Addressing Gaps & Terminations in the Job Interview

Hello. Welcome. We are live. I am Madeline Mann. Go ahead and say hi. Say where you're joining us from. Today we are talking about how to address gaps and terminations in the job interview. It is really common, especially these days, to not have a steady stream of oh, I've been working every single moment since I graduated college or since I started working. And so, and a lot of us also have a gap right now, right? Maybe we were laid off, maybe we were terminated, maybe we took some time off to do something in our lives that is not necessarily tied to corporate work. Whatever it is, we then think, "Okay, how do I get back in the game? How do I explain this in a way that wouldn't make them hesitant about hiring me?" So, go ahead and also let me know in the chat if you have any gaps. What is that gap? That your answer could be something like, "Oh, you know, I've I I left my job 12 months ago or, you know, I've been out of work, you know, since January or, um you know, I was I've been a stay-at-home parent." Whatever that is or my gap was several years ago. Um I have a I have a 6-year gap that happened 10 years ago. Whatever it is, right? Let me know, um as well as we're going to talk about terminations. Terminations are a little bit of a tricky thing to talk about uh when you're in the job search process, the hiring process. I want you to know where I come from when it comes to terminations. So, as a human resources leader, I myself has conducted a lot of terminations simply because that is the nature of the role. I am the one who has to, you know, make sure that everything for the termination goes correctly to plan. Not necessarily I'm choosing who's terminated, but I'm helping to make sure that the termination um is done correctly. And so, I have seen so many people get terminated, and I will tell you one thing is that just because someone is terminated does not mean that they are a bad employee, or that they are not going to succeed significantly. There are a lot of times it's the wrong person in the wrong role. I talk about it how it's a flower planted in the wrong garden. If a flower is not growing in the garden, do you yell at the flower and say, "This is a terrible flower?" Or do you replant it somewhere with a little bit more light? Maybe you give it a bit more water, and in that new garden it flourishes. So, I also personally have been terminated before. I have been fired, and I then my next job I landed, I was a objectively a top performer. I got one of the six top performance awards in that company within the first year of being there. And so, I do know personally what it feels like to feel horrible about being terminated, and then rise above it, because it really is a tough thing to go through. So, I want to see who is in the chat. Um okay, cool. So, we have lots of folks here. I see Phil. Um I see Randy's here. Cool. Uh we have someone here from Memphis. That's great. Um Strat was on a gap now, laid off in September. Okay. I'm so sorry to hear that. I have also been laid off before, so I know that that feeling. Um You've says, "I left my job last November." Um "Hi from Chicago." says John. Um Wendy got laid off since April of 2025, and has been unable to get contract role. Okay. Um and uh Phil Phil Jr. says, "Yes, company sold, and I want to take care of my dad with cancer." Yes. Exactly. There's a lot of personal reasons that we take a gap Um and and that's a really common one. Okay, so thank you so much for sharing. Um and I want you to know oh and then I'm seeing this really nice comment from Strat saying, "Thank you Madeline, you've been a big help through this process." That is so great to hear. That's why I'm here. So we're going to talk through this this topic today and if you've been to these live sessions before, I'm here most Tuesdays. Um and what we're going to do is we're going to talk through some of these this topic as well as I am very active in looking at your questions and answering them in real time. That's the really special part about these lives is that you can come and we can talk about what is on your mind. Now, if you really like these live sessions and you want to see me go deep, um I'm actually putting together five live sessions next week. I know, it is absolutely nuts. Um so I'll go ahead and put it in the chat. Hopefully it pops up for you, but at uh www.selfmadeway.com um /masterclass, I am doing you can you can register for my five-day masterclass. It's happening all of next week, every day at 3:00 p.m. Pacific, 6:00 p.m. Eastern. I'm going live and this is new content I've never released. I created these five classes based on the really deep understanding both from the company side, me helping companies to hire during this time, plus the side of working really closely with uh with job seekers and the five days are actually tuned to the five biggest challenges that high-income earners are experiencing in this job search. So if you're going for those high-income roles, because those roles are the hardest to get because they are so competitive. There's not that many. You know, if you're going for a VP level role, you don't a company doesn't have as many uh you know, as many VPs as they do associates or or managers, right? It It gets more narrow as you go up. And so, I'm really talking to the most difficult roles to get, especially also a lot of them are not getting posted online. So, how do you find them? How do you then ace the interview? So, this is a more advanced 5-day seminar and really speaking to the job searches that are especially challenging to make sure that you get what you need over those 5 days. And as a part of this celebration of me doing this, um and when I announced this that I was doing this masterclass just a couple days ago, I ended up opening up my coaching program. So, now through May 25th, I've opened up my coaching program and I'm doing it for uh $1,500 off, okay? So, if you ever wanted to join, get a discount, $1,500 off of my coaching program, do it now. It ends by the end of like this whole masterclass cycle, so that's May 25th. So, go ahead and get in. I'll also put that link in the chat um in case you want to sign up today um and get in. And you know, we have the coaching side. We have three levels. It's It's purely if you want all of the advanced tools. So, I have a very specific bespoke just like proprietary AI platform that has all of my tools and helps you to build out your entire job search in an in an extremely elevated way. Um and it has like an AI coaching there and all that kind of stuff. If you If you want that where it's it's self-led and all that, you could do that. If you want the mid-stage level where you're getting feedback from me and other coaches um asynchronously and also on group coaching calls and getting a lot of that really in-depth help. Um you hear me talk about I talk I like review a lot of coaching calls uh Oh, no, not coaching calls, interviews of my clients and I give them feedback. A lot of that feedback is for these clients at this level, so that's the mid level. And then the senior level is like done with you, done for you coaching, right? So that one-on-one, you get a handful of sessions, you get, you know, and it's on your resume, like all this kind of stuff, like very hands-on. Um and that's more of a the executive level. So if you really want things kind of like hand done for you, that would be that one. Okay, so anyways, all of that, definitely check that out. Um uh make sure you take advantage of that if now is the right time for you. Okay, so let's get into it. Um so I want you to know, when it comes to gaps, gaps are normal. Okay? I have talked to so many different hiring managers, and they're usually not thrown off by the fact that you have a gap on your resume. That doesn't concern them too much. I would say what does concern them more is short stints. Okay? Write that down. That is the part that they're worried about. Now, unfortunately, gaps and short stints sometimes coincide, right? So maybe you got laid off after 9 months of working somewhere. Okay, now that appears like a short stint and it has now created a gap. So what can you do in that case? Well, I would say, and I think I saw someone earlier um in these messages, I think they said that can you just write on your resume? Let me see if I can find where the message was. Um where can you just write on your resume uh that I was I was laid off. Um and that's perfectly fine. So what you typically want to do to eliminate the idea of oh, this person is just a job hopper. They just leave a role as soon as it gets hard or they just get fired or whatnot. No, if you were laid off after 9 months, you can just say laid off you know, just like laid off due to company like you know, left due to company wide layoffs or whatever it is, right? Just a very short, I usually put it in like little small font italicized. And it's not like this big thing, it's not this big explanation or laid off along with 30% of the workforce or whatever it is, right? Like if if it is a big chunk like that, you can say that. Um if it was a really large company, maybe a small percent but a but but a numbers-wise a large number of employees like laid off with 1,200 other employees, right? So you can say things like that if you can quantify it in a way that's like wow, this was not performance-based, this was truly I just got caught up in a bad situation and and that is really normal. So I think putting that can help because we don't want to spend interview time explaining why did you leave your jobs even though they will ask because it's not going to be what gets you the job. It's not going to be what impresses them. So we want to spend the least amount of time talking about things that can only hurt you versus propel you forward. Um so So um Michael says what if we have gotten laid off four out of the last six jobs? Um so I would say, you know, continue to put those layoffs on there. Um and and like yeah, say that they're laid off. I mean this is I have a client and I his his testimonials up on the YouTube. He's his name is John and I think he was he was laid off four four to five times in a row. And it really made him look like a job hopper. It was really serious. And then in this job market, he ended up applying all of these job shopping strategies and he ended up getting at least seven job offers. Maybe it was nine. I can't remember exactly number, but I think he got at least seven job offers. So I just want you to know it's all about positioning, right? That this is not a a death sentence for you at all. Oh, I'm so glad you asked this question, John. John says, "What's a short stint?" It means essentially short stint means you have been at a company for a short amount of time. What is a short amount of time? Generally under two years. Of course, in different industries, that is still too short. Two years is too short. So in some other industries, that's quite long. So it depends on your industry, but if I was to give you a quick and dirty example or or kind of metric to go by, it would be two years. Now, let's say you did contract roles. You say, "Well, the contract was only six for six months." Is that a short stint? No, it's not because that's a contract role and you would write on your resume contract, right? Six-month contract. You just make that clear, right? So that it's not it's pertaining to full-time roles, not to contract roles. So um great. Um So Phil is asking some more detailed questions here. Do you put laid off to the right of the working dates or at the bottom of the description? So neither. Uh so where I would put it is I would put it probably like right next to the company title. So like let's say you say like director of operations, then over all the way to the right it says the dates and then under the director of operations, it says, you know, company name and then I would say right next to that in a font that's slightly smaller than the company name and probably like not bolded and and a bit italicized, I would say um you know, laid off with 30% of workforce. Okay, right there. Uh good question. So, um So, and and yes. So, um Sammy is asking, you know, would you be able to look at my resume give feedback? Yes. So, I put here I go I went ahead and put that in the chat. Let me repost the Uh let's see. Hopefully depending on what platform you're on, I will repost it. Um you can sign up for my coaching program where I do um at any level where it has coaching, which is like the middle and the top levels. Uh yes, I am I'm actively I'm active person who is reviewing resumes and giving feedback. So, yes, I'm not someone who's like sitting above everyone being like, "All right, I'm just going to have other coaches do all the coaching for me." I mean, I do have other coaches too because that makes it so that you can get dynamic feedback from different perspectives. But yes, I will I can be the one who's actually giving you feedback on your resume. So, I'm happy to do that. Um so, um Okay, so this is interesting question. So, Wendy asked, "If you have been in contract roles for 6 years, do you group them or list them separately?" Um I would say it depends so it depends on you. So, typically the way I would do with with clients is I would look at what is the role they're going for next. And then I would look at their contract roles in the past and I would say, "Okay, which of these are the most relevant to what you're going for next?" And if there's certain ones who have like big names that we should highlight more or there's certain ones that are like really important that are much more relevant to what you're going for next, we might kind of break that one out and make it its own thing. Now, if they're kind of all similar and, you know, we want to also Or there's also like a a a career move you made right before this that is actually super relevant to what you're going for next. I wouldn't want to break them out individually cuz then we'd be pushing down that experience below that too much. So yes, I would put it all together. So Wendy, that's kind of a long roundabout way of saying it really depends on your personal situation, but both can work and it really depends on your targeting and that's why like I talk about my job shopping methods so much in my coaching in that it's always built from the employer perspective backwards. I'm never just like, here is the best way to write a resume because that's what I prefer. That's usually how a lot of my clients have come to me and they've gotten resume writers and they're like, oh that's how they wrote it for me is they asked me about all my best accomplishments and then put it on there. I don't do that. I say, okay, let's focus on what's the end goal and we're going to position everything towards that and that might mean throwing out some of your best accomplishments. That might mean doing something a little different on your resume that feels like, why are why are all my contracting roles here but then one of them is broken out? Doesn't that seem a little bit funky? It's like, well, if we're being helpful to the person reading your resume, that's actually super helpful to them like, okay, this is what I need to pay attention to the most. They're going to say, thank you. Um okay, so good stuff. Uh Okay, okay, sorry. Okay, Sameer, I I called you Sam. Um it's just because all these screen names of these user names kind of like all run together so I just saw the the first name uh at like the first three letters, but Sameer, thank you for helping me uh make sure I get that right. So, um Um okay, so what if your person if I took personal leave that unfortunately led me to leave the company and now it's been a year out of work, but what I addressed took me three to four months before I reentered the job market. Okay, so you took personal leave. Okay. Y'all, I want you to lock in at this very moment, okay? If you are multitasking, this is like the golden nugget for anyone who's having gaps and I'm going to deliver it right here for Megan's question. Now, when you were trying to think cuz I know each of you has a very unique situation, like Megan's situation is very unique, but here is a piece of advice that can work for all of you and you can adapt it to your own situation. When you have a gap, you need to frame it as you being fortunate. Write that down, underline it three times. How could Megan having taken personal leave, that was probably something that was, you know, possibly tough for her or, you know, painful or whatever it is. I don't know what it was. How'd that mean that she's fortunate? Well, she's fortunate because you she can frame it as, you know, you know, I had to take leave and I'm I was at a really fortunate time in my career, both my career and financially, that I was able to step away and focus on my family in that time or focus on whatever, right? You could You could keep it at You You want to be a little bit careful if if you're talking about your own health because you don't want to create this idea that you are unhealthy and that's going to like damage your work. If it was something that truly was a snapshot in time, like I broke my leg and I and now it's all better, right? That's fine. But basically, you know, you can say something, but hopefully it's something that was finite to an amount of time. Um and then you say, "I'm really fortunate that I had the the resources and the support of my family to take a step back from work for a bit and focus on myself, my family, my woo woo woo, and then re-evaluate what I really want next. And that's why I'm so excited about this opportunity because it is I I've had the time to think and like this is exactly what I want to do. And you give them specific reasons why. Completely changes the tone of the the conversation and is so magical is that a lot of people start getting envious of you when you talk about that. It's like, "Wow, that actually is super fortunate that she was able to take that time. I wish I had time to step away and focus on my family or be there for my parents or travel or whatever it is, right?" So, really focusing on that is is fabulous. Um And Wendy says, "This is super helpful. I've played around with the order and tried to work it backwards. So, that confirmation was helpful. Okay, cool." Um So, uh Steel City says, "Was um was that a job for a short amount of time, about 4 months? Um in the interview, do I say I got let go or that the company went in a different strategic direction?" Um okay, so does this mean that you uh Does that mean that you were terminated? Or you Was that a job for a short amount of time? In the interview, do I say I got let go? Okay. So, this is a good question because that's one thing I I I want to talk about today is actually getting terminated, like actually getting fired. As I mentioned at the top, it's happened to me as well as I have terminated so many people in my career just from the nature of working in the human resource function and being the one responsible for carrying that out. Um so, what I will say here is unfortunately, we have to avoid saying that we were fired. It's just a really tricky thing to like I'm just I'm just going to be really blunt with you. Saying that you're fired is going to just raise too many questions. So, you do you do want to say it in a way that feel is where you're not necessarily lying, but frankly, and I'm just trying to protect you as a job seeker, saying that you were fired is probably going to lose you the job. Straight up like and I just I want you to get employed, right? And And like I said, like I when I was fired, I didn't straight up say that I was fired. Like it took me years afterwards to admit it and to tell everyone that yeah, that's what happened. So, anyways, yes, I would say a good way to position maybe a termination is first of all, like trying to find things that are secondary reasons for the termination. And also positioning it as a mutual situation. So, I ended up taking the job and it was it was a two-hour commute both ways. And I was really excited about it, but it ended up really dragging on me and impacting my work and it was just it was just best if I left, right? That could be one, very understandable. Two-hour commute each way, that's that's intense. It was in the opposite direction of my son's school, whatever it is, right? Another way you could say it, um you know, it was at a startup where things move fast and they hired me for one thing and then once I got in the role, the priorities changed a lot, the skills they needed changed a lot. And so, ultimately, it just made most sense for us to part ways and I think the company is amazing. I wish them the best. The co-workers I met there were phenomenal, but now I'm freed up to find something that's a better fit, okay? So, stuff like that, right? With my clients, I work very specifically. I'm like, okay, here's what you say in the situation. Like this is a question that comes up all the time of like how do I position it this way? And I kind of help them to specifically reword what they're going to say because even saying it slightly wrong in a certain way can can give the wrong impression if you were fired. So, um definitely uh it it is it is a sensitive sensitive topic. Um So, let's see. Um all right. Okay, so I see Sameer says, "I'm trying to land a permanent job, but always end up with contract positions. Where should I be applying now that I'm not able to find contract roles? What is a good What it's a good opportunity for me to apply?" Um now that I'm not able to find contract roles. Um I mean, contract positions are great right now. Uh that's usually where you see a lot of the internal hires that are happening are usually happening from um contractor roles. I guess I'm not totally sure what the question is. Like, where should I be applying? Like, are you talking about like to which companies? Because that is a super super precise question based on your your job title, your industry, your country, your city. So, um yeah, typically with with clients I would actually narrow down. And this is actually a really important question that um a lot of clients will ask is is their targeting is off. And I think I'm actually going to do a live about this um in a few weeks. Is Is your targeting correct? Like, are you actually targeting the right roles? Um I have tools in that I you know, I built out these like very in-depth suite of AI tools, and one of the tools is like talking all about market demand. And is Is the role you're targeting actually have enough openings to where it's worth your time to go down that road? Um and I recently had a client she was like, "Madeleine, I'm not getting enough interviews. Like, I'm feeling pretty frustrated. Like, is your coaching even working? Hello." And I said, hold up, give me your data. Had her give me the data of like what she is applying to, all that kind of stuff, and said, okay. Frankly, what you're targeting, too small. Too small market demand. Like, that's the thing. And she goes, oh my gosh, are you serious? So, I was like, okay, can we pivot to a different role? And it wasn't like a giant It's not like she changed careers. It's just like a slightly like a slight pivot in the titles. The next day after we made that change, she started getting sourced on LinkedIn. Right? She started like getting more interviews. And now I think she has she has at least she had two interviews today, and I think she has more interviews this week. So, sometimes our targeting is completely off. Okay. So, okay, so people are liking this. All right, we're going to we'll definitely do a targeting video. We're great. Yes, that is coming up. That is one of the future live sessions I'm going to do. Um So, uh Yes, so people are asking about will your staff review resumes for a fee? So, Yes, so I have right now it's $1,500 off. So, all of my coaching services are $1,500 off. That is because, just so if anyone showed up late, I am doing a five-day completely free masterclass next week. Um and that is and I just put the link in the chat in case it works on your platform of where if you wanted to sign up for coaching from Phil Phil Junior. So, next next week I'm doing a live five-day masterclass of the five core struggles I'm seeing people who are high-income earners having in the job search. As part of this masterclass series, I opened up my coaching program for $1,500 off until that masterclass series ends. So, until May 25th, I'm doing $1,500 off. You can do like the course version where it's more self-guided or you can get the coaching or the really like done with you like really hands-on coaching if you really want to have your hand held through everything. Um so, anyways, yes, uh you can check that out. Now, if you want to go to the the free masterclass, the 5-day thing, I will also put that in the chat. Oops. Um I It's uh www.selfmadeway.com/masterclass. Definitely register for that. I'm really excited. This is a new masterclass for me. I haven't released this content before. There's going to be a workbook involved. There's going to be um I'm going to do live Q&A every single day, which I've never done in any of the masterclasses. I usually present the content and I'll do like a Q&A on day five. I'm doing a Q&A every single day, so keep coming back. Ask your questions. I'll be doing it just like this. Um I'll have the content. I'll have a a live uh case study. What I the feedback I've gotten from my clients is they love it when I bring in real people and they say, "Here's what I did in the job search. 1 2 3 4 5." Because people like they I I understand you like to listen to me, but then you also are like, "Okay, but does this actually work? Can someone actually tell me specifically what they did, who they sent the email to, what they said in the interview?" And so, I'm going to include that. So, this masterclass is going to be longer, bigger, better, juicier, crunchier, crispier than ever. All right. So, let's dive into more of your questions. Um uh Okay. How do I explain a 4-to-5-year gap that takes me off the hot seat? How do I get back in the interviewing groove? Uh okay, so I'm guessing when you're saying getting in the interviewing groove, does that mean that your gap was now? Like you you're it was the last 4 to 5 years you weren't necessarily in the corporate game. Um so, here's the thing. This is so important for anyone who who this is their situation where your gap is more current. I know we get upset and we get annoyed that companies are judging us so hard for having a gap. You're like, "Hey, you know, I was a stay-at-home parent. Hey, I was building my coffee shop business." Or whatever it is, right? And but we have to be real with ourselves. They are scared to hire you because they're afraid that your skills have atrophied, which if we're being honest, they probably have. They probably have. I mean, my skills atrophy after a few months if I haven't been keeping up with them in in the business sense, right? So, how are you going to prove to these companies that your skills not that they haven't atrophied, but that you have reinvigorated them. Now, of course, the first step you take is probably some sort of education, right? But education is not what they're looking for. The education is for you. So many of us do education for to seem more attractive to companies, which that isn't usually the case. It usually doesn't make us more attractive to companies. But education can help us to elevate our understanding of a topic so that we can then take what we've learned and build skills and build like real-life projects or shadow or contribute to companies, right? So, uh so that's what you that's actually the goal is to actually exercise these skills. And it's you have to get a bit creative depending on what your profession is. So, for example, uh in my coaching program, I have tons of people who they kind of they have skill gaps, right? Or they have it's a skill gap or it's a actual employment gap, right? And so, for example, my client Maria, she had a she has a PhD from Harvard, okay? Pretty impressive. But she's actually having trouble getting jobs, which is a you know, for all my PhDs out there, shout out to my doctors. Um it's like such a such a bait and switch when you realize that having a PhD doesn't necessarily guarantee you a job, which is crazy after all that hard work. So anyways, she wanted to land a market research role in a corporate company, but because all of her research was more academic, she was struggling. So, what I did is I said, "Okay, like let me put you in touch with some business owners or you can do a couple of pro bono projects, get some real-world results, and then speak to that in the interview." Boom. That made a huge difference not only in her resume, in her proof of work, but her confidence. Um same with my client who he he now landed a VP of product role. He was and you might if you came to my one of my recent master classes, you saw he came on and talked about this. Um that he was missing AI experience. Okay, so are you just going to sit there and and hope companies you know, will over-overlook that or are you going to get it done? And so, him and I actually worked on a project together. Um he helped me you know, I told you about all this amazing stuff, all this this amazing AI platform that I built out. He was the one who started that for me. And now there now there's hundreds of people using it. Something that he helped build, he can speak to that in the interviews, and of course he landed an amazing job. So, um that's just a couple of examples of how we really need to uh show employers that we are doing great work and it doesn't mean we need to get a job to do that. You don't need to get paid to do these things or or get like a full-time job. Like he did he did like a handful of hours like working with me and then and then we we took it from there. Um but he advised on it. He he gave amazing feed like advice and feedback and he did some hands-on work as well. Um and that was enough to really show his expertise. Um okay. So um Perfect. Perfect. Let's see. Lots of Cool. Cool. Cool. Okay. So um So um LinkedIn, do you discuss in in any of your classes what works and what doesn't? Having a resume there, I got emails from insurance companies and financial companies. Yes. So I would say LinkedIn is huge, right? LinkedIn is uh for a lot of my clients about like a a normal amount is like for a lot of them about 50% of their interviews come inbound from people just finding them on LinkedIn, right? So really having that as part of your strategy is is absolutely phenomenal. Um so Perfect. Uh all right. So what about a career gap meaning I stepped away from my career job, worked for a family company for a few years in an unrelated role by title. Um and not have a company judge that negatively. Yeah. So I have a ton of clients who've gone through this. Um it's also the entrepreneur back to corporate pipeline is one that I specialize in, but a lot of people struggle in, right? They're like, "How do I move in this way?" Um the number one thing you guys have to realize is your previous job titles are some of the things that can be the most distracting. So, first of all, when it comes to, uh, especially for those of you who are entrepreneurs, like it's calling yourself, like having your most recent title be founder is like the worst thing you can do. Um, you're the founder, you're the owner, you can give yourself any title you want. And a comp, like as a recruiter online is never going to source someone who says that they are the founder for their company to be their director of marketing. Okay? Uh, because they're like, "No, this person's doing their own thing." Um, and they're not going to want to report into, uh, you know, a manager and then the the manager's manager and all that because they're so used to being the head honcho. So, that's the first thing. And there's a lot of there's a lot of layers there. But I know that this this question is not necessarily about being the CEO, the founder. It's saying that you worked for a family business with an unrelated role and title. So, I would say, you know, you really want to focus on what about that role is is relevant to what you're going for next. If only one bullet point that you can muster is related to what you're going to towards next and it was only like a very small percentage of the job, still put it there and only put one bullet point. Only put the relevant information and then we go to the next scroll down. And maybe that one's a lot more relevant. So, now our focus on the resume is not to like really focus and also, especially in this situation, you should have a highlight section. Um, in my, uh, so as part of my AI site, there's a section for building out your resume and you can choose to have a highlight section or not, but it helps you kind of like piece together the highlight section I would say in your situation you would want a highlight section because what a highlight section does is it quickly tells the reader what they need to know about you versus focusing on okay, but why why did they work at this this this company that seems unrelated to what they're doing next all that kind of stuff. The highlight section controls the the where the eyes go. So, that's super important and I you can call it a summary I call it highlights because I'm not focused on a summary of everything you've done. I'm focused on only the things that the reader needs to know about you, the highlights. All right. Um So, let's see Adriana says I have the last two have been a short stints. One mutual due to misalignment and the last one laid off in 8 months for a reorg and the last one in first one out. Um about to meet with a company I previously interviewed with. How to So, how to how to kind of talk about this, how to meet with a company, yeah. So, um So, yeah, I would say the the laid off one is really easy, right? And one of the things that a lot of people get wrong when talking about you know, leaving opportunities and all that is they talk too much. All of us every single person on this call right now, um we are probably going to get asked in a job interview, why did you leave your last job or your job before that job and all of that. The you want those answers to be as short as possible and lead to as few follow-up questions as possible. So, I'm curious, those of you here, you you know, how long is your answer? Like, are you answering in like one to two sentences? Are you answering in like one to two minutes? If it's one to two minutes, we're talking too long. Okay? It should really be something quite concise, but also not not curiosity driving. So, okay, so I'll give you two examples and you'll see kind of like the kind of the good example and maybe the bad example. So, you know, the the good example is yeah, I um and then yeah, I I had to leave after 9 months for that role because they had like company-wide layoffs. First one in, last one out. I know. It was a great company, but oh well. Okay? Right, that sounds fine. The second one is oh, you know, we had certain misalignments that led to in the end a mutual agreement that it wasn't the right fit. Okay, immediately the company alarm bells. What is that? What do you mean like mutual alignment? Like, what kind of code are you speaking in, right? So, you can't be so vague that they are now thinking you're hiding something. You don't want to sound like you're hiding something, right? It could it's you know, instead you want to be like, yeah, so 3 months into the role, they changed their product line, completely different. It was B2C then it went B2B. It didn't really fit my skill set as much and so I ultimately we ultimately parted ways amicably. Okay? That has more detail and it still is quite short, but it is and that's a lot better. Um so, okay, so I'm seeing um we have here uh Strat says one or two sentences laid off uh due to restructure, no problem performance issues, strictly restructure. Yeah, so exactly. Yeah, keep it to one or two sentences. I love that. That's great. Um that's perfect. Um yay! And ladies, Sarah says, "I read her book has tons of stuff that helps with all of this. I'm so glad to hear that you love the book." It's always fun to come on these lives and hear the latest success story from from the book. I think someone's Can someone write the title and details of her book, please? Yes, so it's called Reverse The Search. Um you can very easily find it because I got the sweet URL of reversethesearch.com. Literally, if you just type in www.reversethesearch.com, I'll even put it in the chat. Reverse The Search .com. Hopefully, it shows up for you. I'm like I'm I'm currently um I am on live across three different platforms right now. So, sometimes it doesn't show up very well. Um but yes, uh definitely go check it out there. Thank you so much for reading the book. I'm so glad to hear that it helped a lot. Um all right. Um so let's see. Uh let's see what what Alyssa says. I've been doing intermediate accounting responsibilities as part of my jobs. And these are the responsibilities which I want to pivot to. Can I change my job title? So, this is a super interesting question and one that is something a lot of people don't think about. So, I'm glad you're you're thinking about this. So, one of the best things you can do is to build skills at your current role that will set you up for the next role you want to go to. That is like the best possible scenario. So, what you can do is you can put your accurate job title on your resume or your LinkedIn. And then uh put like a one of those bars in between and then like kind of translate the title. Or you can even put in parentheses or you can put your current job title. Like let's say your your current job title is like payroll manager, but maybe it's like uh uh you know, maybe it's like you put like accounting lead {parentheses} payroll manager, right? So, it's like okay, yeah, you're doing payroll, but you're also doing some accounting. And it's it's actually deceptive if you only say payroll. So, you're translating it to the people externally of like, "Hey, like I'm I'm like a I'm a pay I'm an accounting specialist who's doing accounting work {parentheses} my internal title is, you know, payroll manager." So, you can do things like that that can um that can help translate your jobs to you and then and put their attention in the right way. So, I I like I really like that idea. That's a that's a great one. Um Good stuff. Good stuff. Who Who here is coming to the 5-day masterclass next week? Let me know. I'll make sure to put it in the chat here. I'll put the link um at the uh selfmadeway.com/masterclass. I'm so excited to see you guys here. Um I just Okay, so then we say uh Shush says, um "I took 1 year off to learn the language of the place I live at and just enjoy that. How do I phrase that?" Um so, I would say uh that this is exactly what I mentioned earlier when I said you know, "Oh my gosh, I'm seeing lots of people saying me, me, me. They're all coming to the masterclass. I love to see this. Oh my gosh, shout out to Francis and Stephanie and Lady Sarah and David. David says, me, but I'm not in the C-suite. No, no, this isn't for I mean, when I say when I say high earners, you know, C-suite is is not the only the only people who are high earners, but it's I'm definitely I'm more leaning it towards the more competitive jobs because I feel like those those people need it the most as far as as it gets more competitive, the the margin for error gets tiny. And so that's really we're kind of talking at that high high level area. Oh my gosh, we see upper room is go coming. We're seeing Gabby, Gina, Castello, Liv Liv in my life will be there. Amazing. So, Okay, and then Shawn says, where can we get access to the AI systems you mentioned? So, currently those are $1,500 off until May 25th. If you go I can go here. It's been the promotion I'm doing through next week's masterclass. I'm doing like a five-day masterclass next week. The lowest tier if you want to get the lowest tier where it's just access to those systems and all of that, which is still so much stuff. You can absolutely access that or you can get it with the coaching or you can get it with like the in-depth like done with you coaching, the one-on-one sessions, all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, you can you can grab that and I'll throw that in the chat. self-made way.com/learn Cool. Which date do I select? So, it's all five days. All five days are different. It's okay and and folks are just are are registering. Perfect, perfect. I'm seeing and I'll also put that in the chat. Um selfhelpmewith.com/masterclass um so that you guys can get that. Also, if you guys want to talk to our coaching team, some of you may not be ready to like get like coaching right off the bat and you might be like, "Uh, would that make sense for my situation?" We also you can book a free consultation with our with our team. We just ask that you're actually like serious and you're actually considering coaching before you book. But you could we we open it up to our coaches if you want to talk to one of them and see coaching be right. So I'd actually just put that in the chat. Um madelainemann.com/coaching if you're like, "Hey, like let me talk um to someone and see if coaching would be right." Um cool. All right. So um great. So uh Uh I want to get back to this question they have on the screen. So uh I how do I phrase that I took time to learn a language to place all of that. So earlier in this call uh and I know people are coming in and out. So this is really important for any of you who maybe weren't here early in the call. Um but we use the word fortunate. Okay? I told people to write down the word fortunate and underline it three times. That is what you're going to use. You're going to say, "I'm really fortunate to be at this point in my life where I had the financial resources, I had the space, I had the time to take some time off and like learn a new language and enjoy life." And just like really framing it as something that is just like such a fortunate treat to have in your life is really going to shift the the vibe of of the of the conversation because they're going to go like, "Wow. You're right. Like that is really fortunate." They're going to start getting envious of you. Um and they're going to be like, "Yeah, that that's amazing." And it's just such a cool thing to talk about, right? Of like, "Which language?" and all that kind of stuff. So I love that. Um, that's really great. Um, so, uh, all right, cool. I'm seeing more people saying that they're coming to the masterclass next week. Uh, uh, Ashara, um, uh, Leon, perfect. So, let's see. Um, Anush, uh, says, "I was terminated due to a performance issue in November 2024. I'm trying to switch from customer service into digital marketing, but how should I explain the 1.5 year gap to the recruiter?" Okay. So, I I would say we definitely don't want to have a year and a half where we have nothing to show for it. And again, I I could see you guys maybe getting angry at me of like, "Oh, Madeline, don't tell me to do this. Like, getting a job is a full-time job." I know. I know. I know. But, really we don't we we need we need to say that you've been filling your time with something. And especially if you're a career changer, filling your time with up-leveling your skills is the best answer. And I recommend, like I said, it's not just education, but it's actual real-life projects. Now, the best thing about you, um, Anush, is you are going into digital marketing, which is literally probably the easiest one to build your own personal project or help a small business or whatnot, right? So, great thing about digital marketing is that you can even just build your own funnel tomorrow and like, you know, you don't have to necessarily launch it and get a bunch of sales or anything like that, but you can like experiment with things. It's like, "Oh, I built a Substack to see if this." Or, "I reached out to this this, uh, small business in my neighborhood and I noticed that their website was not good and I helped them with it." Um, and like, you know, just stuff like that where it doesn't have to be the quantity of time. Like, it doesn't have to be that you are working 40 hours a week for the past year and that's that's what you're going to say in the interview. It's more of you just doing things that are getting real world results that you can speak to in this time. Great. Great. Um so uh Perfect. Perfect. So I have Okay, so I have one year gap from gambling addiction and lost focus, but I'm now a year in recovery. Should I reframe this as a private health matter or be fully transparent in interviews? This is Kesha. Yeah, so this is definitely one and y'all I'm I'll be real with you, right? I'll This is too much. We can't say this. And I I you know and and I'm and I'm I'm same as when I said like we can't say that we've been terminated. Like I'm just trying to get you hired and I love the transparency here and that's the way you should be with your coach, right? Like with my clients they will they will tell me anything and I have heard like so much stuff. Um lots of people lots of my clients have been in lawsuits or or things like that. Like like way way more intense than this, right? Like just really um uh really like, you know, big stuff that they're like, "Oh my gosh, my career is ruined." Right? So just know like everyone's going through something, but we still kind of need to not share as many details. So I would say um Yeah, I would I think leaning more towards a private health matter is perfect, Kesha. And really what we do what you want to what you want to uh encourage them to believe and and understand is that it's resolved. Is that Yeah, I had I had, you know, a bit of a private private health matter. It was a little bit scary, but it's completely resolved now and now I'm fully 100% back to what I need to be. Um and so it's everything's good, right? Like that's the thing. We don't want it to seem like it's something that's chronic, that's something that's ongoing, that is something that you, you know, so like if you have to like continue to go into some sort of treatment or something like that, like, maybe we have to disclose that if if it's like, "Hey, I'm going to it's going to be during work hours or not." But, if it's not, then we want to make it really something that's in the past. Thank you so much for bringing this up cuz I know so many people on this call have something that is sensitive, uh that is tough to talk about. So, thank you for bringing that up. Yes, Priya's in for the masterclass. Um, and yes, and and uh Marty says, "Thank you for your candor, Kesha." Exactly. I love it. I love the candor. It's so great. Um, perfect. Uh all right. And let's see. Oh my gosh, Stefan broke both your legs in 2025? My heart goes out to you. My goodness. My goodness. That was a rough year for you. I'm guessing maybe you were kind of doing something maybe adventurous or I don't know. I don't know. I don't want I don't want to pry. Um, so, um, let's see. I walked from a toxic environment. Literally walked out. And he found out how I could reframe my 6-year employment with the company. So, you know, put toxic in the chat if you've ever had a toxic situation. You are definitely, Francis, in very good company when it comes to so many people have experienced toxic work environments. Now, um, I would say that, you know, should you bring it up? We are want to um we want to avoid bringing up anything negative, right? So, and especially because the fact that you're there for 6 years, it's different if you joined a company and within 3 months you're like, "This place sucks." and you walk out, right? That's a little bit harder to talk about. But after 6 years, it's so easy to just be like, "I was just in a really fortunate spot where I'd done everything I needed to do with the company and I could just take some time and like, you know, go, you know, spend some time with my family and take some time to just like recharge." I'd probably say something like that. Uh because that is uh after 6 years, no one's questioning, "Well, why did you leave?" right? It's like, yeah. I I wouldn't bring up the toxic stuff because it just brings up too many things. It's like, "Oh my gosh, are you a victim? Like, are you going to act like a victim when you come here? Are you going to talk bad about our company?" Um Uh so yes, a lot of people are saying toxic in the chat. Stephanie says says uh "No, it's the silliest fault possible." Aw, I'm so sorry. Um so Marcus, Laura, um Cabrera says toxic. Uh Stephanie says toxic. Yeah, Nick Sray says toxic. Stephanie says "Nope, never." Okay, cool. That's good. Um And Cashia says, "Thank you so much." I'm so I'm so happy to help. Um yes, and uh A Smith says toxic, don't mention it. Exactly. Yeah, so it's it's it's a lot, right? It a lot of us have experienced this and so it's super relatable, but we also just need to avoid talking about it. Y'all, you have given me so many good scenarios on this call. Um and this has been so so great and and helpful. Um and remember, like this format has been so fun for me coming back every Tuesday that I set aside my my 5-day workshops were I I've completely redone them. And I'm actually they used to be 30 minutes a day, now they're an hour. Okay, so it's all includes um content. Um okay, hold on my thing. It includes new content plus it also has a um I'm doing a What's it called? A case study each day with a person who has landed a job job offer several job offers in this job market and then a live Q&A. So, this is next week, okay? So, y'all make sure you have that masterclass and also make sure it's on your calendar, okay? That's the thing that you have to double check. Is if it's not on your calendar, let's face it, you're not you're not going to show up. Um and and I think when we send you the uh your when you're confirmed for it, it'll give you an option to like put it on your calendar and stuff like that. So, I'll go ahead and pop that in the chat uh so I can see you next week. It's 100% free um and remember from this time if if you are thinking about getting job search coaching or you want access to all of these like extremely in-depth tools for each part of the job search. If you want kind of more of that um self-guided but extremely um in-depth and like helpful tools, all of those are $1,500 off through May 25th. It's this whole big like celebration promotion. I am doing this for the next week. So, just want to get you tipped off. Well, I guess it's for the next 2 weeks. Um so, make sure if that's something you want to take advantage of that you are. Uh but yes, the the the masterclass I have in the chat and on the screen is 100% free. Come like listen to the content, engage, ask your questions live. I will be answering questions every single day. Come see these case studies of folks who have or going through the job search have gone through the job search or dropping gems about what actually worked for them and all that kind of stuff. Um So, well, if I can get a Wi-Fi high five in the chat, thank you so much for the constant engagement on these live sessions. It really is fun. I'm seeing a lot of familiar faces coming back week after week as well. But yeah, make sure whatever your time zone is for the masterclass next week, make sure it's on your calendar. So, if you're Pacific, that is 3:00 p.m. every day, Monday through Friday. If you're Mountain, that means it's 4:00 p.m. If you're Central, that means it's 5:00 p.m. And if you're Eastern, that means it's 6:00 p.m. And if you are not in the United States or North America, I am sorry. I can, you know, I can help you do that conversion if necessary, but I'm sure uh there's plenty of tools that can help you there. I just When I look at my percentages of who attends my stuff, it's like a very large majority United States. So, that's why I do kind of some larger nods there. But I know that you all are completely international and my programs and all that have been proven in over 40 different countries. So, that's been really cool to see. All right, I'm seeing lots of Wi-Fi high fives in the chat. Um yes. I'm seeing it from all these folks. Cool. Yes, calendar link came via confirmation. Perfect. Wi-Fi high five to Eduardo. Steel City. Love it. All right, Wi-Fi