Successfully leaving a job demands as much thought and adherence to certain principles as looking for a new one. Every step you take should be directed at leaving of a positive note, no matter how unpleasant the circumstances leading up to your departure might have been. The old "small world" adage is certainly true in business particularly within similar industries. The examples of former bosses once again entering a person's professional life are legion. In fact, I've known of hundreds of men and women who were invited back-sometimes years later- for bigger and better jobs in the firm they left.
Let's focus on how to leave a job from which you've resigned because you've found a better one.
Bear in mind that if you've developed a close and pleasant working relationship with your current boss, your decision to accept a job elsewhere might be taken as a sign of personal rejection, especially if your boss perceives him- or herself as having been good to you. You might not feel as though you've been treated as magnanimously as your boss does, but that doesn't matter. If wounded feelings are there, do what you can to salve them.
Keep everything on a professional plane. No matter what negative feelings exist in you, no matter what your reasons for resigning, shelve them in the interest of departing on a compatible note. During discussions with our boss about why you're leaving, stick to the idea that our decision is based upon career objectives. Point out the advantages the new job will provide you, without indicating that you were dissatisfied with your present one. Do not inject personal and negative comments about your boss, your job, or the company itself.
In many firms today, you'll be asked to speak with people other than your immediate supervisor. The concept of the "exit interview" is a popular one, and makes sense from a company's point of view. It wants to know what has caused a good employee to leave. This can help a company determine areas in which it might be deficient, especially where personnel are concerned. It's also good public relations for the company. Rather than have you leave with negative thoughts and feelings, which, naturally, will be expressed to others in your industry, the exit interview can help smooth these things out.
The same rules apply during an exit interview as when talking with your boss. Keep everything positive and professional. You've made a decision to leave because of what you consider to be a better career opportunity for yourself. Perhaps there is more money, a better title, increased responsibility. Those are the reasons to give for leaving a job. To spout personal complaints only sours your present employer on you.
When we're young, we often don't look very far in to the future. Believe me, the company you're leaving; its people will perhaps once again play a role in your search for career success. Keep each bridge intact, burned bridges can seldom be crossed again.
Assuming your exit interview is not with your manager. The questions might be asked about your views of how company, or your specific department, is being run? Don’t believe you should offer such comments. If you have some positive and constructive ideas about how to prove things in your department, share those ideas with your boss.
Anything negative you say to an exit interview other than your boss might be conceived as negative comments about the person who supervised the activity of your department. Leaving a job is a time to practice restraint. It often isn't easy, but the potential reward make it worthwhile.
When you've been offered a new and better job, and have decided to accept it, you should resign from you present employer in two ways.
First, tell your boss that you've decided to take a new position and will be leaving. Then write a brief formal letter of resignation addressed to your boss, with a copy to the head of personnel or human resources-they'll keep it on file. The reason a letter is so important is that a few years from now, your boss may be gone, and so might the personnel executive who was there when you left. That means that if a new employer is checking references and there is no written record of the fact that you resigned and departed in a positive light, the new personnel director at your former employer might not be aware of those facts.
Like your verbal comments to your boss, colleagues, and exit interviewer, the letter should be positive. It needn't be long; in fact, it shouldn't be. Simply state that let's say, eight years with your present company,
I have elected to leave to take a new position. (Spell? what that new position is and what company it is.) Indicate that your years with your present company have been fruitful and rewarding. You might say how much you've learned, and could comment that you're proud of what you'd been able to accomplish. Also indicate that the decision you've made was difficult because of how much you've enjoyed your years with the company. Remember, this is a letter for the record. Avoid inclination to slip in a subtle criticism of the company or of an individual. Positive and straightforward- that's the approach to take with a resignation letter.
Your new employer will ask when you can start. If you're unemployed, "tomorrow" is as good an answer as any. But if you're leaving a job for a better one, give as much notice as possible. Even if the new employer puts pressure on you, hold fast to your commitment to give your current employer a fair amount of time to adjust to your departure. In almost every case, new employers will respect that commitment because they know you'll give them the same courtesy should you decide to leave them in the future. It's the same principle as not revealing secrets of your current employer. If you'll do it to them, there's no reason to think you won't do it to someone else. If the pressure is really on you to start a new job sooner than a month, offer to spend a portion of your spare time getting involved in your new job even though you haven't officially come on board as an employee.
If you can manage it, take on an extra week so that you have some time between jobs to regroup and organize yourself. I certainly wouldn't hold out for that if it represents an unreasonable demand to a new boss, but most people understand our need for a break before jobs, no matter how brief. However, also bear in mind that the longer you take to report to your new job more time the employer has to change its mind, for whatever reason.
Leaving sometimes creates an awkward situation with fellow employees. Leaving for a better job is really a time of exuberance and celebration. You've worked after that better spot and have landed it, and there natural tendency to crow about it to those with w you've shared your working life. Yes, demonstrate enthusiasm for the move, but don't go overboard. V most of your colleagues will be pleased with your sue even the nicest of them will go through their own per of self-doubt and some amount of jealousy. Make it on them, not only because it's the nice thing to do, because it further cements your relationship with an important group of people who will-at least should-come part of your continuing network. Vow to keep touch, and be sure you do.
Another natural tendency of a departing employment to coast through the final weeks of employment. Some of that is expected, it behooves you to continue expend solid effort right up until your final day. If the job is going to be taken over by others in the department, be especially cooperative in helping them get a g grasp on it as quickly as possible. If the company has someone to fill your position before you leave, do everything you can to help that individual slide into the smoothly and efficiently. Also, make sure your boss understands that you'll always be available to answer questions that will help your successor do a good job. Your boss will certainly appreciate this and remember for it.
Try to be of help in finding your replacement. If know people who would be perfect for your job, mention them to your boss and urge that they be considered. Not only does this take a burden off your boss's shoulders-as well as those of the personnel department-it places someone in that company who will view you with some level of appreciation, and who will become an extremely important person in your ongoing networking. Be honest if you play a role in finding your successor, however. I've seen instances where a departing employee deliberately looked for someone less qualified in order to look good in absentia, or created impossible qualifications in order to make the point that the company was losing a good man.
If you've been fired for any reason, or dismissed as part of a general pruning of staff, everything I've suggested a resigning employee should do is valid, too.
Obviously, it's much more difficult to leave under these circumstances. If it has resulted from an outright clash between you and your superiors, it's going to take a lot to keep bad feelings you harbor from surfacing. Still, I urge you to try. No matter why you've been asked to leave, you have nothing to gain, and even more to lose, by making a negative situation worse.
Being fired is a traumatic experience. We're flooded with feelings, most of them negative. Frustration, disappointment, anger, and guilt all compete within us at once. Don't react until you've had a few days to cool down and are able to view the situation with more clarity and reason. When you have reached this point (don't take too long) you should begin a systematic campaign to ease the ramifications of having lost your job.
First, plead for time. Because you've been told to vacate your office by the end of the week doesn't necessarily mean that has to be the case. Unless there is such rancor between you and the person who fired you that communication is impossible, sit down and calmly, rationally discuss your dismissal. Ask that you be given some additional time before leaving. The worst they can say is no. You do manage to gain some time-and I've seen that happen on many occasions-you've extended your official employment, which, if you immediately get moving in search of another job, is a better position from which to look.
No matter what is churning inside you, try to keep your communication on a positive level. Attempt to determine the sort of reference you'll be given. If it doesn’t appear to be positive, try to change your boss's thinking about it. Ask for a written reference before you leave. Such references are often considered by a new employ as having been written under duress. Ask for it anyway. At least if you have a decent reference in writing, it might head off the potential of a former boss "leveling" with reference seeker, even though what he or she says is, more often than not, ill founded and delivered in anger.
Like an employee leaving for a better job, a dismissed employee sometimes is called upon to go through an ex-interview. No matter how strong the temptation, no matter how much right you have on your side, try to go through it with as little complaining and finger-pointing as possible. Your goal from the moment you receive the pink slip is to smooth things out, soften the reasons for having been fired, and cut yourself the best possible way under the circumstances. Do all your yelling and complaining to yourself in your car, or at home.