Being fired is reality of today’s corporate world and it can happen to even best of us. Usually, when you share it with other that you are fired you hesitate for a while and may be you are not comfortable to face the series of questions. The Reasons for being fired are many such as cost cutting, expansion or amalgamation of units, change in the working methods or some personal one such as wrong doings of person like working against the policies of company, professional misconduct, selling out the important information of company etc.
Whatever the reasons may be the question can be asked at interview of your next job and following are some tips to face the question.
Image credit: jcomp / Freepik
Usually people spent most of the time in blaming others instead of working on new jobs and opportunities. Rather than thinking over what had happened in last job, think about in which ways it will impacts on your life and career. Moreover during interview, you are just blaming your previous employer or colleagues or working environment and solely blame them for your termination than your prospective employer is not going to believe you.
Accept the facts, Move on and make your resume shine again.
While replying, be honest and authentic with your answers. Make your answers short and to the point. Avoid lying about the reasons of leaving past job because the companies do check the employee’s back ground before hiring them. If you are laid off from job than there is nothing to worry but in a case it is genuine firing due to any misconduct try to reply with strategic though honest answers.
Further honesty is important characteristic of good employee and it will help you in creating favorable situations for getting job.
Don’t badmouth about your past employers! In a case, you feel that firing you was improper on part of your former employer and it’s obvious that you are feeling angry but that anger should not convert in to criticizing your previous boss or management.
Moreover your prospective employer may think that you can also speak badly about them while getting another work.
It’s obvious thing that this incident of firing will leave wounds on your professional life and confidence. Take some time to prepare yourself for answering this question. You can prepare answers and tell anyone to take your mock interviews so that you can also work on your gestures, postures and body language. Practicing again and again will help you to gain your confidence.
Whenever you are quoting reasons for losing job also state that you have learned lessons from your past mistakes. For an example if you loss a pretty sales order due to lack in some paper work while sending quotations , you can say that due to this incident I have learned the importance of documentation and proper communications.
Be positive and turn this threat in to opportunity for you. People appreciate those who accept their mistakes and learned from them.
If you want to avoid the negative impacts of your termination, seek more professionalism. Don’t give any chance to your prospective employer that you are not good enough for the work offered. Work on developing your professional skills and etiquettes. Further follow interview protocols for an example proper dressing, silencing your devices, answering with politeness, reaching on time or little early.
Being a perfect professional will boost up your confidence too.
After doing a lot of brainstorming, here we have described 2 different answers as per the situations to face this question confidently. Hope it will help you to answer this question positively to impress your future employer without making them doubt on your professional career.
Explain the firing as a result of downsizing mergers, company closure or some other act beyond your control. Sometimes firing happens several times in a row to good people who figuratively happen to be standing on the wrong street corner when the wrong bus comes along and runs them over. So many people have been on that bus these days that being terminated is no longer a big deal. Being let off was not your fault, so you have no reason to feel guilty. Get on with the interview with a sincere smile on your face.
Say you learned an enormous lesson during the experience. You messed up, but you know better now and you will not make the same mistakes again. Explain briefly how you benefited from this learning experience. Then quickly turn the interview back to the better you and go on to explain how you are the hand-down best candidate for the job.
The above are the some tips which will help you to deal with the question ‘why you were fired’. However, everyone has their own way to responding with situation but the above steps will surely help you to be out of this situation successfully. All the best!
