How to handle a scandal
Skeletons rarely stay in the cupboard for very long, so it's best to be as upfront as possible as early as possible. Penny Pryor speaks to former MFS senior executive, Richard Keary, communications coach, Jane Jordan-Meier, and recruiter, Matt McGilton, and discovers that honesty really is the best policy.
Even the best and most ethical professionals can get caught up in, or with, a company that has been through a scandal. It may or may not be your fault, and even if you manage to leave relatively unscathed, you will have to deal with the aftermath on your resume and in subsequent job interviews.
"Tell it all and tell it fast." Jane Jordan-Meier, Sefiani Communications Group
"Every time there is a crisis, whether it be personal or organisational, the skeletons in the cupboard will always come out and inevitably come out and bite you and those can be scary," she says.
Therefore it's best to be upfront and explain the situation and provide some context around it.
"I don't think there's ever anything to be gained from hiding the place that you worked." Richard Keary, Commodity Strategies AG
"I don't think there's ever anything to be gained from hiding the place that you worked," he says of the experience.
"If I write a full CV I include it."
He says it took him just three months at MFS to work out that the model was inherently flawed but he decided to stay on for another few months to look after the shareholders of MFS Alternative Assets Limited (MFS AAL) - a small unlisted company within MFS of which he had become CEO.
"I had a difficult choice. I could have just pulled the pin on it and walked away and that would have been taking care of myself completely but I had some obligations to other people," he says.
"I had a sense of obligation to the shareholders of MFS AAL to make sure the damage that had been done to them couldn't get any worse."
That involved some very heated discussions with MFS founder and former CEO Michael King.
"From my perspective I'm not embarrassed at all about my time at MFS. If I knew everything I knew before I went I wouldn't have gone."
"From my experience when people have been a little bit misleading, when you find out things, you're a little bit cautious." Matt McGilton, Kaizen Recruitment
"From my experience when people have been a little bit misleading, when you find out things, you're a little bit cautious," he says.
He says it's important to create and maintain strong relationships across your career with people who can vouch for your entire professional history.
"How you reconnect with these people who can validate and support you [is vital]," he says.
Part of that can be maintaining a healthy online presence and seeking out testimonials from people you've worked with during the course of your career. It also includes relationships with recruiters.
"If I really had a strong relationship with this professional...I'd be comfortable representing them to clients," he says.
You have to be able to create a narrative around the experience that can explain it, and how you got caught up in it. That could be the culture of the organisation or the pressure you were under but if you are able to demonstrate how the experience enabled some sort of emotional maturity, you may be able to use it to your benefit.
Jordan-Meier, who is also a lecturer at the University of Sydney and author of The Four Highly Effective Stages of Crisis Management, says if you are prepared to put your hand up and say 'I stuffed up and this is what I'm doing to fix it' with a real sense of authenticity, there is a good chance it will be appreciated.
And there is some good news if you have been tainted by a scandalous experience.
"There probably hasn't been anyone I've seen over the journey who has not been able to come back to the market [in some capacity]," McGilton says.
So just remember, if the truth is always going to come out, it's probably better that it comes out through you.
