Employers generally like to see candidates who have a steady work history. That being said, nobody’s perfect and many people have had to leave a job early for one reason or another. This week’s job searching tip deals with methods you can use to get over an employer’s concern about leaving a job early.
Let’s first take a look at why employers are hesitant to hire someone who has left jobs early:
1. Wasted training time and money – if an employer has to train you for the job and you leave early, resources spent on training were wasted
2. Opportunity Costs – Sort of as a follow on to number 1, if you quit and the position is open again, the employer has to once again divert management attention to the recruiting issue. It will probably take time to start reaching candidates with recruitment advertising, etc. Position vacancies are costly both from the perspective of the work for the position not being done, and from the distraction caused to immediate managers of that function.
3. Loyalty/Values – The employer is likely going to be concerned that you lack loyalty and don’t appreciate the burden it places on them to have to hire someone else. Yes, looking out for yourself is important. But it creates a credibility problem that you will need to overcome.
How to address a potential employer’s concerns
If you’re going to leave a job early, even if you were unhappy with your boss or the work environment, give some thought to how you can leave without leaving the company high and dry. Maybe you know someone with a comparable skill-set who could take the job. If you can do something to ease the company’s burden of having to recruit a new person, this will leave them with a much better impression. It also gives you a better story to tell in interviews for new positions.
Get references
If your resume isn’t great or doesn’t paint a very positive picture of your career background, look for other things which can bolster the impression you can create with potential employers. An ideal situation would be to get references from the employers you left early. This is where helping these former employers can help you — they’ll be more inclined to write a good reference for you if you help them out. It also helps if you had made a positive contribution at the former employer before you left. It would be great if you could get a reference in writing (i.e. a reference letter) which you could bring with you to interviews.
One way to ease the process of getting reference letters is to offer to write the letter for the reference, and to ask them to simply sign their name to it. Of course, they will only agree to do something like that if you have a positive relationship with them.
Even if you don’t get a reference letter, there’s a chance the recruiter might know someone there or might call for a reference. If the company has positive things to say about you, you’ll be better off.
Hit the ground running
Employers are generally concerned about someone leaving a job early if they have to invest time in training you up front. If you already have all the skills needed to do the job and understand the company.
This article is by Juliah Karimi of Staff Kenya
0 Comments