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I am working at a company that has less than 100 people for 6 months. I started dating one of my coworker in my team for a few months. I decided to leave my current position because she feels it is hard to maintain this relationship while we are working on the same team.
If my future employer asks me why I am leaving, should I honestly tell them I am dating my coworker?
The best answer to this is "maybe." It's a two-edged sword.
Discussing it puts the truth on the table, gives you room to say positive things about your current company and lets you sell prospective employers on how you deal with potential problems: "My current company has been a great place to work, and I would have stayed on if it weren't for the personal situation, which looks like it will endure. I try to keep a barrier between my personal and professional lives and thought it better to avoid any potential spillover from the relationship into work or from work into the relationship, which would ultimately feed back into work." The wording of the last sentence is important because it leaves the impression that you're thinking first of your professional obligations.
Not discussing it and using any of the hackneyed answers ("career growth," "better opportunities") leaves interviewers room to speculate about your actual reasons and plenty of potential to come up with something completely wrong. It's not as if they haven't heard those reasons before, and sharp interviewers will know it's code for "I could live a long, happy life without the place." You have a good story that shows you're trying to do the right thing. The only reason to bury it would be to get a company to make you an offer; companies needing that kind of manipulation are not places I'd want to work.
There's also a compromise between the two, where you tell them there's a personal situation that has nothing to do with the company or the work you do for them. The bottom line is that you have to get a good bead on your potential employers and figure out where along the spectrum your answer should fall.
I do not think it is a good idea.
If you say that, it might indicate you are not mature enough to separate your personal and professional life.
I decided to leave my current position because she feels it is hard to maintain this relationship while we are working on the same team.
See, it's not the "organization" who has a problem[1] - it's "you" (either or both of you). Before considering leaving the organization, try to talk to your partner about
Honestly, before finalizing on moving out, try to find out the problem and the root cause of it.
Finally, if you want to move out, you don't need to lie either - just don't mention it. Find out a secondary reason for the shift and present that.
[1]: I'm considering that there has been no event / incident in your current workplace which made you feel that the relationship is unwelcome.
I personally think it's a very mature attitude : imagine you stay working together and the firm gets into a problem (like a re-organisation or even bankruptcy): in that case you and your partner might lose your income, putting both of you in very big trouble.
So, leaving your employer in order to avoid this looks like a very mature thing to do.
Can you request for a transfer to another dept instead? Some partner teams or spouse teams do good work together and function better than individual units.
Is there a company policy against it?
