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THE QUESTION
A reader writes: I was dismissed from a job I had for six years; I signed a non-disclosure form. To make a long story short, we settled out of court and now I'm looking for work. Most of the potential employers I've been in touch with request a reference from a past supervisor, and although I had bosses at my last job who would provide me with one, they are bound by this non-disclosure agreement and just can't do it. Needless to say, I am out of luck. How does one recover from being fired from a job and what do I tell my future employers without making them suspicious?
THE ANSWER
This is an excellent question, perfect Damage Control material, but a little outside the comfort zone of my skill set. So I've taken the liberty, for this column, of enlisting the assistance of a certain Ralph Shedletsky, the Enrico Caruso of getting canned, the Liberace of being let go - or, if you prefer it in more precise and prosaic terms, the chief operating officer of Knightsbridge Human Capital Solutions.
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We agreed you left out a few crucial details from your question, e.g. why you were fired in the first place, why you had to sign this mysterious "non-disclosure" agreement, and how long you've been out of work. But working with what you've given us, he came up with some very helpful and, I thought, quite encouraging observations and suggestions.
He said, first of all, the world has changed and being terminated no longer carries the stigma it used to, so "stop acting like it does." (The one time in our discussion he sounded quite stern.) People are fired all the time for all kinds of reasons these days, mostly having nothing to do with performance. The shame we feel upon being fired is purely vestigial, a holdover from a former era when it was a lot harder to lose your job.
That's deeply true, I thought. I told him about my last job, working on a TV show that wound up being cancelled. One day all 35 of us were called into "the big meeting room" by an exec we saw around the halls but didn't have much day-to-day interaction with, and she canned us en masse. Thanks for all your hard work, she said, basically, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.
I didn't take it personally. I knew they liked both me and my work. But still, I found myself squirming as I broke the news to my father and then my father-in-law. My father, a former tenured professor, would have had to commit an act of "moral turpitude" to lose his job. My father-in-law entered the banking profession at age 22 or thereabouts and stayed in the same company, moving steadily upward, until he retired at age 55.
How could a man of his generation be expected to assimilate the two seemingly contradictory concepts that the dude married to his daughter was: a) supposedly well-liked, hard-working and talented; b) out on his keister?
Mr. Shedletsky, an old pro at hearing tales of woe, listened to my soliloquy, then said simply and soothingly: "If he were to enter the profession of banking today, it would be a world he would simply not recognize." Bankers are fired in droves now, Mr. Shedletsky said. Like all professions, theirs has become much more unstable.
No offence to bankers, but I found this to be quite reassuring, if not downright uplifting, information. If even bankers are sweating in their pinstripe suits and shaking in their Gucci loafers about losing their jobs, then truly all humanity is on its way to becoming one.
Anyway, the point is this: Don't be afraid to admit in interviews that you were let go. Even if you were let go for performance-based reasons, Mr. Shedletsky says, your non-disclosure agreement could work in your favour: They can't deny you weren't fired for performance reasons.
(He said he was puzzled by your non-disclosure agreement, that it's unusual for a company to want to block someone's future employment prospects, and said this is why everyone needs to hire a good lawyer to negotiate these things - but, anyway: onward.)
If your old boss won't give you a recommendation, ask a co-worker. Usually, Mr. Shedletsky says, by the time they're asking for a recommendation the job is yours to lose - or, at least, they're "very interested." Often anyone familiar with your work will suffice.
Which is why you have to rock the interview in the first place. Or, as my wife puts it, "be good in the room." Be confident. Believe. That counts for a lot.
Above all, don't get discouraged. Mr. Shedletsky draws the analogy of personal relationships, of hunting for a girlfriend.
"If you were to pick out 10 women at a bar randomly and told them you've decided they were the one for you, you wouldn't have much luck, would you?" (I thought, but didn't say, 'You just pretty much described my 20s, and it worked for me once in a while.' I let him continue.) "It's the same with looking for work. The equation has to work on both sides."
Good point, but if I, the layman, may offer one slightly dissenting thought here: In this analogy you are the drunken bachelor and the company you hope to work for is the bombshellicious babe. Which, for most of us, for most of our lives, is probably an apt analogy for how it goes.
But I think it's important, too, as time goes on, to build your personal "brand." A lot of us lose ourselves in the protective shell, or maybe I should say the rut, of a job, and forget we were hired for a reason, as a commodity, and we need always to remind ourselves to continually hone our "transferable skills" and keep them sharp.
Then one day, or at least this is the golden ideal, your work will speak for itself and you will no longer be beholden to any former boss for a recommendation. And then maybe the hot chick of corporate interest will hit on you.
David Eddie is a screenwriter and the author of Chump Change and Housebroken: Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Dad.
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