting-fired-part-2 https://www.manager-tools.com/2011/03/getting-fired-part-2
- halostatue 12y ago
  Sure. I’m only able to answer in the case where you’ve been fired without cause. Depending on the “cause”, it may be easy to apply these rules, too—but if you have been dismissed because of something that you did that put the company in a bad legal situation (for example), there won’t be much help with this. The fundamental rule of interviewing is not to lie. You don’t have to tell all of the truth about getting fired (nor should you—more in a moment), but you shouldn’t hide anything major. Lying—even by omission—will often lose you the job. The most common way I was asked this was “why did you move on from COMPANY?” Of course, the truth is that you didn’t move on. Someone else decided to move you on. Say that, without rancor. In my case, it was easy. I usually said something like “I didn’t really choose to move on; COMPANY decided to let me go.” Let’s be clear: you cannot avoid saying this in some form. You’ll probably be asked why, and there are a couple of choices here. Most companies—especially startups—want to avoid any legal entanglement and so will give you the “changing needs of the business” line. It may even be true, but depending on the quality of your interviewer, that may not be sufficient and you may be asked to speculate on why you were let go. It’s a dangerous line of questioning, because it can sound like an opportunity to be bitter about being let go and letting that bitterness show. Avoid the temptation. In my case, I generally followed on with something like: “The official reason was because of the changing needs of the business. I personally think that it was because the new MANAGER and I disagreed on the way that a development team should work.” This was perfect for me, because I could expand on my thoughts about how a development team should work and how an extremely senior member of that team (if not the team lead/development manager) should interact with the more junior members of the team. Depending on the nature of the discussion that I was having, I might be asked a bit more about the situation. In my case, I was able to express my regret for not being with one of the best teams that I had ever worked with and I was able to get into just how differently the MANAGER wanted to run development and how much that showed he didn’t understand the high-performing team. In that discussion, I never named names and I also expressed some level of uncertainty as to how much my own style could have affected how MANAGER and I interacted leading to my untimely departure. This was important because it helped the interviewer realize that I don’t think myself infallible. If you have friends from the old job, talk with them to exhaust your bitterness over the departure. Work with people on how you can figure out how to say you regret having been let go because of the lost opportunities, but how you’re moving forward and learning from the experience. Me, I learned that I absolutely don’t want to work for that type of MANAGER ever again and want to make sure that I never turn into that type of manager as I get back into running a team. So far, I’m succeeding. Note: I have also been laid off once due to a cash crunch—which I didn’t include on my original post. It’s just as much of a gut punch, but I was able to leave that place on good terms, and much easier to explain. People just nod their heads and go “ah”.

kelnos 12y ago

This one…I had to address why I was no longer at the company clearly, directly, and without evasion or disparagement. I handled it very well, I think. Can you elaborate on this a bit? I could sometimes use some lessons in diplomacy...

joshyeager 12y ago
These two Career Tools podcasts cover several aspects of getting fired, including a very good answer to your question: https://www.manager-tools.com/2011/03/getting-fired-part-1 https://www.manager-tools.com/2011/03/getting-fired-part-1 https://www.manager-tools.com/2011/03/getting-fired-part-2 https://www.manager-tools.com/2011/03/getting-fired-part-2
halostatue 12y ago
Sure. I’m only able to answer in the case where you’ve been fired without cause. Depending on the “cause”, it may be easy to apply these rules, too—but if you have been dismissed because of something that you did that put the company in a bad legal situation (for example), there won’t be much help with this. The fundamental rule of interviewing is not to lie. You don’t have to tell all of the truth about getting fired (nor should you—more in a moment), but you shouldn’t hide anything major. Lying—even by omission—will often lose you the job. The most common way I was asked this was “why did you move on from COMPANY?” Of course, the truth is that you didn’t move on. Someone else decided to move you on. Say that, without rancor. In my case, it was easy. I usually said something like “I didn’t really choose to move on; COMPANY decided to let me go.” Let’s be clear: you cannot avoid saying this in some form. You’ll probably be asked why, and there are a couple of choices here. Most companies—especially startups—want to avoid any legal entanglement and so will give you the “changing needs of the business” line. It may even be true, but depending on the quality of your interviewer, that may not be sufficient and you may be asked to speculate on why you were let go. It’s a dangerous line of questioning, because it can sound like an opportunity to be bitter about being let go and letting that bitterness show. Avoid the temptation. In my case, I generally followed on with something like: “The official reason was because of the changing needs of the business. I personally think that it was because the new MANAGER and I disagreed on the way that a development team should work.” This was perfect for me, because I could expand on my thoughts about how a development team should work and how an extremely senior member of that team (if not the team lead/development manager) should interact with the more junior members of the team. Depending on the nature of the discussion that I was having, I might be asked a bit more about the situation. In my case, I was able to express my regret for not being with one of the best teams that I had ever worked with and I was able to get into just how differently the MANAGER wanted to run development and how much that showed he didn’t understand the high-performing team. In that discussion, I never named names and I also expressed some level of uncertainty as to how much my own style could have affected how MANAGER and I interacted leading to my untimely departure. This was important because it helped the interviewer realize that I don’t think myself infallible. If you have friends from the old job, talk with them to exhaust your bitterness over the departure. Work with people on how you can figure out how to say you regret having been let go because of the lost opportunities, but how you’re moving forward and learning from the experience. Me, I learned that I absolutely don’t want to work for that type of MANAGER ever again and want to make sure that I never turn into that type of manager as I get back into running a team. So far, I’m succeeding. Note: I have also been laid off once due to a cash crunch—which I didn’t include on my original post. It’s just as much of a gut punch, but I was able to leave that place on good terms, and much easier to explain. People just nod their heads and go “ah”.