Employers are desperate to hire these days, and they're more willing to overlook a short stint or even a gap in your work history.
That's good news for young workers who feel their new jobs have been overhyped during the Great Resignation. A recent survey from The Muse found 80% of millennial and Gen Z jobseekers say it's acceptable to leave a new job before six months if it doesn't live up to your expectations.
If you're preparing to jump back into job-search mode after just a short time away, here are a few ways to talk about it throughout the hiring process.
Prepare an explanation for leaving so soon
There are ways to be honest and diplomatic about a short tenure if the job or company turned out to be different from what you expected, says The Muse founder and CEO Kathryn Minshew.
If possible, discuss how the scope of the job changed between the time you interviewed, when you accepted it and when you began working. Did the responsibilities change? Did your hiring manager or colleagues quit? Were there other organizational changes that impacted how you feel about the company or leadership?
Minshew suggests saying something along the lines of: "Obviously, it's not ideal to have such a short stint at a company. When I was interviewing for that position, some of the things that I was looking for were XYZ. There was a lot that was communicated to me about the role and the type of work environment that I was really excited for. But when I joined the team, there were some really key differences in what I experienced compared with what was advertised. It wasn't the right move professionally, so I left."
Show your impact
If you made an impact even with just a few months>Focus>Discuss what you're hoping to avoid
Job interviews aren't a good place to drag a former employer, even if you feel they misled you in the hiring process. Keep it honest and professional.
If you want, you could frame a bad experience as something you hope to avoid in the future. For example, if you didn't like the competitive nature of a previous company, Minshew suggests saying something like: "I thrive best in a really collaborative environment, where I'm given a lot of information about the various areas of the company, colleagues want to help each other out and there's a minimum of politics or gossip."
Keep the conversation focused>Talk about a side project
If you worked>Leave it off
Finally, you also have the option to leave an old job off your resume entirely, especially if it only lasted a few weeks or months and it isn't related to the work you want to do.
"If the stint is short enough," Minshew says, "it is perfectly acceptable to remove it from your resume."
