How to answer “Have you ever been terminated?”

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I'm filling out a job application that asks the question "Have you ever been terminated or asked to resign from a position in the past?"

I did get fired from a job back in 1998. It was my first high-profile tech job after I graduated high school, and I was still very much a smug kid with a crappy work ethic. I antagonized my boss whom I despised, and I naively believed that finding work was pitifully easy since this was the height of the dot-com bubble at the time.

I won't even try to spin this as "not my fault" because it totally was. I'm perfectly comfortable owning up to the mistakes I made because that was over 20 years ago and I was a literal teenager at the time. I've done a lot of growing up since then and I'm a different person now.

On the one hand, I want to be honest and forthright on a job application. On the other hand, HR departments often use this question to immediately reject potential applicants without consideration of the reasons.

I've had a long and successful career since then and I don't feel that being fired an entire lifetime ago is relevant to the position I'm applying for now. I'd be fine with engaging the discussion in an interview if asked, but there is no room in a 400 character text box for that kind of nuance. The job I got fired from isn't on my resume because it was so long ago, and the company doesn't even exist anymore.

I'm looking for work because I've recently been laid off from a job I've had for 10 years due to an acquisition and workforce reduction. It was made clear to me by my former boss and my termination paperwork that the layoff is in no way related to performance or disciplinary reasons. In fact, my most recent performance review was positively stellar. But a layoff is already a small hill I have to climb and I don't want to further taint an application to a potential employer with something that shouldn't even matter anymore.

Is there an acceptable expiration date on such questions? Will I be branded a liar if I answer no?

If I answer yes, how could I explain it succinctly, and do HR departments typically consider those explanations when screening applicants?

manpreet 2 years ago

It would be understandable to say no, because there's probably no way anyone would be able to find out or verify you were fired over 20 years ago from a non-existent company.

The problem with saying "no" is that it is not the truth. And not telling the truth seems to bother you, which is not an uncommon response.

This is a personal ethical choice to be sure, but you'll also have to carry around the worry, irrational or not, that someone someday will find out.

If this was a question about work history, I would definitely omit that job since it was so long ago, but that's not what the question is asking.

There's no way to say for sure what any particular company's policy is with a question like that. In my experience companies usually take context into consideration. The fact that they provide 400 words for this (as opposed to a simple checkbox) does seem to indicate they are doing so. The company would likely not go through the trouble of handling an application if they blindly rejected anyone who had been terminated.

I would say yes, and also briefly explain that it was 20 years ago, and served as a wake-up call and important learning lesson. You can turn this into a positive.

A company who would reject you based on that answer (or outsource that rejection power to an automated process) is probably not one you'd want to work for.