We’ve all had a boss we, to put it nicely, didn’t get along with. That explains why half of us have quit a job solely to get away from a bad boss, and as many as three-quarters of us aren’t feeling our current supervisor. In those situations, it makes sense to look for a new job. Unfortunately that bad boss has a way of hanging over your head as you seek out greener cubicles, in questions such as, “Why did you leave your last job?” and “What would your last boss say about you?” Common sense says you shouldn’t unload about how your boss exasperatedly “couldn’t find you” whenever you used the restroom. But you need to have a plan to talk about your boss while making a good impression on your prospective new employer.

Try these strategic tips:

• Give only the necessary information. No matter how tumultuous the situation, nowhere do you have to say you hate your boss or unload all the details. Stick to the most pertinent information to answer the question. Say the question is, “Why did you leave your last job?” and it was because your boss dictated (not too nicely) how you must complete each project to the letter. You can say you left your last job to pursue new challenges and growth opportunities. It’s still an honest answer, but it focuses on facts instead of emotions.
• Flip a negative into a positive. When you’re asked about your greatest weakness, you probably know to give an honest answer and follow up with what you’re doing to improve. The same applies when you’re talking about your boss’s greatest weakness (or why you hated your last job). Say you’re supporting a director who can’t seem to stick to his calendar. He takes impromptu meetings, misses other important meetings because of those impromptu meetings, and just isn’t around when anyone needs him. Frustrating when it’s your job to manage his work affairs! When you talk about this situation in an interview, you can say that you and your boss needed to iron out time management, and then describe the solutions you devised and how they improved the situation.
• Focus on the good. It could be you hated your boss, but you loved your job or the company. Don’t let that bad boss poison the whole experience! When you’re looking to move on, focus on what you did like about your last position and what you were able to achieve in it, even if that bad boss prevented you from being your best. You want to look like someone who is focused on doing the best work and not on staying mired in personal grievances.
• Look ahead. It’s unlikely you’d be looking for the exact same work situation, just with a different boss. So use this bad boss experience to discover what you really want from your next opportunity. More creative freedom or responsibility? Better opportunities for advancement? The ability to use the restroom without seven missed calls from your boss? That’s one more way you can touch on the negatives with your boss but focus on the solutions that grew out of them.

Badmouthing a previous boss never got anyone a new job, so don’t do it! Be prepared to honestly discuss your negative experience in an interview—after all, everyone has had a boss they didn’t like—but be sure to present it in a moving-forward, solution-oriented way that makes you look like a go-getter who’s great at solving problems.