Why do you want to leave your current job?

It's an honest enough interview question, and not aimed to catch you out.  It is simply a genuine question from your interviewer to work out why you are leaving your current job, as this will help him or her decide whether you will stick at the job you're applying for, or decide to move again.

That said, it is still an important interview question to answer correctly, and with a little work, it is possible to sell yourself hard!!

You will see that most of the response focus on something that has changed.  Something that has changed in the relationship between you and your job.  So either YOU have changed, or the JOB has changed.  Afterall, if nothing had changed, and you had fully researched the position in the first place, why would you not be happy to stay with your current employer?  Keep this in mind when reading the responses to this interview question.

So what are the reasons you are leaving your current job?

1)        You don't like the work

Again, keep in mind what we said in the introduction.  If you don't like the work, then it is likely that YOU have changed rather than the job, so check out a few potential responses which you should adept to your situation:

"I started at my current employer focusing on developing pricing strategies for our core products which I was very successful at.  But a few months ago, we were doing a major revamp of our product line which cut across all aspects, and I was asked to take on a stronger marketing role, looking at product attributes as well as just pricing.  I found this intensely interesting, and again I was very successful in this role.  Once I had completed that experience I made up my mind to pursue a heavier permanent marketing role.  Unfortunately a permanent role is not available at my current employer, so I have decided to find one elsewhere."

PS See how you have started to sell your skills?

Another response could center around the fact that your priorities have changed.  Perhaps you have a job which requires a lot of travelling but you have just started a family.  It would be completely understandable if you wanted to spend more time at home, and that is why you were looking to switch jobs.


2)        You don't like the people

This is a response you probably shouldn't use.

Your new employer will want to know that they are employing a team player, able to work productively with a wide range of different types of people.

So simply don't use this response.  Ever.


3)        You don't like the company

Another hard one to play.  It is generally frowned upon by interviewers for you to complain about your current employer.  Afterall, you did the research before you joined the company didn't you??

So the only real way to play this response is to say that things have changed since you accepted the post.  So how might things have changed?

Perhaps you feel like you have outgrown the company you originally joined, and now would develop faster and have more to contribute in a larger, more international company.  This response would be stronger if you were able to back it up with evidence that you are ready for the additional challenge.

Another response could be that the company strategy has changed which means that your skills and experience are no longer fully exploited by the firm.  For instance, if you have a breadth of manufacturing skills, but especially in batch production, and your company has made a strategic decision to move from batch production to continuous production, a logical course of action might be for you to move somewhere which continued to use batch production.

Think carefully about how this might apply to your situation, but on no account should you badmouth your current employer!


4)        You don't like the compensation

If you play this reason it is very easy to sound like you are greedy for more money, which no future employer is going to be particularly keen to hear!  Afterall, I take the view that the labour market is reasonably competitive, and if you are worth more money, then you should leave and find it elsewhere - your employer is not to blame for you being paid below what you think you are worth.

So how do you play this response?

Well one way would be to say that you don't think your current compensation is competitive in light of the additional skills and responsibilities you have taken on.  You have now opened up a great opportunity to sell yourself and tell the interviewer about how you have proactively sought responsibility above and beyond your job description, as well as developed a set of skills which are under leveraged in your current position.  At this point, the discussion is likely to move on to other topics, or to focus on those additional skills and how they might be used in your potential new role.  So you must be prepared to talk in detail about those skills or you will end up where we started, simply as someone greedy for more money!


Wrap up

So now you see how you can turn this question to your advantage.  Use the "Why do you want to leave your current job?" as an opportunity to sell yourself.  If you treat it as question to get through as quickly as possible, you are missing a big opportunity....