Question:
I was fired from my last position and I am sure that the question of why I left my former employer will come up. What should I say?
Martin

Answer:
Martin,
You never said why you were fired so it depends upon how you might handle the situation. First off, NEVER badmouth your former employer. One of the easiest and quickest reasons candidates get into trouble during the interview process is badmouthing their former employer and coming across as someone that is highly negative.

My advice is to be open and honest about the situation. Try your best to minimize the reason for your termination. For instance, if you were in sales and were not able to meet your sales quotas, you were "let-go." Perhaps the reason you were let go was because of "market changes that affected your territory and customer base," meaning there was no longer a market or a large enough market for the product you were selling. One recruiter I spoke with suggested, "Try to portray the incident as 'one of those unlucky things that happens to the best of us.'"

If it was for something illegal or something like sexual harassment, this is going to be a tough situation to deal with no matter how you dice it. I will assume that this was not the case, so we will save this for another column. However, most people are fired for either personality differences between you and your boss or co-workers, or lack of production. You can address this by simply explaining that you and your former boss had difficulty seeing eye to eye on a number of issues. In terms of lack of production, perhaps you were placed into a role that you were not qualified for. This translates to not being so much your fault, but also the fault of the employer without coming across negatively.
In a nutshell, try and quickly explain how you've learned from the experience and that you have taken steps to avoid such happening again. The objective is to put the interviewer at ease in the hope that they won't place too much importance on a reference check. One last closing note, if at all possible, try and reconcile with your former employers and ask them to at least give you a fair reference.

Best of luck in your job search.