Why were you fired?

Interview Preparation
#1

Now this is a tough one.

Getting fired is pretty much never good.

Keep in mind that we’re talking about getting fired, not getting laid off. There’s a huge difference between the two:

  • Getting laid off means that you got let go for something that had nothing to do with your competence. I.e. budget cuts, company down-sizing, etc.
  • Getting fired, on the other hand, means that you got let go for a reasonable cause. And chances are, it’s probably your fault.

If you got fired and the interviewer asks you about it, you should be honest. After all, they can easily check-in with your previous employer.

Your best shot here is to be critical about your mistakes, and explain what you’ve done to improve.
The main fault was in miscommunication. The interviewer was unclear about the job responsibilities - from what I understood, they were looking for a senior-level marketer to oversee their email marketing operations.

At the end of the day, though, it turned out that the company was looking to experiment with email marketing, and specifically for someone to set it up from scratch.

While I did my best to deliver, in the end it turned out that their niche doesn’t actually need email marketing. This was against the management’s vision, so that decided to let me go