The Empowered Job Seeker Series, v.22 - Helping Matt to Temper His Emotions When Talking about his Recent Downsizing

In our last blog we started a discussion about how we help our outplacement program candidates answer tricky interview questions, especially the one concerning why they left their previous position.  If one didn’t leave their previous role on their own volition, there are generally only two other answers to this question: 1. "I was downsized" or 2. "I was terminated".  Today we will look at how to answer the question if downsizing was the catalyst for career transition.

When we started the interview preparation process with Matt, his CMS Program Coach could see that his emotions - and subsequent opinions, were going to be a potential problem for him during an interview if they weren’t drawn to his attention and addressed.

Matt worked for a small, local protective services organization in an administrative capacity for approximately five years.  He was responsible for accounts payable and receivable as well as customer service functions.  As the owners reached retirement age, they decided to sell the company to a bigger, national firm. The sale was no secret to the staff as the final details were made, and it was expected that due to duplicate roles within each group, downsizings were inevitable.  In fact, the new parent organization was very open and transparent to all employees about forthcoming changes including the fact that the amalgamation would mean some would unfortunately have to be let go.

When his CMS Program Coach asked about his feelings on the recent merger, Matt launched into a detailed monologue about all the reasons he felt the owners of the original small firm should have held on to the company and put off their retirement.  He couldn’t understand how they could “sell-out” to a large “conglomerate”, and it was obvious that he held some bitter feelings about how the sale affected him and some of his colleagues.

When we hear emotional responses like Matt’s, from our candidates, we let them vent for a reasonable amount of time. Venting of course, can be productive if contained. However, the most important thing his CMS Program Coach could then do, was to help Matt become aware of his emotions and how they may affect his answers in a future interview.  Matt’s Coach talked him through three key points to help him to develop a rationale response to the question, why did you leave your last position:

1.   Avoid Assumptions: Because this downsizing event happened to him personally, it 'felt big’ to Matt - and he may have assumed that others had heard of it.  This of course is not always the case and assumptions during interviews can make the conversation awkward and quickly go off track.
2.  Don't Speculate: We advised Matt to be honest but not to get into speculation regarding why the sale happened the way it did or how the company could have done it better. In addition, his emotions may have prompted him to make negative comments about his previous employer if not addressed - which obviously would not leave a positive first impression with someone who is in a position to change his employment status!
3. Leave Baggage at Home: Although interviewers will be interested in why Matt left his previous employer, they are not interested in his opinions of the last company. At CMS we worked with Matt to develop answers that were honest, professional and to the point, enabling him to refocus the conversation around his skills, experience and how he could contribute to this new potential employer.

It is important for our Program Coaches to remind our outplacement program candidates that interviewers do not know the people involved in one’s past and they have no way of making a judgment. But they can judge the candidate and how they deal with the situation today - which is one thing our candidates can control to their advantage!