Leaving a new job in 3 weeks!I accepted a position 3 weeks ago and began working with a new company and I am very dissatisfied. On top of changing the role that I was hired to do (complete 180 of my skills), the do not have the resources to allow me to do my job so I have decided to leave. My issue is, I have a job interview on Monday with a new company (they pulled my resume off line) and they don' t know that for the last 3 weeks I have been with a new company. I don' t know how to explain the last 3 weeks. Should I say something or not? I believe that honestly is best, but I don' t want them to think I am a floater. This last decision was just a bad call and I can not stay there. Pls. Help! Hi! I can feel your pain on this one. I left a steady job to go work for a company where I thought I had a great opportunity. They promised me the sun, moon and the stars. They were a week and a half late in sending me my laptop, and then it was like pulling teeth to get them to send me the materials I needed to do my job. I tried and tried, but I got nowhere. It started to affect my health because I was so upset about it, so I finally had to quit. I was very fortunate and found a job 2 weeks later and in the interview I did not discuss the horrendous job I had before. I left it off my resume and never looked back. If this company you are interviewing with has a problem with a 3 week period where you weren't employed, then would you really want to work there anyway? They should look at you as a person, see how you answer the questions you are asked in the interview, see how you fit in with the company culture, etc. It is not your fault that you ended up at a company who did not provide you with the resources to do your job. They might not even ask about the last three weeks! Good luck with your interview! If, actually when, the interviewer asks when you are available to start, you can state that your availability is immediate. This may prompt them to inquire as to why you have such an immediate start time. The interviewer could also simply ask, "why did you leave your last job?", "Are you working right now?" and questions along those lines. I think the best answer to any question of this type is to state simpy, and truthfully, that you left employment at (insert the company you were working at before you took this 3 week gig) because you felt the need for a different opportunity. If your previous place of employment is still listed on your resume, change the wording around so that you say, you have reached as far as you can go in (insert company) and want to expand your knowledge. There are many ways that you can express to the interviewer you left for a chance at a better opportunity without revealing that you left at all. Side question: Did you leave your good job on a bad note or a disgruntled note? I ask because there are some companies who allow good, hardworking, valuable employees who left on good terms to return to that company within a certain time frame. You will have to list this current job on an application and you will have to own up to it if they ask what you' re doing now. If they ask why you' re willing to consider another job when you just started somewhere else, you can say that you made a bad choice and that the current job is just not a good fit. You then have to be able to say (without badmouthing your current employer) WHY this current job is a bad fit and why the new potential job is a good fit. Thank you SO much for these words of advice. You captured how I feel perfectly. I am going to go in there and just focus on the past 10 years of my works experience and show them that I can do the job. Thank you so much! I could barely sleep last night! Hi there, thanks so much for getting back to me! Actually, I left my last job on a GREAT note. So much so that they counter offered IMMEDIATELY when they found out that I was leaving and noted that I could come back at ANY time. Although I appreciate that..I always feel that you don' t go back in life, you know? I need to keep moving forward and not let this job get the best of me. I need to act now. Three weeks is a speck of dust in the grand scheme of the things. Seriously, leave the McJob off your resume completely. If the new employer asks what you' ve been doing in the meantime, just say you' ve been devoting yourself to jobhunting. That' s the truth, isn' t it? As long as that job (the one you left) was not on your resume there is no need to explain it. Job seekers do have the implicit right of privacy - at least to some degree. You have absolutely no obligation to mention it or even put it on your next resume. Don' t use "honesty" as a weapon against yourself! It is three weeks. Don' t list it. Simply say you took some time to seek other opportunities. I would leave it off. If you left your previous job to take a new job (i.e. that's the official reason you gave your employer for resigning), this may come up when they contact that previous employer for a reference check. If your previous employer knows about job B, I would suggest that when you are asked to talk about your recent jobs and reasons for leaving each, you should mention that you left job A to take job B. However, you can then explain that job B never actually happened (you changed your mind after realizing it would not be a good fit after all, they decided to rescind the offer and hire an internal candidate instead, etc.). You decided to still leave job A because you did not feel that asking to stay with your old company was a good idea now that they knew you were thinking about leaving, and, since the factors that prompted you to look for a new job (i.e. lack of growth opportunities, not challenging enough, or whatever the reason was for your wanting to leave) had not changed, you saw this as an opportunity to dedicate your time to a full time job search. Unless you your work history prior to this job is super stable--do not have long periods of unemployment on your resume, and all of your other jobs within the last 10 years lasted no less than 1 1/2-2 years--and can afford to take a hit in the form of leaving a new job after only 3 weeks, I don't think you should tell potential employers about the new job, at least I don't think you should admit to having actually started working there. To an employer, this will just sound like you started a job without carefully learning what the job was, then gave up on it after only 3 weeks, no doubt inconveniencing your employer and causing them the additional expense of restarting the hiring process and training a new employee all over again. I am not saying this is what happened, and I understand that your new employer has mislead you, probably out of ignorance rather than malice, but there is just no way to turn this into a positive for a prospective employer. Unless you have an absolutely amazing work history prior to this point that will outweigh any recent career mistakes, IMHO, you should keep this off your application. Just my 2¢. Best of luck! | |
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