What if your contract was terminated?
How do you handle that at interview?
This is a daunting problem to address but it does have to be dealt with. A prospective employer is likely to find out sooner or later that you were asked to leave, or left under a cloud, so the best thing to do is come to terms with it, analyse what wrong, pick yourself up and redouble your efforts to be above reproach.
Analyse the problem
So first of all be honest with yourself about what went wrong. Did you deserve to be asked to leave? Can you be sure that whatever happened won’t be repeated? You will need to be able to assure future employers of that, so you need to be able to put a strong case together.
If you made a mistake through lack of knowledge, have you plugged the gap in your knowledge? Are there any other gaps? Do you need to revisit your learning and update it?
If you lost your temper, can you take an anger management course?
If it was a conflict of personality, how will you make sure there won’t be a repeat with another colleague?
Identify the issue and be able to reassure potential employers you have addressed it, and can guarantee there will be no re-occurrence.
Be honest with yourself, a mistake has been made, you need to sort out the problem so you can move onwards and upwards.
Redouble your efforts
In your job application process, you will need to make double the effort anyone else does, so that you can demonstrate to recruiters that you are determined to succeed, this is a temporary setback, you will recover, and you are worth taking a chance on.
Remember they may have to justify their decision to their manager, so give them something to work with by being above reproach. Tell them what action you have taken to address the problem so they can use the information in your defence if the need arises. Make sure there is nothing in your application that can be faulted.
Is there anything you can do to put yourself and your career in a more positive light? If you are out of work perhaps you could do some charity work, or volunteering, that could go on your CV? At least that would show your better side.
Or maybe you already have done those things but not included them in your CV to date, in which case it might be a good idea to add them in now.
Prepare your story
Practise telling the story of what happened until it is credible, and matter of fact, and you can talk about it without becoming angry or upset. You don’t want your story to be told in anger, showing that you haven’t moved on.
Neither do you want it to be a story of blaming everyone else but you, everyone had a part to play in what went wrong but you, you are the victim here. That won’t get you much sympathy.
So although you will polish the story to make it acceptable and plausible, it must still be basically honest, because if you add falsifying the situation to the list of wrongdoing, then you won’t get a second chance.
So work hard on addressing the problem dealing with it, moving on, and being prepared to try harder this time .Demonstrate all that and someone will recognise the effort you have made, and your determination to succeed in spite of a past problem and they will give you a chance.