It depends.
Both the sales rep and the office manager were relieved to be set free from positions that weren't right for them. While it's never smart to get yourself thrown out because you lacked the courage to leave on your own accord, there is an argument for taking the time to search out what you really want. But if you don't have enough of a financial cushion, panic over money may force you into a premature decision.
Also, being unemployed can make you more insecure during interviews, especially if you fear an employer might try to take advantage of you as a result. However, no one can take ad-vantage of you unless you let the person. Having confidence in your own abilities and worth is the best antidote against that happening.
If you burn bridges on your way out the door, you complicate your situation with poor references. This could make you pretty defensive in interviews, and you'll have to supply more positive references. If necessary, you'll have to let your former employers know that it's against the law for them to say anything that would interfere with your ability to find a new job. Know your rights here and, if necessary, exercise them.
Unemployed professionals aren't the only ones with sticky reference problems. Unless your bosses know you're looking for a new job, you won't be able to use their names as references. Plus, it's hard to activate the kind of network you need for an effective search if you must keep your job hunt secret. You may have to avoid a huge chunk of opportunities because you're afraid to reveal your search to key people who would otherwise be able to help you.
Besides quitting outright, you have two choices: You can discreetly tell certain trusted networking contacts that you're in the market, and ask them to please honor your confidence. Your second option is to tell your employer that you're looking. Although risky, this strategy has worked surprisingly well for some people. While some employers become furious at being abandoned, others have been known to respond more maturely.
Anyway, when it comes to changing jobs, there's always risk. It's up to you to choose which risks you prefer.
If you can start job hunting discreetly while still employed, you'll have more time to do the preparatory work it takes to re-search the job market, write a resume and probe your network. However, once you've gauged the market (and your marketability), you may want to risk leaving your job without having another. Why?
Looking for a job is a full-time job. To find a position in a company that's really right for you takes time, energy and commitment. That's not something you have in great reserve when you're still physically and emotionally committed to another position.
A retail store manager promised herself for more than a year that she'd look for a new position. But beyond responding to want ads, she was simply too tired at the end of the day to do the kind of networking she needed to be successful. Since she hoped to change careers into media sales, she needed extra time and energy for the task. She couldn't seem to mobilize herself to do more than the bare minimum, though.
Finally, she made a commitment to leave. Her plan included an interim job as a department store salesperson to keep some money coming in. Knowing she could meet her basic financial needs relieved a great burden. Once she was able to job hunt in earnest, she was incredibly aggressive in pursuing leads and successfully found a new position within two months.
An Emotional Journey
The process of letting go of a job that's holding you back usually sets an important emotional process in motion. Even if you're more than ready to leave, expect a bit of an emotional roller coaster on your way out the door.
For the technical trainer discussed earlier in this article, resolving anger at her boss and co-workers for not respecting her work and for mistreating her was the primary emotional task. At times, her anger was fueled by anxiety that she wouldn't be able to find another position; at other times, it was tempered by her success in the outside world. When she saw she'd be able to find something else rather easily, her rage melted away-a sure sign that her hostile dependency on them had vanished. The offer of consulting work was the ultimate coup de grace. Finally, they recognized and appreciated her competence, paving the way for her to exit the once-stormy relationship gracefully. Leaving properly is an emotional challenge.
No matter how much you dislike the work, you can still feel a twinge of regret when you're training your successor. No one likes being a lame duck. It's no fun to be left out of the action. Yet letting go piece-by-piece can be an important part of leaving.
There's almost always someone you're going to miss. And though you promise each other you'll stay in touch, even friendships that extend beyond the office corridors can lose momentum without daily contact or shared experiences.
You may find yourself grieving the loss of your comfortable, familiar routine.
You'll get over it. Once you find a new position, you'll make new friends and establish new routines. But if you quit without having anyplace new to go, you may find yourself feeling empty, disoriented and unsure of who you are or where you're going. This "neutral zone" is an in-between state where you've left one place behind but don't yet know what lies ahead. You must pass through this important transition point before you can see clearly where you're headed. If you jump from one job to another without allowing time to separate emotionally, you may have trouble reconnecting. Then you may carry all your old emotional baggage (in the form of unresolved conflicts) into your new job, and end up repeating the cycle of dissatisfaction.
It hardly seems worth the effort of leaving just to be un-happy somewhere else. The only way to prevent that from happening is to make sure that you understand the true sources of your dissatisfaction, so that you don't seek out places or situations where those conditions are likely to recur. This means sorting through whether it was the job, the company, or the people you worked with that created the mismatch for you. Once you know, you can ask the right questions and evaluate jobs more clearly to make sure that your history doesn't repeat itself.
Before you ever job-hunt, you really need to understand what you like to do, what you do best and the kind of places where you like to work; and then have the courage and persistence to seek opportunities that can really meet your needs.
