It pays to be honest in job interviews — even about the embarrassing parts of your resume

Q: I made a mistake. It cost me my job. As a result, I'm on the job market after more than two decades working for one employer. I don't know anything about interviewing and my resume looks like all I've ever done is work for this one company. What do I say when a prospective employer asks "Why are you looking for a new job now?"

A: When you're asked a direct and specific question in a job interview, answer it honestly. If you don't, you won't feel good about yourself. If a prospective employer checks your references after interviewing you, only to learn you hid an important truth, they generally won't give you a follow-up chance to explain. If you get hired, and the truth later comes out, you lose your new employer's trust and sour your working relationship.

That doesn't mean, however, that you have to blurt out the full story any more than a single person has to tell a new suitor everything about their divorce on a first date. Thus, if you're asked a general question such as, "What puts you in the job market?" or, "Why now?" you can answer generically and truthfully, "It was time for a change." Interviewers can appreciate someone leaving a job after two decades.

As you know, I called you after getting your email, and heard the whole story. Since the recruitment division of my company regularly hires employees for employers, I'll tell you what I heard when you told your story. You come across as an individual who made a mistake, didn't try to hide it and clearly learned from it. In other words, if worst comes to worst and you have to divulge the full truth, you may still land a job.

Q: Our board of directors recently decided to terminate our agency's executive director and temporarily elevate our CFO into the ED position. Soon after we made this decision, three of our board members received anonymous emails accusing the CFO of cheating on her expense account and also undermining the former executive director.

While we take these types of allegations seriously, several of us suspect our former ED wrote these emails. Our board chair insists that since these emails were anonymously sent we can simply ignore them. Can we?

A: You can't.

If these allegations are true, you may have traded one problem manager for another. Even if you suspect the allegations are mean-spirited attacks from a terminated individual, you need to investigate them. According to former employment attorney turned HR consultant Rick Birdsall, "Your board has a fiduciary duty to your organization. If your board ignores a report, even an anonymous one, concerning your CFO's alleged lack of integrity, your board breaches its duty."

Next, allegations such as these, even if they're false, may represent the tip of an iceberg that — if you try to sail past — can sink your organization. Clearly, someone either knows something you need to know or wants to undermine your CFO. Drama such as this negatively impacts your staff and thus your programs and clientele. You and your staff will breathe easier once you get to the bottom of this story.

Finally, remind your CFO and others not to delete or alter records, and ask your IT professional to make a ghost image of your CFO's computer so you'll be able to complete a valid investigation.