A prepared job seeker will have thought about questions that will be asked at the job interview. One of them may be: "Why are you leaving your job?" As you think about a response to this question, also consider how the interviewer may interpret that response.
It's important to take caution with how questions are answered at the job interview because when it's not framed properly, it can be interpreted negatively and cost you the job opportunity.
There can be many reasons to why you want to leave your job. They could be:
Whatever your reason is, it's not always appropriate to tell it like it is to the potential employer. Think of a response that will impress the employer, but that still comes off as an honest reason.
Here are some tips to help:
Communication at a job interview should always come off positive. To start, you may talk about the great opportunities you've been given and how much you've learned through your current employer, before giving your reason. Employers like to hear things like this because you come off as professional and respectful of your existing employer even though you have made the decision to move on. Regardless of your real feelings and the situation at work, never bad mouth the company or your co-workers.
There may be multiple reasons why you want to leave your current job, but you don't need to include information about what you're not being offered. The reason for this is because potential employers can interpret it as action you may take against them if hired.
For example instead of saying, "I don't feel challenged at work anymore," re-frame the message to say, "I'm looking for new challenges in the area of X, Y, and Z, which I can see this job offers," and then go into the experience and skills you have to offer to further impress the interviewer. Re-framing your response in this manner makes it less likely that the employer will take the information and interpret it negatively.
Talk about what you're heading towards—what you want to experience and achieve to continue growing professionally. It works best when you can also tie in how the potential employer could offer that for you. When you answer in this manner, it informs the employer that you are an individual who seeks self-improvement and that you have real interest in the company because of what they specifically offer. It tells the employer you are someone with great potential for hire who will be dedicated to employment with them for a reasonable amount of time.
"Why are you leaving your job?" is only one out of many questions you will be asked at the job interview. Knowing how to respond positively and framing it in a way that informs the employer why you're a great fit ensures you stay in the running for the job and it helps move you on to the next stage of the interview process.
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There's no doubt that things have shifted dramatically as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, leaders are asking themselves hard questions.
What does the next "normal" look like for them? And, how can they successfully implement new aspects of their culture into this new normal?
Here are four key things leaders must consider if they want to truly live their culture in the next new normal.
The 2008 financial crisis forced leaders to rethink operations, supply chain, vendor management, employee engagement, ethics, and integrity. Layoffs were widespread and money vanished, while the real estate market collapsed amidst big bank failures fueled by consumers inability to pay excessive mortgages.
It's now 2020: The pandemic health crisis is new, yet the economic dynamics seem eerily familiar. With the exception of "essential workers" in the food (grocer), safety, and health sectors, business has shut down. Supply chain vendors, grocers, and healthcare systems struggle to keep pace with consumer need/demand as we experience roller-coaster infection rates, re-openings, and new shut-downs. How to survive this is anyone's guess as every day brings on new cases and more questions.
According to a Fortune 500 CEO survey, 97.2 % of CEO's said keeping employees safe and productively employed is their #1 concern. (1)
A company's strong employee culture and the ability to pivot quickly with evolving dynamics are key to thriving Post-COVID.
A company's culture must absolutely drive this question. Grant Reid, MARS CEO, said, "Part of my job is to import stress and export serenity...how do you bring them back safely into a work environment, keep the social distance and allow them to be successful and safe? Your associates are looking for stability, some hope, some compassion, some trust." (2)
The physical aspect of return is critical. "Companies are re-evaluating physical layouts specific to each employee. They are looking at common areas; multi-tenant commercial spaces...and rearranging reception common areas." (2)
Workstations need more distance and hallways need to become one-way venues. Employers must also evaluate testing protocols for employees, frequency of testing, and qualified caregivers conducting those tests. GoHealth Urgent Care is providing clinical back-up when employer resources are unavailable. (3)
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has created guidance on engineering and administrative controls for preparing the workplace for re-entry. (4) And, the EEOC has issued updated guidance on how employers can avoid violating the ADA and other employment laws in addressing the virus. (5)
Significant concerns arise for Workers Compensation insurance. Historically, community-spread illnesses (e.g. cold or flu) have been excluded. Six states recently passed "presumptive" legislation, and 14 total have expanded regulations to include COVID-19 as a workplace illness. To complicate matters, other injuries in the workplace may go unreported, or claims closures extended since non-urgent treatment is delayed in most jurisdictions. (6)
One of the many challenges from this pandemic has been dealing with an ever-changing regulatory climate. With Workers Compensation rule changes, amendments to health benefits, the need for Childcare/Adult care, and the implementation of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), companies have struggled to make difficult decisions to care for their employees.
This is the time to look for innovative ways to step up employee benefits such as adding paid sick leave, amending sick policies to ensure employees are paid even if the business is closed, and unlimited paid sick leave even for workers not previously covered, such as hourly workers. Adding child care reimbursement, and increased emergency child care and eldercare benefits can help your employees deal with the pressures of working from home.All group health plans will need to adopt changes to ensure that their plans comply with changes made by the FFCRA and the CARES Act and provide sufficient benefits to combat COVID-19. (7) Under the acts, group health plans will have to do the following:
- Cover the full cost without cost-sharing (i.e., deductibles, copayments, or coinsurance) of testing for COVID-19. This requirement extends to tests provided by both in-network and out-of-network providers and is mandated for the duration of the public health emergency. Both swab tests that collect a specimen from an individual's upper respiratory tract to diagnose a case of COVID-19 and approved blood tests that look for antibodies to the coronavirus must be covered
- Once developed, group health plans will also be required to provide coverage without any cost-sharing for coronavirus vaccines.
To lessen the anxiety of your employees, consider adding or extending mental health benefits that are personalized and confidential, and offer telehealth services.
According to J.S. Nelson, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law professor, "The working landscape has changed, perhaps forever. How employees and management move forward from this experience will shape the workplace for decades to come. These challenges include" :
1. Recognizing individual circumstances
2. Reacting with empathy when feeling out of control
3. Maintaining transparency when feeling out of control
4. Not taking advantage of the situation to push other agendas
5. Remembering the power of healthcare and benefit coverage while not abusing them (8)
Understanding where your organization stands on these ethical challenges is a good foundation for the decisions you need to make for the future. Questions you then need to ask are:
- Are your mission, values, and culture still relevant today and in the near, very different future? Do you have a process in place to continually assess this?
- Is your culture helping or hindering your companies' performance?
- Are your employees weathering this "storm"? What do they need less of or more of to be happier and more productive? Can you even answer this question? Do you know how they feel?
- Are you looking for opportunities for hyper-personalization for your employees and customers? For example, do you give employees whose mental health issues worsened by working from home alone, priority when coming back to the office?
- How your employees view your stand on diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging have always been important, but with the ultra focus in the past few weeks, how would you rate your organization? Have you made this a priority?
Your company's ability to effectively navigate the impact and stress on the employee base will drive resiliency and long-term sustainability. Your associates will be the first to say whether RTWS was successful, which inevitably will be reflected in your organization's product and ultimately in customer satisfaction.
Sources:
1.) See Fortune 500 CEO Survey, May 14, 2020
2.) See James Dean, MARS CEO Talks Life At Mars and steering through COVID-19, Times of London, May 9, 2020
3.) Wendy Knight - A conversation with Todd Latz, CEO, Go Health Urgent Care, May 7, 2020
4.) See Occupational Health & Safety Administration, OSHA.gov, Guidance on Returning to WorkGuidance on Returning to Work
5.) See Judy Greenwald, EEOC Expands Covid-19 Workplace Guidance, businessinsurance.com, May 7, 2020
6.) See Courtney DuChene, Longer Claims, Falling Premiums: NCCI Details on How COVID-19 Could Affect Workers Compensation, riskandinsurance.com, April 30, 2020
7.) See Business Group on Health, Update on COVID-19 Testing Coverage, 03/2020
8.) See J.S. Nelson, 5 Ethical Challenges Employers Will Face As They Reopen, hrdive.com, June 17, 2020
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Are you interested in writing for a strictly digital platform, while creating content that could make a big difference in people's lives? If the answer is yes, then Work It Daily has a great opportunity for you!
We're seeking 10 multimedia journalism interns for a 4 ½ week virtual internship (May 27 2020 - June 26 2020). The lucky 10 will help us create compelling content for our career advice blog, while also helping us with graphics and social posts.
Does this pique your interest? Great! Let's get down to business!
Work It Daily is a subscription-based online career coaching membership program. Professionals and executives ages 22 to 55+ use the site to get help with all aspects of their job search and career development. Members have access to 15+ online courses and 200+ hours of video tutorials on a wide range of career topics.
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Not to mention, as a fully virtual platform, we are the ideal resource to use during the time of social distancing.
Multimedia journalism interns will work 10 hours/week writing articles for Work It Daily's free career advice blog. Interns will work in teams of two and will be responsible for coming up with the topic ideas. The teams of two will be in charge of the social promotion for their article. This includes coming up with thumbnail and social graphic ideas. They will also learn how to optimize their content for search engines (SEO).
Those interested in the internship should send their resume and a disruptive cover letter to support@workitdaily.com NOTE: watch our Youtube tutorial above on the disruptive cover letter technique to guide you!
Once companies start hiring again after COVID-19, there will be a LOT of competition for jobs. There will be people with the same experience, same degrees, and same hard skills competing for the same job. So, how will you stand out from the competition?
"I can sit there and tell you 'technology, big and important', 'being fast on a computer, really important' - but when it comes to getting the job, it will be about the soft skills because there's too much competition and too many people with the same hard skills."
There are 5 key skills that you can develop to stand out from other candidates. In this episode, I break down what those skills are and why they're so important to master if you want to land a job after COVID-19.
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J.T. O'Donnell is the founder and CEO of Work It Daily, an online platform dedicated to helping people solve their biggest career problems.
She has more than 15 years of experience in HR, recruiting and career coaching.
"The average American has less than $400 in savings. People are really living paycheck to paycheck, and so they are really concerned. They're thinking, "what am I going to do?" And one of the first things they should do is look at their budget - where are their assets? What are their monthly payments? What's the cashflow that's going out?" - Todd Palmer
In this bonus episode, I talk with mortgage executive and Work It Daily executive member, Todd Palmer, about options for those concerned about their mortgage payment during this crisis. Come join the conversation and learn what you need to know.
Todd's article on the topic: https://www.workitdaily.com/cant-pay-your-mortgage-options
Connect with Todd on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddpalmer0/
HPF's HOPE Hotline: 888-995-4673 (https://995hope.org/)
Were you laid off due to the COVID-19 crisis and are now worried about age discrimination? Or, are you concerned about keeping your job while competing against a younger generation?
If so, you're not alone. A question I've gotten a lot in the past couple of weeks is what can the older generation of workers do to protect their career & job search during a time of crisis.
"The truth is, if you're over 50, and you've decided in your mind that it's all age discrimination and there's nothing that you can do, that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. That's exactly what's going to happen. But I know there's lots of you that don't want to believe that, and there's lots of you who don't want to be angry anymore."
In this episode, I talk about how the coronavirus pandemic affects workers over 50 years old, and what you can do about it.
Work It Daily membership information: https://workitdaily.lpages.co/pricing/
Not all people tell the truth. Some complaints might be coming from elsewhere without realizing. Great marketing professionals can use their insight and experience to understand where the real issues are coming from to execute and take the company to the next level.
I've been able to find out the real issues/pains/problems within a project by asking questions from different angles. This process was established by getting a lot of complaints and requests during my career. I quickly developed five ways to determine where there were issues.
With my many corporate experiences, I learned it takes time and effort at the beginning, but this strategy ultimately helps to increase sales, expand the distribution channel, and save time and money.
One toy company I worked for had the development and HQ function in the U.S. One country's marketing team told me that they did not like the global unit packaging which the global brand team developed and requested to develop a completely new 3-in-1 packaging. In that new packaging they wanted to add a book. Furthermore, they requested to launch it one month early.
We showed the development progress to the marketing team many times, and used all of the development budget. During that time, no subsidiaries had anything against the packaging. We had little time left for their ideal launching schedule. The executives rejected the request.
We did a lot of analysis and communications. We were able to increase sales in that market for this item after the analysis and approval from the executives.
How did we do that? I found out where the request came from. The team just wanted the lower unit pricing because they got buyer feedback that the price was too high. And we realized that in their market, their competitor's pricing was lower. If they added a book to the new packaging, it would be an added value and they could hit back-to-school season, too.
Although the price was still challenging, we were able to amortize the extra development cost because of the significant sales increase vs forecast by the 3-in-1 packaging.
There was a lot of work. We double-checked all the people on board to support this plan from different perspectives—production capacity, tooling schedule, logistic schedule, commitment from their buyers, packaging development schedule, book development and assembly process, and so on. In the process, the sales team was able to get the purchasing commitment from new retailers (bookstores) because of the book.
As a result, we were able to have everyone on board not only internally but external buyers as well, and we were able to support their request and had a 250% sales increase.
This experience helped me formulate my five steps that I use to determine where the real issues are coming from based on complaints and requests.
Here's how your marketing team can do the same.
1. Ask "Why?"
If you ask "why?" five times, you'll eventually figure out the essential issues.
2. Determine People & Place
Who is complaining and where are they located? Put yourself in their shoes, and try to understand the challenges or problems they could be facing.
3. Figure Out The Process
How can you help them? Tools, investments, time, or money?
4. Find Numbers To Focus On For Evaluation
You'll know when you've accomplished your goal if you have numbers to strive for.
5. List Who Needs To Get Involved
Think about all the people that need to get involved and make them aware—internally and/or externally.
In marketing, complaints and requests are a great chance to learn and make improvements. There is room for marketing/market share/sales growth if we understand the situation and change our approach.
At the beginning, it might take a long time to understand the situation and plan better strategies, but it will result in increasing sales/market share or cost savings.
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Whether you've been laid off, or are afraid you might be, you need to be prepared.
If you want to find a new job you MUST build a networking strategy.
"It's those meaningful connections, those meaningful conversations that you have with people, that builds the trust, that earns the respect, that gets people to want to mobilize and help you. And same for you - the more you get to talk to people, have meaningful conversations, the more inspired you are to want to find a way to help them so that everybody wins."
So, how do you network during a time of social distancing? What can you do to make a great impression and become a valuable connection?
In this episode, I'll tell you the importance of networking during a crisis like COVID-19, and how to network effectively.
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-network-during-coronavirus/id1503540957?i=1000471316415
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4DhWLJSHCbLNltoebygXyk
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/jt-talks-jobs