How do I explain being dismissed in a job interview?

What the question is measuring

Nobody asks about a dismissal because they want the story. They are estimating one probability: how likely it is that this hire ends the same way, and how much of that ending was inside your control. Everything you say is sorted into those two boxes, which is why the useful answer states the boxes itself instead of leaving them to be filled in.

That is also why the order matters more than the wording. Fact first, because a fact ends a question; date second, because a date makes it checkable; present tense third, because the concern is forward-looking and an answer that stops in the past leaves the concern where it was. Candidates who reverse this order — context, then explanation, then eventually the fact — spend two minutes on the part the room was waiting to hear in ten seconds.

There is one asymmetry worth knowing. A dismissal that came from the business is a fact about the business; a dismissal that came from your work is a fact about a specific, bounded episode. The room does not need to be persuaded which of these it was — it needs to hear which one you say it was, and then to find the same thing when it checks. The persuasion happens in the checking, not in the sentence.

The three follow-ups a letter never faces

A written application is read once. A conversation replies, and after your three-part answer there is almost always one more question. It is drawn from a small and predictable set, and rehearsing the set is most of the preparation.

«What would your former manager say about it?» This is not a test of honesty but of alignment: it asks whether your version matches the one that would be heard on the phone. The answer that works points at something checkable — the wording of the written reasons, the employment reference, a named person you are offering yourself — rather than at your own sincerity.

«Did it come as a surprise?» This one is about whether you read signals, not about the dismissal. Both answers are fine as long as they are concrete. «There was a review in January and the direction was clear after that» is information. «It came completely out of nowhere» reliably produces another question, because it describes a person to whom things happen.

«What would you do differently today?» This is the only one where «nothing» is expensive, and the only one where self-criticism helps — but only at a certain size. One small, specific, professional thing is enough: escalate earlier, put the handover in writing, raise your own workload sooner. The grand admission is worse than none, because it makes the episode larger than your own answer made it.

Across all three, the rule is the same: identical version, every time. Under pressure people add details, because silence is uncomfortable. Added details are not heard as completeness — they are heard as a correction, and a correction is what turns a fact into a topic.

What they may ask you, and what your last employer may say

The fear behind the question is usually not the question. It is the phone call: they will ring, and then it is over anyway. There are rules for that call, and they are narrower than most applicants assume. The Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner sets out for the recruitment stage that if potential employers want to request information from third parties — current or former employers are named explicitly — they must obtain the applicant's consent beforehand, and that a former employer may give no information to a new employer without the consent of the former employee.

Even with consent, the frame is limited. According to the same guidance, the information provided must be relevant to the job in question — performance and conduct at work are the examples given. A former employer is not permitted to grant access to the personal file, and should not disclose the terms of the employment contract, because that kind of information could significantly weaken an applicant's position.

The statutory basis is one sentence and worth reading before the meeting. Art. 328b CO: «The employer may handle data concerning the employee only to the extent that such data concern the employee's suitability for his job or are necessary for the performance of the employment contract.» Suitability for this job is the boundary — not interest in you as a person.

The same guidance says what may be asked of you directly. Questions about education, previous employment experience and professional goals are generally allowed, which is exactly where the dismissal question sits. Questions about financial circumstances, possible debts, medical conditions or pregnancy are only allowed where special reasons justify them in view of the position; questions about family background, membership of associations such as a trade union, religion or political beliefs only where they are relevant to the company's ideology. None of this is an invitation to quote law across the table. It is useful for knowing where a question stops belonging to the job.

The counterpart in your own hands is the reference document. Under Art. 330a para. 1 CO an employee may at any time request a reference covering the nature and duration of the employment relationship and the quality of the work and conduct; under para. 2, at the employee's express request it must be limited to nature and duration. Knowing which of the two you hold tells you what is already on the table before you speak.

Four kinds of ending, four sentences

Redundancy is the easiest, because the cause sits with the business: «The department was dissolved at the end of September and my role went with it.» One sentence, and the detail belongs to what came after, not to the closure.

Performance-related dismissal is where most people say too much. What works is the short form with one thing that has changed since: «The company terminated the contract; I missed the field-sales targets in two quarters. Since then I work to a fixed weekly follow-up rhythm, and it held through the cover assignment I started in May.» Fact, cause, change — in that order, and nothing appended.

A termination in the probation period is a contractual event and is best named as one. Art. 335b para. 1 CO provides that during the probation period either party may terminate at any time by giving seven days' notice, and that the probation period is the first month of the employment relationship; para. 2 allows a different arrangement in writing, up to a maximum of three months. «The probation period was not continued on either side» is the same fact as «it did not work out», in the register of the contract rather than of failure.

Summary dismissal is the one case where you give the status of the matter and not only the event. Art. 337 para. 1 CO allows both employer and employee to terminate with immediate effect for good cause and requires written reasons at the other party's request; para. 3 provides that the court determines at its discretion whether good cause exists, and that it may under no circumstances treat an employee's non-culpable inability to work as good cause. In the room that means: name the event, leave the verdict alone. «The contract was terminated with immediate effect and the matter is still open legally» is a complete answer, and the rest belongs at a different table.

Finally, a termination agreement is not a dismissal, and presenting it as your own resignation is the inaccuracy most likely to surface later — the form of the ending appears in the employment reference, and the reference reaches the same desk eventually. «We ended the contract by mutual agreement at the end of June» is short, accurate and closes the subject.

The English words that make it worse

English gives you more ways to be vague about a dismissal than German or French do, and vagueness is the expensive part. «I was let go», «we parted ways», «the role was eliminated around me» — each avoids saying who decided, which is the one thing the room is trying to establish. The plain construction is shorter and reads better: the employer gave notice, or I gave notice, on this date.

The second trap is the character sentence. «It was a personality clash», «the culture was toxic», «my manager had it in for me» — these describe a person the listener has never met, so the only new information is how you talk about former employers. Neutral formulations exist for real conflicts: different views on priorities, a role that was re-scoped after a change of management, a team that moved to a different model of working.

The third is quantity. In English, an apology tends to arrive as a clause rather than a word — «I'm obviously not proud of how that went, and I want to be completely transparent with you» — and it lengthens the answer without adding a fact. Interviewers in Switzerland are frequently conducting the conversation in their second or third language; a long, hedged, emotionally-modulated English answer is harder to follow than a short one and is remembered as unclear rather than as honest.

There is a market reason to prefer the plain register too. In the English-language adverts we hold, communication is the single most frequently named quality at 12.9 per cent, rising to 27.4 per cent in sales roles and 24.9 per cent in hospitality. If any part of your answer is going to be read as evidence about a requirement, it is this one — not because anyone says so, but because the answer is itself a small sample of how you communicate under a difficult question.

The one-version drill

Write exactly one wording, not three variants. Forty words is plenty: event, date, one word for the reason, one sentence in the present. Say it against a clock and keep it under thirty seconds. Anything longer keeps growing in the room, and growth is precisely what makes an answer sound unreliable.

Then have someone push back with the three follow-ups above: what your former manager would say, whether it came as a surprise, what you would do differently. If your version survives unchanged, it is finished. If it changes, it was too long rather than too short — the longer version contains parts you are not certain of.

Last, put the written reasons and the employment reference next to your wording and compare the actual words. If the paper says «for economic reasons», do not say «for strategic reasons» out loud. That alignment is not a trick; it is why the question is done in twenty seconds and the rest of the conversation is about the job you came for.