Everything You Wanted to Know About Being Fired (But Were Afraid to Ask)

Everything You Wanted to Know About Being Fired (But Were Afraid to Ask)Everything You Wanted to Know About Being Fired (But Were Afraid to Ask)Getting fired is scary and stressful. Not only has your source of income just been yanked away from you, but you might be left with questions about what to do next, how to talk about it in future job bewerbungsgesprchs and even whether what your employer did was legal. Heres a quick primer on what you need to know about getting fired. I was fired without any warning. Is that legal? Generally, yes. No law in the U.S. says that employees must receive a warning before being fired. Good employers will typically warn employees before firing them, in reservierung to make sure that they have a chance to improve, and because they dont want other employees worrying that they could be fired out of the blue. But thats up to the employers own policy and isnt governed by law. Read How to Assert Your Legal Rights at Work. Does my employer have to have a good reason for firing me? Your employer can fire you for any reason at all, or for no reason, as long as its not because of your race, religion, nationality, sex, marital status, disability or other protected characteristic. You can be fired because your boss just doesnt like you or because the CEO wants to bring in her cousins neighbor to take your place. There are two exceptions First, if you have a contract, which most workers in the U.S. dont, your company is bound to the terms it lays out, including around separation. Second, if you work in Montana, youre in the one state in the country that requires firings to be for good cause. Will I be eligible to collect unemployment benefits? It depends. State laws vary, but most states allow fired employees to collect unemployment benefits as long as they werent fired for intentional misconduct or for violating clearly stated workplace rules. For example, being fired for poor performance wont generally make you ineligible to collect b enefits, but excessive absenteeism often will disqualify you. Read 8 Signs That Youre a harte nuss Employee. Does my employer have to pay me severance? No law in the U.S. requires severance payments, so its up to individual employers. However, you can certainly try to negotiate a severance package. Youll generally have more bargaining power for severance if your employer is concerned that you might sue for something (for example, if you had cause to think you had been discriminated against on the basis of race, sex or another protected characteristic) because severance is typically accompanied by general release of future claims against the employer. Your chances of severance can also go up if the employer thinks they have done you wrong in some other way, such as moved you into a position that you didnt have the skills for or fired you soon after you moved from out-of-state for the job. In that case, reasonable employers are likely to want to provide severance to cushion the blow. Read 5 Workplace Laws Your Employer Might Be Violating. Should I list the job on my resume in the future? It depends. If you were only at the job for a short period of time (say, less than six months), listing it will probably do more harm than good. A few months at a job wont be useful in showing any real accomplishments or advancement, and including it will likely raise questions about why you left so soon. On the other hand, if you were at the job for longer, you may prefer to list it, so that you dont have to answer questions about what you were doing during that time period. How should I talk about the firing if it comes up in an interview? Be prepared with a few sentences that explain what happened. Most interviewers will only need a brief explanation and wont expect you to present a detailed account of what happened. For example, you might simply say, Actually, I was let go. The workload was very high, and I didnt speak up about that soon enough. I ended up making some mista kes because of the volume. It taught me a lesson about the need to communicate better when the workload is high and to get on the same page as my manager about priorities if were in a triage mode. Or in another type of situation, you might say, It turned out to be the wrong fit. The job required expertise in web design, which is not my strength, and ultimately we agreed that they need someone with that background in the role. Whats really crucial here is being able to talk about the situation calmly and non-defensively. If you seem bitter and angry, thats going to be a red flag. On the other hand, if you seem to have learned from the experience and understand what went wrong, that can assuage any concerns from the interviewer.