“Why Do You Want To Leave Your Current Job?” 3 Tips For Success With This Interview Question

Another difficult interview question is “Why do you want to leave your current job?” There are so many horribly wrong and bad ways to answer this question. And there are really only a few good ways to answer it or at least safe but yet not to amine as far as an HR person is concerned.

Exit only – make it good.

3 Tips for interviewing success when it comes to this tough question are, make sure you have a broader application of skills in mind that maybe you are seeking a leadership role or that you are seeking growth in a new industry. Let’s dive into these points a little further so you can master the question the next time it comes up in your interview.

A Broader Application Of Skills

Now this is especially useful when it comes to this tough question because there are a range of positions available and as you get into your mid-career level and greater, somewhere between 25, 30, 35 and above you actually get a fill for what is out there and decide that maybe you do want something a little bit deeper or “reached” down when it comes to your schooling or interest.

For instance, I did electrical engineering as my degree and I started out with pretty much an entry level design type project support position. A couple years after I decided, “hey, maybe I want a little more custom interface.”

So I went into project engineering which has a lot more customer interface but a whole lot of the stuff that I maybe wasn’t too interested in that was project related. I found other positions that were kind of in between that have to do with customer interfacing but more on the troubleshooting technical side of things.

The point is when you look at all these things you get a feel for what is out there and learn that hey, for a broader or more specific application of my skills, I might have to seek another position. Perfectly fine. HR people understand this and it’s a good reason.

Leadership Roles

You have to be a little bit careful with this one if you use the answer of you seeking leadership roles because they are going to ask if there are leadership roles available in the company or position. It may very well be true that there are but that the hurdles you have to jump through are two or three years in the future and you prefer to seek advancement on an excel-orated pace and I think that is perfectly reasonable.

Or maybe there just aren’t opportunities for growth. This is something that you really have to honestly think about and work out prior to this question so you will be able to answer but that was a sticky point that you have to think about.

You can’t just say “Hey! I’m seeking leadership roles!”, because there are always leadership roles available. Make sure that you can justify that you are really seeking leadership roles somewhere else that you are more confident in, or interested in, or capable in, that isn’t your current company.

Growth In A New Industry

I will go back to engineering positions. There are engineers in aerospace, health, electronics, internet, I.T., etc. A lot of the skills and the technical aspect of the daily duties are very similar. Unfortunately, the terminology is different on the resumes as well as the technologies specifics, the technology that you work with, the software you work with, the policies that you work with.

For instance, government is going to be completely different than private sector. These are things that you are going to have to work into your explaining this but, growth at a different industry means a whole lot at HR, so it is a great example that you can give or reason that you can give for wanting to leave your current position.

Know Your Exit – Be Strong

When you get that question of “Why do you want to leave your current job?” be confident in knowing that these three reasons are perfectly acceptable so long as you have good back up for them and deliver them confidently.

And that is, wanting a deeper or more specific application of your skills, seeking a true leadership role on maybe an accelerated scale, and growth in a new industry. Keep these things in mind and this interview question will never be a problem for you again.