Yesterday I had a conversation with a job seeker who was very worried about his former boss.
For the past few years, Jim (not his real name) had worked as a programmer in a small, tight-knit part of the IT industry. After the economic crisis hit and clients started tightening budgets, Jim’s company reacted in cutting salaries by over 25%. Living in one of the more expensive cities of America, Jim’s new salary wasn’t enough for him to pay his bills so he decided to resign and look for another job. Logical enough, but there was a problem.
Jim’s ex-boss is well-known and very popular in their part of the IT community yet his employees know a different side of him, cutthroat and vindictive. The company thought they had cultivated a family-like atmosphere and when Jim announced his resignation, the ex-boss “wasn’t very happy” to say the least, even after Jim explained that his reasons were purely economic. He would have stayed on otherwise.
Knowing his ex-boss, Jim wasn’t counting on using him as a reference in any future job search. However, the even stronger-than-expected reaction has made Jim believe that his ex-boss might actually defame him in trying to sabotage Jim’s efforts to find another job in their small business community.
3 mistakes that lead to this tough situation
Before I get to the advice that I gave Jim, it’s important to point out three mistakes that Jim has already made in getting into this tough spot.
1) Working for a bad boss
This could have been avoided with some research and by asking the right interview questions, but the important thing is not to make the same mistake again as Jim’s job search gets under way.
2) Over-reacting?
Taking the pay cut would have meant not having enough income to pay all his bills, but by resigning, Jim now has no income at all to pay his bills, which is much worse. Although not easy, it would have been more prudent to start his new job search quietly in parallel while still staying on the lower-paying job.
3) Not having invested in his own personal brand
As I said in Could You Recover From These Personal Branding Nightmares?:
“the impact of the defamation also depends a lot on the personal brand of the defamer – how well that person knows you, but more importantly, how well your admirers believe that person knows you.”
Had Jim been investing in himself and actively building his personal brand the past few years, he would have less to worry about and more admirers who could back him in case of defamation.
How can Jim reduce the risk of his ex-boss blocking his job search?
Ultimately, this problem comes down to one person having a much stronger personal brand than the other, and the potential willingness to abuse that stronger personal brand. Given the imbalance, the last thing Jim should do would be to “fight fire with fire” by defaming his ex-boss, either in advance or in retaliation.
- Unless it’s actually part of your job, bad-mouthing people never impresses anyone on the job search.
One option is to avoid the problem as much as possible with a change of industry or of location, if the ex-boss’s personal brand doesn’t reach beyond the local business community. Sometimes the best fight is the one you don’t have.
The best option by far is for Jim to start growing his personal brand immediately, building relationships with people he already knows in the community he shares with his ex-boss and with people he can help and get help from on the road to a better job.
Author:
Jacob Share, a job search expert, is the creator of JobMob, one of the biggest blogs in the world about finding jobs. Follow him on Twitter for job search tips and humor.
