Minimizing damage to reputation after an unfortunate sequence of events

Question

In the past two years, I quit two jobs and was fired from one without cause.

The first, after over year working there I was significantly late being paid several times, so I found a new job. I received a better offer from a more established company.

That job I was doing great, had an exemplary performance review two and a half months in. They were talking to me about moving into a more supervisory/instructional role. Two weeks later I was fired without cause and not given any reason. Several other recent hires were let go the same week.

I found a couple of job offers and took the position with better perks even though it was a worse cultural fit.

That was a mistake. I quit with cause during the probationary period.

The problem is now I'm left with zero references for my last two years of employment, and I was self-employed for about two years before that.

How can I address these issues in an interview? Should I simply tell the truth? Is there a better way of wording this?

Answer 1

I've worked at several terrible places. I know very well how life can give you a bad draw (look at one of the questions I asked before which put me in a similar situation to you, but was for one employer, and a much longer period) and how that can leave you in the lurch. The unfortunate thing is unfair or not, your work history will be held against you.

I worked for several really bad people in a row. I won't get into all the details, but the gist of them are as follows:

One place I was let go because I had the stomach flu and took too many days off work (2 days) another place I worked at I was continually asked to do illegal things, I ultimately left after giving them an ultimatum about it, but they went around saying they fired me because I asked for a pay rise (dunno why they gave this as the reason as it still makes them look like a tool). The 3rd one as I mentioned previously, can be found in one of the questions I've asked on this site.

Consequently, I only included one on a resume since I worked for them for a few years and it would leave too much of a gap. The others were for a couple months a piece and I removed them and it's yet to be an issue (Whilst I have included this employer as a reference I have generally been asked who would I like contacted and I obviously exclude them from the names that I offer).

The one which you were fired without cause seems to be the least disastrous one for you, so you might wish to leave that one on and remove the others, but up to you to decide which one is best. This is a temporary hurdle, once you get some positive work experience behind you the gaps won't matter as much, it's just going to be a bit of work till then, but I'm sure you'll manage.

Answer 2

(NOTE: This answer assumes that you are entirely the victim of circumstances beyond your control and that you don't bear any responsibility for the outcomes in any of these positions. We'll set the likelihood of that aside for the time being, but of course this would be a good time for some self-reflection.)

Robert Heinlein once said that the best way to lie is to tell just enough of the truth and then stop. I think that applies in your case.

Your work history can and will be held against you. Anyone who compares you to a candidate with 3-4 years of employment in the same organization will likely see your job-hopping as a negative regardless of the reasons. However, you have a few alternatives:

1) Leave one of the jobs off your resume. This may be seen as dishonest by some people, but it could also be argued that your resume is understood to be a somewhat sanitized version of your employment record. It's easier to explain an abrupt departure from two jobs than three, and it's also easier to explain a six-month gap in employment than three jobs in 6 1/2 months. I'm not exactly recommending this approach, but if you decide to do this, the third job is the one to exclude.

2) Include all three jobs, but talk about your reasons for leaving only in vague terms. You could say, for example, that you had ethical concerns with your first employer (you did - not paying your employees on time is unethical), that your second employer was very pleased with your performance but laid you off after a short period (which appears to be what happened), and that the third employer was a bad cultural fit.

In either case, there's no need to go into too much detail. The more detail you provide, the more you look like someone who habitually makes excuses instead of someone who has had a stretch of bad luck.