After finishing college i got a job. It was position in small company and salary was low, but i accepted anyways it to get some experience in web development. I worked there for three years, and at some point of time i realized that there was no real opportunities to grow professionally anymore, so I started searching for a new job. Gott an offer from a bigger company, very promising in terms of personal and career growth, good people, fun, etc.
approximately at the same time my marriage started going south and my ex filed for divorce. While I was able to go through probation period relatively easy, later my performance started to slip. I was overwhelmed by my personal life, and started falling into depression. I let my team lead know about what was going on, and team lead looked understanding and empathetic, however it was wrong impression. I tried to pull myself out, I had some better performances, and some worse performances at work while coping. It got to the point when I was threatened to be fired by my team lead, multiple times within 3 months period.
I took stress leave. During the stress leave I hear from my former co-worker and am convinced by him to give it a try and come back. I contact my (former at that time)boss, he offers me a position, but it has very little to do with my previous duties, it is a qa position. I accepted it with hopes to switch back into development after some time. I leave second company without even showing up there after the stress leave, just contacting HR, they were ok with me leaving, no one insisted on any talks. So...I started working at my first employer again... They hire another developer. At this point I am losing all hope to return to development and sliding into deeper depression. After struggling with this new job for some time and not achieving any significant results they call me up and handing me termination letter... end of story...
Six months later:
Now I am trying to get back, find a job. I moved to a bigger city. I got a handle of my depression and accepted all this as life lesson, made my conclusions and changing outlook on life and the way I handle it. The only thing now is i absolutely have no clue how to go about this situation on interviews. I don't have any recommendation letters from former employers, and I am anxious to ask them about it. I had a couple of interviews and talked to a few recruiters but no luck. I am now unemployed for 10 months... I like software development very much, I'm trying to stay current, taking online courses, reading blogs and books on this topic.
TL;DR: got new job, divorce followed, performance dipped, was threatened to be fired, left company for my first employer, slipped into depression, got fired after six months, another six months later still unemployed and looking for a job
I had one interview so far and about ten recruiters contacted me for different positions. When they ask why I left my job, I answer for "family reasons" and not elaborating on the answer. However, I immediately feel that this answer does not satisfy them. I was honest with two recruiters. They they said it's ok, life happens, but they never got back to me.