I know it is hard to believe, but some of us good natured and hard-working financial folks actually leave companies under conditions that leave us with the possibility of less than glowing references. Perhaps we were misunderstood, or in some cases, we just got a new boss. It is also possible we actually failed for some reason.

In any case, here we are in the enviable position of being offered another job. What are we to do if they want to contact our former employer? To hope and pray that they won’t ask is to be more than a little naive. It is a perfectly logical question on the part of a potential employer and one you must be prepared to deal with effectively.

The first thing you need to do is “get over it.” If you are still uncomfortable with why you were “booted out” of your last job, you are going to have to come to terms with it. The sad fact is that most financial folks just aren’t good at lying. If you don’t believe the story you are telling, no one else will. Unless you were caught with your hand in the till or some other misdeed with the potential of prison time, you honestly have nothing to lose and everything to gain by telling the true story. At the senior level, most situations I hear about boil down to personality, and you can’t get along with everyone.

Understand that most stories have been heard before. You honestly won’t be telling anyone something new when you say you got a new boss and he wanted his own person. The fact that someone new coming in doesn’t take an instant shine to someone who has been there a while is a very old story. Work isn’t personal, it’s only about business. No matter how effective you might have been in that old job, a new broom sweeps clean, or so the world believes.

If it was a personality conflict with a boss of long standing, it is important for you to understand that personalities and relationships can change over time. The individual who thought you walked on water may become angry or disappointed that you couldn’t fix some mess he got himself or the company into. It happens. As the sign in my wife’s beauty shop says: “I’m a beautician, not a magician.” You may only be able to part the Red Sea once. The fact that you couldn’t do it a second time might be viewed as a failure.

There is also the possibility that you actually screwed up. Situations can arise that may actually have been your fault in some sense. Hey, no one’s perfect.

The only important issue is that you come to terms with what happened and put the best possible face on it that still reflects the truth. Most likely you will be asked why you left. Or, they just might contact someone they know at your former firm. If your story and the one they come to find out don’t match, you are in big trouble.

Since you are the one who goes first, you have a golden opportunity to get your version of the facts out there as the benchmark story. If you are honest with yourself and honest with your potential employer, you will rarely lose.

Regards, Matt