Dear Rachel,
I think I have a big problem and I need your advice. I’ve been freelancing these past few months after leaving a job I detested. I’m now interviewing for a planning job at an agency that I really respect, and I very much want this job. My problem? They are very interested but I fear that should they check with my last job they will get a bad report about me. They will not hear that I did a poor job but that I “didn’t fit in with the culture,” as my boss explained to me at one point. I quit after two years, and I should have quit after the first month. How do I deal with this ticklish issue? Sign me, Anxiously Awaiting

Dear Anxiously,
I can offer you some relief. Most employers are very reluctant these days to bad-mouth former employees for fear of being sued, so they don’t. They’ll simple reveal the dates of employment and leave it at that.

But that said, they can say a lot by saying little, even as they read off the dates conveying that you were not held in high regard.

But in any case I would not hang my hopes on a no-comment report from your former agency.

At some point, as the talks with this agency progress, you’re going to have to explain why you left, and without another job to go to yet.

You could say you’d always wanted to be your own boss and you thought freelancing was your cup of tea.

But realize that the person on the other end of the conversation will have his or her ears perked up, and they’re probably not going to buy your story. They’re going to be interested in how you got along at your old shop, and if they’re any good they’re going to pick away until they get answers. They’ll be super polite, of course, but persistent.

Too much talk about wanting to be your own boss is going to raise red flags.

My advice: Come entirely clean. Tell them what you’ve told me. It was the wrong place for you, you should have never taken the job, and that your biggest mistake was not quitting a lot sooner. Then explain why you didn’t like it and didn’t fit in.

Your honesty will win respect, trust me.

People who hire well know that not everyone is going to fit in everywhere, and that in fact a lot of very talented people bounce around for a time before finding their right place.

They’re looking for that talented person with the thought that their agency may be the place where they flourish.

Are you that person? That’s what they are going to be wondering. They’re not going to care the least that you didn’t fit in at your last job, only that you’ll fit in at their agency.

For them to reach that conclusion, you’re going to want to be totally open and honest about who you are, what you think your strong points and weak points are, and what your ambitions in media are.

If you do all that and you get the job, it’s most likely the right place for you.

If you do all that and you don’t get the job, that’s probably a good thing. You would not have been happy.