Ask HN: How do I explain leaving a successful, but awful startup? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do I explain leaving a successful, but awful startup?

30 pointstoosuccess51 comments

Hi everyone,

I am in the process of trying to look for a new job, but I keep getting asked why I want to leave a startup that on paper, looks like a golden ticket(funding, revenue, growth, etc). My reasons for leaving are fairly personal:

- It's a hostile and homophobic work environment. Right now I'm not out at work, but I can tell it would be job death sentence.

- It's not a good culture fit, besides the problems above. Team events center around intramural soccer or going out drinking all night. I'm not athletic or drink and get called out, made fun of for it at work.

- I feel bullied, I've had numerous instances of being called gay at work in coded ways.

- Theres no HR and no desire to ever have an HR department.

I'm struggling with explaining why I want to leave but I don't want to come off to potential employers as someone who is super PC, sensitive and can't handle a joke. I've been at the company now for a year so its not like I can't tough it out, but I need to leave now to keep my emotional health.

What is the best way to communicate this to a hiring manager as my reason for leaving? Has anyone else had to deal with an openly hostile work environment and how'd you deal with it?

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Don't try to communicate this to a prospective employer as your reason for leaving.

"What did you not like about your last job" is a super-common interview question for which there is virtually no upside for the candidate. You can only lose points with your answer, you can't gain them.

What you --- and everyone else looking for a new gig --- should do is, bank a couple of work-process things you'd've liked to see them do differently. Maybe they should test using a different framework, or do something different with project management. Keep the answer short, objective, and anodyne.

People leave jobs all the time. It seems like a big deal now because you're going through it, but it's much less of a big deal for hiring managers. They ask that question because they think they're supposed to. When it comes up, be boring, and get past it as quickly as you can.

I would not say you left because of "culture fit". That's because (a) it's not a boring answer, (b) invites an immediate followup question that prolongs this unproductive phase of the interview, and (c) candidates are disadvantaged by "culture fit" fitting/screening. Screen a new prospective job for compatible culture after you get an offer. Try to make a prospective employer make the decision to extend an offer based as much as possible on objective stuff.

You do not need a great reason for changing jobs in this market. "I feel like I contributed everything I could contribute to that team and now I'm looking for a new challenge" is a fine reason.

> What you --- and everyone else looking for a new gig --- should do is, bank a couple of work-process things you'd've liked to see them do differently. Maybe they should test using a different framework, or do something different with project management. Keep the answer short, objective, and anodyne.

Maybe it's not what you intended, but one could interpret this as advocating a short answer that states something along the lines of "Their of use process/framework X" as a reason for leaving the company. Obviously this is not an advisable thing to say and would be a red flag for many a hiring manager.

> You do not need a great reason for changing jobs in this market. "I feel like I contributed everything I could contribute to that team and now I'm looking for a new challenge" is a fine reason.

I agree far more with a generic answer such as this.

I would actually extend this advice to the exit interview as well. The tech community is smaller than you might expect - I run into people I thought I'd never see again all the time. Even if you hate every last person at your current company, I'd recommend against burning bridges.

Not that I like it, of course. I want to fix the problem.

For me, when I am the interviewer = and for many people, I think- "I am looking for a new challenge" is just too generic/phoney. The OP should briefly mention the frat culture/all-night drinking, without elaborating too much, or sounding angry. If the new place is similar to the old one, he will not get the job, because he "would not be a good fit". But he would not want to repeat the experience, now, would he?

This applies when you talk directly to the hiring team, may not work so well with the HR department.

There are plenty of firms (even startups :-)) where people are treated professionally, it just may take a bit longer to find them.

I appreciate the good intentions behind this comment but I want to reiterate that giving an "interesting" answer to this question is a terrible idea. The question is a trap, and it's an easy one to avoid. Most candidates have boring answers to this question, not because they're lying, but because reality is pretty boring for people in our industry.

There is a remote potential upside to an answer to this question that makes you somehow look super smart --- you rewrote the whole stack in Rust in a weekend, got 100% unit test coverage, built integration tests for both your code and the original PHP and not only got complete coverage but also uncovered a zillion bugs in PHP, and then the rest of the team decided to rewrite in Perl instead. But even then, there's more downside risk than upside risk!

In this specific case though, the answer is all downside. You can't make yourself look extra smart by being anti-homophobia. Most of us are that already and we assume it of the people we talk to. The best you can hope for with a "juicy" answer about the culture at your last job is that you won't come across as high-drama. But that's actually asking a lot of your interviewer, who is not a trained psychologist and in fact not especially good at decoding subjective answers.

Just be boring for this one question.

As I mentioned in another comment, there is more upside to telling the answer publicly, as other employers can see it and respond with job offers.

Thanks for this reply!

Its nice to hear that this is just a question hiring managers ask cause they are there to ask questions. I'm going to keep that in mind next interview and make that answer the most boring, forgettable answer possible!

I'm going to give you conflicting data. When applicants tell me they are looking for a new challenge, or some other non-answer, I wonder if they are just going to flake out and leave our company after 6months or a year.

When I ask why people are leaving their current position, I am actually very curious to hear the answer and it colors my impression quite a bit.

Most hiring managers, with the question put directly to them, are going to tell you that they want an honest and in-depth answer about why you left your last job. But you can see from the way this one just answered the question why it's all downside: they are worried that they are missing another opportunity to disqualify you.

Stupid as it may sound, even in this market, most hiring managers run screening as a systematic search for disqualifiers.

The most important thing to remember here is not my opinion on the validity of the question or the reasons any hiring manager gives you for how important the data is to them. The important thing to remember is this: most candidates don't have interesting reasons for leaving their previous jobs.

No matter what any hiring manager tells you about their preferences, the reality is that giving a boring answer really can't disqualify you. Nobody runs hiring processes that select only for people with interesting last job quit stories; they'd reject almost every candidate! But an "interesting" answer certainly can disqualify you.

The flip side is that whilst "contributed everything I can and need a new challenge" is a perfectly good, if uninteresting answer for leaving GenericCo after two years, it's an obvious dodge of the truth for someone keen to leave a notionally key role at GlamourousStartup before options vest. How can that not be a massive red flag with any screener?

Edit: There's also the fact that interviewing is a two way screening process, and anyone that thinks is capable of taking offence at homophobia is a "no hire" red flag could and should fail the OP's own personal screening process (assuming they're not working in a country or period of history where few firms aren't actively dismissive towards the concept of homosexuality). Sure, over-elaborating on how bad the place was to work (any competent interviewer won't press for details) is a red flag, as is appearing to be more desperate to leave than interested in the job on offer. But "they're an excellent company in many respects, but I feel I'd be much happier in an environment where I didn't feel I was constantly having to turn a blind eye to several coworkers' derogatory remarks about minorities" doesn't sound like it should alarm anyone the OP might actually want to work for

No, we interviewed lots of people from "GlamorousStartup", and I can't remember hearing a single negative story. In our warm-up calls, we did ask some things about previous jobs (mostly to calibrate how much help we'd be offering for the technical interview).

It's just not true that a boring answer to this question is a "massive red flag". That's terrible advice to give.

Doesn't this depend a lot on when they leave? I'm assuming you didn't rush to hire people that gave "contributed everything I can and need a new challenge" as a reason for leaving a non-contractor position after a few months.

The OP - who understandably hasn't provided many details - may be in a situation where a bland answer doesn't sound like an obvious lie, but it's evident from the way the question is phrased that they fear it might be.

Even if they'd in fact been there for 15 months at a run-of-the-mill Series A startup so a bland answer was pretty likely to be the truth, would you have been more likely to have screened them out if they'd answered "I'd prefer a working environment where people weren't constantly making homophobic comments"?

Thinking about it, this means that telling the story publicly is better than telling it privately to the wrong people, because you can get job offers by telling it publicly, after which you can assume they already saw your blog post and so answering the question will not give them any more information. That is IMO the best solution to this problem for candidates.

On the other side, I wonder if the HR process of slotting candidates into fixed number of positions don't help. It might make sense for factory workers, but for programming or even IT? This is one reason BTW why I believe anti-discrimination laws are ineffective.

What you're saying is true, a boring answer probably won't disqualify an applicant outright. However, the three or four people that gave answers like "looking for a new challenge" this week certainly didn't make a good positive impression on me. If your objective is to not get disqualified, then it's sound advice. If your objective is to find a job at a company whose culture and expectation match your own, the OP will have better odds with their honest answer.

Hold on. I'm not saying candidates shouldn't qualify culture before accepting jobs. I'm saying they should do that after the job offer, when they have the most leverage and the least to lose.

They don't get the job offer if their answers to questions lack depth and personality. In other words, optimizing for not being disqualified is not the same for optimizing for first choice for a position.

Yes, I understand this to be your argument, but I simply do not believe most hiring managers (really: any hiring managers) seriously gauge "depth" and "personality" from the answer to this one question. That's what makes the question such a trap for candidates: it's intrinsically unimportant (the data you pretend it collects simply isn't present for most candidates), but the "wrong" answer can be very harmful.

Candidates should simply dodge this question. The more I've thought about this thread, the more cut-and-dried my judgement on this is.

Yeah, its not even about having that disqualify me, I'm just trying to keep any information about the social conditions of my current role quiet so I don't burn any bridges.

I'm unfortunately not in SV and the tech community is much smaller here. The startups founders are fairly well connected with other founders and I don't want it to become a they said/they said that gets me black listed.

Of course there is an upside to this question "What did you not like about your last job", if the candidate shares the same opinion about how you should work and be efficient, about the environment where you're working, about the people, etc, I will probably hire the guy who is closer to my way of thinking.

If you volunteer extra information about what you didn't like about your last job, there is a slight chance the information will help you and a (IMO) big chance that it will hurt you. If you give a boring answer, there is no chance it will hurt you: most candidates (speaking from my own experience) don't have interesting stories about their last job.

Not sure why you think this is a no win scenario for candidates. If I asked someone this question there would definitely be positive and negative responses ...

I just wanted to throw in an anecdote I have: Friend's consulting company is run in a not so professional manner in some ways: lot's of ball busting and drinking, too many jokes and comments about gay things or gay jokes etc.

Totally not a cool environment for many people, and I don't support it, but they had one of their employees come out and they felt awful. They were just general assholes, not the kind that specifically had anything against someone's sexuality. They bent over backwards to make them feel included and cut down on most of the gay comments around the office.

I'm not suggesting you stay and I think tptacek's advice is spot on, I just wanted to share in case you do decide coming out is the best thing for your mental health while you look for a job.

This is great to hear. Sometimes people just don't know any better.

1. If the new company (or a recruiter) contacted you, then the easy answer is: "You reached out to me, and the opportunities sounded exciting enough for me to consider leaving a job I am otherwise happy with." With this answer, it isn't that you are leaving - the interviewing company is more interesting.

2. Don't bring it up unless they ask you why you are leaving.

3. Be prepared for the next question and the next question - your answer must be an answer that does not invite followup questions. Otherwise you run the risk of the interview consisting solely of the interviewer trying to decide if you will leave them in a year.

4. Another good answer is: The company has a great future but my position has no growth potential.

Valley is small. People change. Don't burn bridges. You never know who is friends with whom or whose wife is friends with whom.

Document, document, document - while you are still there. Document what is happening daily. This serves these purposes:

1. if you do end up having a job issue that becomes legal. Documentation is your only defense. (including exact words)

2. if the current employer acts all surprised that there is a problem - the documentation helps explain your perspective.

3. It will help you judge how bad the problem is: is it one person? your manager? the CEO?

4. It will help take the emotion out of it - so you can see the other aspects of the job. (good and bad) It may be time to leave for other valid professional reasons.

Breathe deep and focus on what you need out of this job before acting.

"Why do you want to leave?"

"Oh, I'm not sure that I do, but I've always thought that your team at Acme Widgets would great to work with, so you can only imagine how excited I am to actually get the opportunity to talk to you about this exciting position."

Bullshit questions deserve bullshit answers.

If the question isn't bullshit, "I don't drink" is enough...and a useful tool for screening future employers over their work culture.

Good luck.

You don't explain the real reason. You never do unless it is "I am interested in pursuing more interesting opportunities after doing xyz here at my current firm and this job opportunity at your firm seems like a great fit". Yes, that should always be the reason. It is unfortunate but the reality of hiring world. Anything else you say can and will hurt you and could be the difference between you getting a job and getting a rejection email if at all.

Never say "I left because of hostile env" because that will open up discussions about things that will not give you an upper hand. The new hiring manager can never truly believe what you said and will most likely think "this person complains too much..hmm should we hire this person". The reason is that this new hiring manager does not know you at a personal level yet. So even though you may think it is a good idea to share your story, they will only want to deal with simple reasons like "better opportunity", "closer to home", "love your product" etc.

"Company xyz is great. We've got a ton of funding and revenue growth. The IPO is coming soon. I want to work at a company where the story has not been written yet."

"I actually really like working at xyz. There are also a lot of things I like about abc. That's why I'm exploring this opportunity."

Or some bullshit like that.

That sounds horrible and I am sorry you have to face that.

I've left places that have had toxic environments. Explain that you did not fit in, from a cultural perspective. Try to avoid bad-mouthing the old employer, but make it clear that you are looking to work with people who have a positive perspective.

To echo tptacek, take the most boring possible way out. "Opportunities for growth and additional responsibility aren't readily available, and I'm looking for a new challenge."

To the left startup, you don't have to explain anything. To new potential employers, just say "It wasn't a good culture fit." Basically, you don't have to explain anything either, (and probably should not), but you want to give a polite answer, so give the blandest explanation, like culture fit. You may also instead mention how the new potential employer is closer to your home, or offer a better salary, etc.

Isn't the first question most employers would ask in response to that "what didn't you like about the culture?"

Sounds like one of those cases where the truth "I didn't appreciate the stream of homophobic banter from some team members or feel that I had any way of influencing that aspect of the workplace culture" is a lot less damaging than a bland "culture fit" answer which might be a coded answer for "argues all the time", "needs far too much guidance" or "not willing to work as hard as expected" or "prefers stability of BigCorp"

Let's face it, an interviewer not making an offer mainly because they interpret "dislikes constant stream of homophobic banter" as "PC asshole" is a pretty good indication of another bullet dodged anyway.

Never talk about cultural fit etc. That most likely sounds like "I complain too much about people that I work with". It may not be true at all but any potential hiring manager who does not know you well will have an inclination to be safe than sorry. It is the unfortunate reality.

Firstly, I'm so sorry you have had to deal with ignorance like that! You're justified in how you feel about this, and don't have to tell them anything you don't want to. I'm not sure how applicable these reasons will be, but feel free to take and use any that work for you:

Interviewer: "So toosuccess, can you explain to me the reason for leaving XYZcorp? It looks like a golden ticket!"

- I want to be part of a company where I feel I can contribute more.

- I'm looking for an opportunity that helps me get closer to my goal of ___________ (personal or professional growth goal here)

- One thing that attracts me to you that I felt lacked at XYZcorp was ___________ (feature you like about new company that they do well)

All of these reasons keep the focus of the conversation positive and constructive, without bashing your current employer, and let you express your desire for growth and health while positioning the company you are applying to as an ideal place for both of those.

Good luck on the interviews, and I can't wait until you can get out of that hostile environment. I've never worked at a place like that so I know there are plenty of better culture fits for you out there. Keep searching!

Don't deal with it. Many good points have been made here. But basically just tell your current employer on the exit interview (if they have one) that you have a new opportunity that you just can't ignore. Don't tell them anything in specific, it does you no good and honestly they don't deserve any more of your time.

As someone else mentioned too, the tech community while seemingly large is not, and it is not unlikely you will run into some of these people at another place. At the same time work to not hold a grudge, some people are more weak minded (and struggle with it internally) so they go along with the culture instead of standing up to what they don't believe. That isn't calling you weak, its calling those that participate, when they know better, weak. Yes it is a character flaw to some people, but I just don't believe in holding a grudge against these people.

In regards to a new employer, you never say anything derogatory about a prior employer or manager etc. Simply because they will have in their head if you are willing to do this to someone else you will do it to them if you are unhappy. So instead, play the game and just tell them that you are looking for new challenges. It is even better if you are going to Enterprise from Startup because you can say, well I wanted to gain experience in an Enterprise environment now or something along those lines. When you have a change in types of business it helps. Also if you change industry, say from B2B products to B2C products you can use that as your reason for changing. It is simple and easy and no one really questions it. Just be prepared for a follow on question about what intrigues you about the B2B or Consumer market etc.

Good luck and I hope you find an environment that appreciates you soon.

I am in a similar position: great growth, good position, decent pay; on the other side everyone around me is horrible at their job and it's a cult of personality around the CEO micromanaging everyone. I can't take it anymore, but I've only been here for 1.5 years, what do I tell the prospective companies?

I would tell them what you just told us. If you're afraid of what the hiring manager might think, then maybe the company you're interviewing at is just as bad. It is an applicant's market right now and if you are decent at what you do you can be a little choosey.

As long as you aren't going around, laying blame and spouting stories of dysfunction, you're just describing one of the most common reasons people leave companies. In my view, it's completely justified.

I'll add that I get to hire people, and what you've said here wouldn't scare me from hiring you.

Team events? Is that a thing. Even if I was an avid soccer player and drinker, I'd still find the whole concept pretty horrifying.

I guess I've (fortunately) just never worked at a company where you're expected to participate wholeheartedly in "team events" -- I honestly can't imagine what universe these people are living in where it's considered acceptable to judge people based on how willing they are to engage in the cool kids' favorite activities outside of work.

What is so shocking about having a drink with your co-workers after hours? Or playing a soccer game once in a while? Or having group dinner? Or attending a basketball game?

People who don't attend shouldn't be judged and discriminated against, but it's just human nature to develop a better relationship with the one who comes play soccer with you once in a while.

It didn't sound like occasionally going out for an impromptu drink with two or three coworkers, it sounded like organized "team events" involving activities (soccer, drinking) that many people aren't physically capable of engaging in or quite justifiably don't wish to engage in.

There are many things that are "just human nature" that should be discouraged in the workplace. Judging people who don't want to go drinking or play soccer with you is pretty high on the list, as is forming in-groups and out-groups at work based on who you hang out with when you're not at work.

If these are company sponsored events then yes it could be seen as a problem, especially if there is no diversity - going for a soccer game once it's perfectly fine, if the following event is a trivia night or attending stand up comedy or something like that.

If it's informal gatherings I don't see any problem, people are free to do what they want after work, including with people they work with if they share the same interests.

From the original post I understood the latter that's why I was surprised by your comment because such informal events are pretty common based on my experience.

100% agreed. It's bad enough dealing with cow orkers during the day, why would I want to be with them outside of work too? I have real friends for that.

I'm very sorry to hear this. I hope things work out for you.

My suggestion would be to just say that you went to the startup as it sounded interesting but with no real expectations. You tried it for a year but it wasn't really for you. If you can then say something about the new company that attracts you to it, implying a contrast, so much the better.

As others have said, the key thing is to be general and move onto something you want to talk about as soon as you can.

It's a "great" company but their "unique" culture isn't ideal for you. You want to get away from certain "dominant" personalities who exhibit "unacceptable" behaviour. You want to work in a more established company with a "well-developed corporate structure".

I wouldn't go with that. Unless you're interviewing at a company publicly known for putting a lot of effort into developing an inclusive and friendly culture it may come the wrong way.

They're gonna want more details about what you mean by "dominant" personalities, what kind of behavior were unacceptable, etc.

You are under no obligation at all to give them any reason whatsoever. Simply tell them your reasons are personal and leave it at that. Not all questions require an answer, some are simply asked to fill the void.

Why would you want to join a company that didn't appreciate this reason for leaving?

> being called gay at work in coded ways.

I don't know the details of your situation, but could you elaborate on this?

A lot of the time it will come out as just micro aggressions. Some of the more explicit ones I can think of off the top of my head are:

After they found out I was vegetarian "Oh of course you are"

Woman in the office said she has never seen me on Tinder, coworker replys "Its cause he's on Grindr"

I can think of a few others but I don't want to post anything thats too identifiable.

Stop being gay?

Tried it

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