Getting a job after business fails

Irish_euro

I have found that since my business failed when i do interviews and am asked to explain that part of my c.v. where i tell the interviewer it was my own company things get to get a bit cold and i never seem to get a call back.

I have been working in a job for about two years since my company failed and am looking to move at the moment but when i do interviews the business i used to own always raises an eyebrow. I can never quite figure out if its because they think i am too able to do the job they want me to and as a result i dont get the job or its because most companies are really looking for a slave and dont want to employee someone who is capable of incorporating and running his own business. Has any body got any thoughs or similar experiences ?

nahdoic

When they ask about your previous employment - how do you answer them?

Irish_euro

I have the name of the company on my c.v. and have the title as sales manager. i mention then that it was my own company and i was the sole sales person along with two others in the company.

nahdoic

and the obvious question they are going to ask - would be why did you decide to fold the company?

sixtysix

why mentiom being self employed at all? they most likely think that you will find it difficult to take direction having previously being in the driving seat of your own business. i had a friend who was finding it difficult to get a job so he concocted an entire cv and is still working years later for the company that hired him on the basis of that cv.

lomb

sixtysix wrote:

why mentiom being self employed at all? they most likely think that you will find it difficult to take direction having previously being in the driving seat of your own business. i had a friend who was finding it difficult to get a job so he concocted an entire cv and is still working years later for the company that hired him on the basis of that cv.

i would agree with the above advice, tell them u were a sales manager but the company went under and the owner pulled the funding-no lie there.
once u get a job u will get back on your feet again.

RicardoSmith

I'd say the problem is that they think you'll eventually move on to something better, or leave to set up again. Some places are stupid about that kinda thing. I had a similar problem moving from being a contractor to taking a full time job. Lots of people wondered why I wanted to leave contracting.

Irish_euro

thanks, guys that's most likely the best way to go just tell them I was the sales manager and company has gone under. thanks for the advice!..

MG

BTW they might look for a reference from someone associated with the company i.e. you which might be awkward so cover off this possibility too.

lomb

MG wrote:

BTW they might look for a reference from someone associated with the company i.e. you which might be awkward so cover off this possibility too.

get your wife or mate to give u one they never check these anyway other than ringing them up briefly.

growler

I also started a company some years back which subsequently went under due to some bad management and dishonesty by one of my fellow co-founders , but I've never had this work against me in an interview, i guess it depends on the way you present it. Rather than focus on the failure aspect I stress the knowledge I gained from setting up and running the business, pointing out that we really weren't sufficiently professional in our management of the business and how I learned a lot about the key metrics etc etc needed to ensure sucess and so on and that the experience drove me to further educate myself to ensure such a thing would not happen a second time.
Focus on the positive side of the experience and blame the failure on reasons that most will be able to relate to, financing, new competitors etc.

RicardoSmith

lomb wrote:

get your wife or mate to give u one they never check these anyway other than ringing them up briefly.

Some do and some don't. Current job asked for 4 references and checked each one. Many others never did though.

RainyDay

sixtysix wrote:

why mentiom being self employed at all? they most likely think that you will find it difficult to take direction having previously being in the driving seat of your own business. i had a friend who was finding it difficult to get a job so he concocted an entire cv and is still working years later for the company that hired him on the basis of that cv.

I would advise strongly against lying on your CV. Ireland is a very small world, and there is a pretty good chance that you will be caught out. When you lie, you need to be very, very careful to avoid getting caught out on the detail. You need to remember exactly what lies you have told to whom & when. I don't know if I'd really want to work in a company that would recruit me on the basis of a fictional CV. If they fell for my story, they probably fell for a pile of other stories too, so I'd most likely find myself surrounded by chancers & wasters.

I did interview a guy recently for a technical role who told me how his own business had collapsed. It certainly didn't deter me from taking him on for that short-term contract.

Irish_euro

Thanks for that. Do recruitment agencies share information with each other and is there a way that companies can verify c.v.'s like a bank is able to check your credit score i.e. when you send your c.v. into one recruitment agency or company is there any way another recruitment agency or company could verify your c.v. when you send it into them.

shoegirl

RainyDay wrote:

I would advise strongly against lying on your CV. Ireland is a very small world, and there is a pretty good chance that you will be caught out. When you lie, you need to be very, very careful to avoid getting caught out on the detail. You need to remember exactly what lies you have told to whom & when. I don't know if I'd really want to work in a company that would recruit me on the basis of a fictional CV. If they fell for my story, they probably fell for a pile of other stories too, so I'd most likely find myself surrounded by chancers & wasters.QUOTE]

Fair point!
I worked for quite some time in an enivronment where almost all the more senior staff had got the job through lying on their cvs. Several of them eventually took a redundancy package last year, and almost half of them are still on the dole 6 months later.

The moral of the story is that lying on your cv works only in certain circumstances.

I would sympathise with the original poster though, Irish employers are notoriously small-minded and prejudiced about anybody who has come from any kind of "different" working background. A lot of people find themselves fighting an uphill battle whilst changing careers. Perhaps if you changed the way you present your business failure towards a learning opportunity you might have more success. Still sympathise though, its very difficult to fight the uphill battle against ignorance and prejudice.

The Corinthian

Have you considered that you are, since returning to the job market, going for jobs that you’re now overqualified for?

You ran or were involved in running your own firm. Regardless of whether you had employees or not this means that your day to day job involved a lot of commercial and managerial activity in addition to what your job title officially entailed. As such if you go for a normal sales position, it will raise eyebrows, as it’ll be seen as simply looking for something to pay the bills until you find something better or start up another venture.

Even if you are applying for a position that would be comparable to your experience, many employers can shy away from taking on entrepreneurial types; some small firms are suspicious of taking someone on who could walk away with half their clients in two years and the HR departments of larger firms find it difficult to quantify the value of such individuals (and when faced with such difficulty, will err on the side of caution).

Finally, it is important that you can justify your time as an entrepreneur and why you’re not now. If your business failed have a reasonable reason for it failing and why you’re not going back down the self-employed route again. Show them some of the deals you landed, projects you delivered and above all get references from your former clients. Otherwise any bum can go out and call himself a businessman even if they can’t actually make a decent living from it - look at the Webmaster / Flash board; it’s full of those losers.

RicardoSmith

Irish_euro wrote:

Thanks for that. Do recruitment agencies share information with each other and is there a way that companies can verify c.v.'s like a bank is able to check your credit score i.e. when you send your c.v. into one recruitment agency or company is there any way another recruitment agency or company could verify your c.v. when you send it into them.

You got to be kidding. They don't seem to share info with the person sitting at the next desk.

The Corinthian

Irish_euro wrote:

Thanks for that. Do recruitment agencies share information with each other and is there a way that companies can verify c.v.'s like a bank is able to check your credit score i.e. when you send your c.v. into one recruitment agency or company is there any way another recruitment agency or company could verify your c.v. when you send it into them.

Most recruitment companies are not worth bothering about. Their basic business model is convincing (potential) clients to hire employees through them and so they will always attempt to get the best candidate at the lowest price for the client in question. Of course the problem arises also that most recruitment agencies don’t actually know anything about the area they are hiring in (hence adverts for developers who have three years experience in a technology which is six months old), so they will tend to fling as many candidates that look good enough at a position and hope one will stick.

As RicardoSmith pointed out, they won’t share candidate information with other agencies (in fact they’re restricted in doing so under the Data Protection Act), for this reason although you will still find that your CV will migrate to other agencies in time, as the recruitment agents themselves move jobs, typically acquiring candidate files from their old job just before they hand in their notice...

RainyDay

Irish_euro wrote:

Thanks for that. Do recruitment agencies share information with each other and is there a way that companies can verify c.v.'s like a bank is able to check your credit score i.e. when you send your c.v. into one recruitment agency or company is there any way another recruitment agency or company could verify your c.v. when you send it into them.

They can verify your CV all right. Not by sharing with other agencies, but simply because Ireland is such as small business world, if you list 5 companies on your CV, they will almost certainly know someone else who is or has been working there - and a quick call along the lines of 'Did you ever hear of a guy called Joe Bloggs?' would expose a tissue of lies swiftly.

CV Specialist

It seems that the process of Irish CV verification is alive and well, thriving in the form of cutting-edge technology such as that described in the following article:

http://www.electricnews.net//news.html?code=8579282

Honesty is definitely the best policy when it comes to your curriculum vitae. Having said that, some judicious spin - concentrating on the positive aspects of otherwise-negative experiences - can work wonders for your marketability.

RainyDay

CV Specialist wrote:

Thérèse Boshell, Senior Staff Writer
CV Ireland - Your Passport to Career Success

Hi Thérèse

It's great to have someone from CV Ireland posting on the board. Perhaps you can help me with an enquiry?

Where did you get the list of email addresses used to distribute the first edition of your newsletter in July? As described here, I received this newsletter to my work email address (which I would be very protective of), and my enquiries to your office as to your source for this information were ignored.