"I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member," Groucho Marx once quipped. These days, employers seem to turn the statement on its ear when they ask: "What is your reason for leaving your current employer to work here?"

The current environment of historically low unemployment across the U.S. translates into a shortage of top-quality professionals to hire in many fields. Even still, employers will ask the question to find out a candidate's motivation for applying to a job they seek to fill.

How you answer likely will reveal a great deal about your character and ambitions. Additionally, you may betray frustrations that could carry over from one job to another, from company to company.



Good reasons for leaving a job include:

I've learned all I can at this company.

My current company doesn't offer a path for advancement, but yours does.

I've accomplished my goals at my current company.

I am drawn to the opportunities and success of your company.

Back in the "old days," you could join a company after college and remain with it until you were ready to retire and claim a pension. These days, however, staying at a company too long can be a red flag in a job search. Companies can view you as being too imbued with that single corporate culture and way of doing things. And they can interpret your tenure as a sign that you're less entrepreneurial regarding your own career than they would like.



Companies expect fairly regular employee turnover, and when you are looking to make your move, here are some good reasons for leaving a job that you can offer.

"I've learned all that I can in this company, and in order to keep sharpening my skills, I want to move to a more cutting-edge environment." When you offer an answer like this, you are setting yourself up to be seen as someone who is passionate about staying up-to-date with the "latest and greatest" and who is always eager to offer new value to your employer.

"It is time to advance to the next level in my career, but my current company doesn't offer an appropriate career path for the future." Again, this doesn't say anything negative about anyone, just the fact that the structure of your current company doesn't allow for your career advancement. And it shows that you have aspirations to make greater contributions than you can provide to your current employer.

"I've reached a watershed moment in my career. I have completed the major goals I set for myself when I joined my current company, and now it is time to take things to the next level at a new company." This sets you up to talk about your accomplishments in terms of challenges that you experienced and how you went about creating significant successes. It shows you to be a "can do/yes I did" kind of person, eager and able to provide value to your next employer.



"I love what I do, and where I am, and I can stay here indefinitely. However, as I learned about the new XXX that your company is involved with, and your corporate mission and all the good that you do for YYY, I am incredibly drawn to want to be a part of your work and success." This last answer may be the best of all because it turns the question around. You set the stage to talk about what is attractive to you about the role you seek. It is future-oriented and enables you to paint the picture of why you are enthusiastic about working at the company where you are interviewing.



Bad Reasons for Leaving Your Current Job

First and foremost, always remember: Never throw shade or ding anyone, including current and former co-workers, bosses, subordinates or companies.

It doesn't matter that you may know how to do something better than your current or former boss. When you cast aspersions on others, you make employers wonder what level of frustration tolerance you have and question whether you will be able to deal with whatever issues you might encounter should they hire you. Perhaps worst of all, they'll conclude that if things don't work out, you will just as easily throw them under the bus as well.



If you speak about personality conflicts, a new employer may well wonder what you did to contribute to that conflict. When you shift blame, it immediately puts your own role in whatever went wrong into question and requires the interviewer to try to judge between you and the others involved. That's not the role any interviewer wants for himself or herself. He or she will simply count it as a red flag and move on to the next candidate.

Don't say that your current job requires working too hard to live up to unreasonably high expectations. This will merely invite a prospective employer to question whether you'll consider his or her expectations to be too high as well.