A friend who is getting started in their tech career asked an important question about navigating interviews. I ended up giving them some extended advice that I wanted to share here.
Question: What’s y’all’s advice for speaking positively in an interview about a job you feel negatively about? In general, how do you balance being honest with not coming off as a negative person in interviews?
My Answers:
Here's my advice as a hiring manager. YMMV.
Unless they explicitly ask about the negative stuff, don't volunteer it. It's perfectly fine to not bash previous employers.
Talk about what you learned. Either technical or otherwise. You can talk about difficult projects and why they were difficult. If it's because some people on the project were causing problems, either talk about how you tried to help, or just don't mention that part.
Talk about the product or service. Talk about why it's useful to customers/clients. Talk about how something you worked on improved the business in some way. Revenue, customer value, reduced costs, etc.
Some places ask you explicitly why you left a previous job. Don't answer that. Just say they couldn't offer you the kind of growth you were looking for. (Be able to describe the kind of growth you're looking for).
Bonus: A peek into what the questions might actually sound like
I have a go-to question that I ask. I ask people to tell me what kind of environment they have thrived in and one where they have not been able to do their best work. It's a tough question because it seems to point at the negative things. But you can answer that question by talking about yourself and what you need to thrive. It still doesn't require bashing the company or other people.
Interviews are always challenging. Knowing what to say and what not to say only comes with lots of practice. As a final thought for people trying to get hired, I highly recommend that you seek out opportunities to practice interviewing in a low stakes environment. Get used to putting together the words that give interviewers the info they need without inadvertently saying something that paints you in a bad light. I hope this post gives you some helpful guidance to get started. Good luck out there.