Ask HN: How do you talk about past jobs you regret in interviews

An interview is a sales pitch for a product. The product just happens to be you. Set aside whatever negative feelings you have about this previous job or the people you worked with there. The interviewers care if you will do their job well and with consistency and professionalism. Your personal feelings are irrelevant as long as you can keep them to yourself, or maybe tell your dog.

ANY negativity during a job interview is going to work against you. It is expected that you find a way to spin every situation and every project in some kind of positive light. Even when interviewers ask for weaknesses or about conflict, the “right” answer is to be able to talk about that negative thing in a way that lets your true brilliance shine through. Skilled candidates know how to inject just the right amount of humanity and relatability in an otherwise perfect employee.

If you are having trouble separating your feelings from your ability to keep to your talking points, then a good therapist may be able to help you learn better emotional regulation skills.

In the future, keep working to proactively manage your career. Keep yourself in roles where you are learning and thriving. When you feel burnout creeping in, deploy strategies to counter it or at least get yourself into a new situation.

Having been on both sides of the table, I can offer a few pieces of advice:

1. It’s probably best not to mention negative experiences unless it’s prompted by the interviewer. In some cases it may be super relevant and unavoidable, but aside from that, best to leave it alone.

2. Be clear and unambiguous about what was negative. Don’t be vague. I once had a candidate say something like “yeah and that job didn’t end very nicely…I’ll just leave it at that.” This is not a good thing to say in a job interview.

3. Always tie it to something positive. The story should end with a note about how you grew from the experience.

One:

You talk about bad situations, not bad people. “Shifting financial realities meant we had to pivot our product deep into the deployment process.” That’s not anyone’s fault. It just happens sometimes. Talk about how your team struggled to deliver success despite a challenging external speed bump.

Two:

Talk kindly about people you can't stand. Your coworker wasn't an asshole. He was an assertive person with a different perspective than yours, and you worked to find common ground so that you could succeed despite your competing visions. Bonus points if you can internalize this mindset and start seeing said assholes as people you merely impersonally disagree with. This makes life much happier.

Don’t lean into the negative. Lean into the positive results you managed to scavenge even with those obstacles. That's what a new boss wants to hear that you're capable of.

1) It sounds like you have a decent amount of negativity built up from your previous role, and you haven't quite vented it all out. Get it out of your system -- talk to a friend that gets how annoying that was and vent until you're tired of talking about it. Get heard and you'll feel like the negativity is finally behind you.

2) Think about the opportunities that your previous job gave you. Specifically opportunities. Every time a negative thought comes up, ask "What was my opportunity at that moment?" and write down your answer. Opportunity to disagree and commit? Great. Opportunity to solidify your understanding of your own values? Great! Opportunity to challenge yourself and work on something outside of your comfort zone? etc. Write those down and brag about them to your next amazing job!

The truth is, while you had past jobs you hated or regretted it, you got something out of it. You learned to deal with difficult people, you learned to manage hard situations, you navigated through tumultuous times, you learned a ton about growing, and you found out what you were capable of even in the darkest times. If anything, this can be super positive. You can also just say your past roles "were a good start to your career but didn't fit my future goals as much as this role does" and then jump in to what you want to do in your future and how this role fits.

Major red flag to say anything negative about prior employers during interviews.

It’s pretty simple. Just put a positive lens on everything. Yes, you’ll need to paint a new (positive) story in your mind that might be different from what you’ve told yourself after leaving the job.

The main thing you’re trying to avoid is making the interviewer wonder if you were actually the problem all along. (When you’re interviewing a candidate it’s impossible to know “who was in the right” - so, avoid putting interviewers in a spot where they have to judge whether your complaints are valid)

There is always a positive takeaway after you get enough distance from something. My last studio was a complete catastrophe. I was angry for a while after they laid us all off. But I realized that I had been given a college education in how Big Gaming really works and been paid 2 years of salary to attend. I took that education to do my next thing that I'm working on now.

Start by writing down everything that annoyed you in this job. Treat it like a journal/therapy session where you just “vent” all your frustrations out onto the paper/screen. Then take a breath and a break. Go back to it later and review each situation and find something positive in it. In every situation you at least learn something, or you strengthened a skill, or you helped the business by just getting it done, etc.

I don't. This is simply not the place for that.

If they were bad, I would say that they were not (whatever you seek - technical or challenging or whatever) and move on. I will mention that I did them right and I am looking for a more (take your pick from above) position.

Really, this is not a psychologist cabinet.

FWIIW, I hire technical or semi-technical people for my teams, from besides basic to get senior. Not a lot because people tend to stay a long time - one of the things I am truly proud of (just after having a fantastic team)

First rule of interviewing- NEVER say bad things about past employers (or anything else, always be positive). Second rule of interviewing- ALWAYS say good things about past employers, or say nothing. Unless you are specifically asked about employer you prefer not to talk about- then ALWAYS say only good things about them. You talking bad things about past employment means you will also talk bad things about people you try to join. And it also potentially can backfire if recruiter figures you was actually the problem.

IMHO, if you do have negativity in you it will leak out later and make your situation worse. Better treat the core problem- which is you not being able to leave past where it belongs- in the past.

when i interviewed candidates for software engineering roles in $non-tech-megacorp i was primarily interested in how folks did in the problem solving / coding / API design interviews.

but, we also asked some behavioural questions about past experiences. we don't say it explicitly, but we're looking for responses like --- can you say some words that suggest you have demonstrated initiative at work, or you can sometimes influence others and build support for a decision rather than unilaterally doing stuff without consultation (we're $megacorp, not $startup...) . you don't need to be able to talk at length about all aspects of your past job, but you do need to be able to offer a few examples of That Time When I Demonstrated Initiative, or That Time When I Influenced The Stakeholders that can be mashed into a digestible Situation / Task / (your) Action / Result format & where you can give a few reasonable answers to follow up questions from interviewers who probe and ask annoying questions like "so, what exactly were your responsibilities?"

another thing we'd be probing for is "growth mindset" type stuff. a bad response to "if you were in a similar situation in future, what would you do differently?" is "nothing, everything i did at $oldjob was optimal". a response that shows some reflection, a willingness to admit not everything you do is perfect, and concrete ideas for improvements to behaviour or process comes across much better. no need to enumerate all your worst failings, cherry-pick and offer one or two lesser ones.

for these kinds of behavioural questions based on past experience, we didn't really care if junior / intermediate hires struggled to give strong responses. We would be a lot more concerned about poor responses to these questions for engineering managers or other positions with a leadership component.

having a prepared short form answer to "why are you applying for a job here" is also a good idea.

if you have friends or acquaintances who regularly interview folks who you can hit up for a favour, you could see if they'd be willing to conduct a mock interview and then give you feedback about things you could improve on.

“I learned a lot” - this has the advantage of being, hopefully, true. And you probably worked with some interesting and talented people. Think about your positive interactions with them.