Description
- Q&A Clip Insights: Harrison discusses the challenge of framing reasons for leaving a job without sounding negative.
- Balancing Positivity and Honesty: Struggling with the dilemma of not wanting to be overly negative but still needing to convey valid reasons for leaving.
- Navigating Job Search after Unstable Position: Exploring ways to explain a job loss in an unstable branch office without hindering future job prospects.
- Advice for Young Attorneys: Addressing how to discuss mistakes that may have led to job loss without appearing unfavorable.
- Key Takeaway: Emphasizing the importance of framing experiences positively, focusing on lessons learned, and avoiding unnecessary negativity when addressing reasons for leaving a position in a job interview.
Transcript:
Okay, here's another good question. I love it when people ask long questions, by the way because I think it's important to think about all these things. And I will get to your question if I haven't answered yet. There's a lot of questions, but I'll get to it. Okay, I'm struggling how to frame reasons for moving without sounding negative.
It seems like on the one hand, I don't want to be overly negative. However, on the other, it seems like we still have to present reasons that give an inference of negativity. About the former employer, not enough opportunity, not a cultural fit, want something more. All of these implied that the law firm had some inadequacy.
Is there a way to just frame things honestly? If it was not a good fit, maybe couching the things that you liked about the firm. I'm conducting a job search after losing a position in a very unstable branch office, your example of working for a tyrant. I want to explain this in a way that will not hamper my search efforts.
Can we strike the right balance between good reasons for basically saying why you left and are looking for new reasons, or is it better to submit mistakes? How can we make mistakes as a young attorney that may have led to a lost position without looking bad? That's a good question. One of the things I think that is that's interesting about that question is this person is basically need feels like they need to say they lost a position and that may be true.
You may have lost a position. What's interesting, I was talking to someone that I think booked a paid call with me or something, but I was talking to them. Without the free call. And I talked to them for free because they hadn't, it doesn't matter. But, and it was a person that was a head of a law firm and he was saying, I never liked to let people go because, because I know it's going to hurt them and make it difficult for them to get jobs, law firms to let people go when they don't have jobs, it's.
It can be very bad. So here, this person was in an unstable branch of branch office. So that's actually how I might frame it. So I would just say it was a branch office. They were having a lot of problems. They were in this year's things. You can say most of their work was coming from the main office and.
They just were losing people. They didn't have a lot of work. And so you can sometimes talk about things that way. You can say it was a great firm. I went to this for this reason. I got this experience. I really don't have anything bad to say about it. But I did learn that branch offices are unstable and you could talk about a few examples.
This person left this, they weren't getting work. They had to retire on the other office for work. And it was just a, it was a difficult place to, to remain. So you don't have to basically. See anything bad about the firm or even say you got fired. You can just basically talk about sometimes that branch. I just, I learned the branch offices can be difficult there.
It was something along those lines, but you have to figure out how to couch it in a way that doesn't make you look bad. But I would basically say that it was a problematic office. I didn't learn how it worked where I didn't learn how. They got work, most part, something along those lines that makes it seem like you learned a lesson about working in branch offices and that they're not all the best or something along those lines but you don't necessarily have to say you were fired.
You can just say, there were some issues there, but I really liked the firm and there were good people and I got a good experience and. It's a great firm and I have nothing negative to say about them. I just, I don't think that might be one way to answer it too. If they ask you, you say, I don't, I have nothing negative to say about the firm.
And there's a lot of things I liked about it. The only thing I will say is that I learned that branch offices can often be very difficult places to work. When for a variety of reasons that I don't know that's important to get into, but that I definitely wouldn't want to work in a firm like this compared to something along those lines.
So you need to just be careful in terms of how you couch things and and that can help you. So just again, think about how you would. answer a judge on behalf of your client. Why is your client? Why did your client run? What happened? And they would have to answer that in a way that would make things look more positive.
So just think about that, how you would do that.
