If I don't get along with my supervisor, what should I say if the interviewer asks to speak with my boss?

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Karen Chopra
Licensed Professional Counselor
www.ChopraCareers.com  
 

Karen James Chopra, LPC, MCC, NCC, has been counseling career clients since 1999 and has helped hundreds of clients change careers, find new jobs and deal more effectively with workplace challenges.

In addition to her private practice, she has worked for two national corporate outplacement firms: Lee Hecht Harrison and Resource Careers. These are the organizations that help people who have experienced a layoff or downsizing to find new jobs, and their programs are usually considered the gold-standard of job search technique.

Ms Chopra is a regular presenter on career issues, having taught career theory at the graduate level, designed and delivered numerous workshops, and served as a regular guest commentator on WMAL’s career radio show “Your Career Life.”

She is a career-changer herself. Before entering the counseling field, she worked for nearly a decade as a trade negotiator for the United States Government, first at the Department of Commerce and then at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Ms. Chopra holds a number of relevant licenses and certifications: licensed professional counselor (LPC) in the District of Columbia; Master Career Counselor (MCC), a designation of the National Career Development Association (NCDA); and National Certified Counselor (NCC), a designation of the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC).  She belongs to all of the relevant national and local associations involved in career counseling, including the American Counseling Association (ACA),  the National Employment Counselors Association (NECA), the National Career Development Association (NCDA) and the Washington Metropolitan Area Career-Life Planning Network (MAC-LPN).

Her B.A. is from the University of Virginia, and she received a masters of science in foreign service from Georgetown University, and a masters in community counseling from George Washington University.

If I don't get along with my supervisor, what should I say if the interviewer asks to speak with my boss?

 

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Host: If I don't get along with my supervisor, what should I say if the interviewer asked to speak with my boss?

Karen James Chopra: You need to find a way to talk about your current supervisor or your difficult supervisors in a way that's authentic. So think hard about what it is that you can truthfully say you admire and respect about the person that you worked with or that you learned from them, even if you didn't particularly like their teaching method that you've learned from your previous supervisor and then say that, "My last supervisor was wonderful about project management, about making sure that deadlines were setup and then making sure that we all met the deadlines and I learned a tremendous amount from her about how to manage projects and bring them in on time.

" being able to talk positively about them in an authentic way then allows you to say, "Overall, we might not have been the best fit, but it was a good experience having worked for her and I will take away the lessons to my next job.

" So if you can't avoid them talking to your supervisor, you may also want to say to them, "Well, here is what I think my supervisor will say about me. I am not sure that I completely agree, but I can understand from her perspective where she is coming from so that you inoculate them about a supervisor's potential negative comments about you. Again, what you are demonstrating is, "She may these things. I understand that I am not worried and so you shouldn't be either.

" For most difficult questions that's what you are looking for is you want to look as unconcerned as possible about the difficult things that they are asking about.

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