I was given a rating of 2 which is "needs improvement" and was on a performance improvement plan (PIP) for two months. But then I completed the task given to me and now I have been holding the 1st ranking for the last 6 months.
Now I am looking for new job and I am concerned about what recruiters think about a guy who was on a PIP. My question is: Does it affect the selection process and how do I deal with questions related to PIP during interview?
Is there any reason you need to mention the PIP at all?
Unless you think you're current employer will make mention of it when using them as a reference then I would simply not mention it. If it does come up during an interview or whatever then you can lay out the facts that you have here - you needed to improve and when you were on the PIP you did just that.
Depends a bit on the situation. On one hand, there is no particular need to mention a PIP (unless it may show up in a reference or comment from current employer).
On the other hand, working yourself up from a PIP to a top rating is a real success story and fairly unusual at that. It demonstrates that you can work through a difficult situation and turn it around. So it may be a good answer to a question like "How do you deal with conflict?" or "How do you deal with a confrontational situation or adversity?".
Some to-do thoughts:
1 - Check in with your boss on your current status. Typically, 6 months after a PIP, an employee gets a checkin reflecting the status of the PIP and their relative success/failure. Sounds like you have a big success. So it should be OK to say "hey, just checking in here... am I doing well?" You might even want to push for an official mid-year review where your better status gets recorded.
Reasons:
2 - Check in with HR on the company's employment reference process. At least in the US, this is a public policy that all employees should have access to. And there's all sorts of reasons to ask about it, because it should also apply to you as a person giving a reference for someone else, so it's not just a "hey, I am looking for a new job..." sort of thing.
Then you'll know, for sure, what the company says about you. Often you can even get the hotline and make the inquiry yourself, to verify your state.
3 - Paint a success story. It is not "I did my job so badly I got put on a PIP, then I recovered and now I'm great". It's "I got some great management feedback about X, and that led to me figuring out some better ways of working. From that process I learned Y, and it's make a big impact on my productivity. I'm now among the best in my team, and I deliver Z value to the group I work with."
