5 Mistakes To Avoid While QUITTING YOUR JOB
I felt that this is a very on trend since we are living through what media is referring to as The Great Resignation. I have previously talked about why you SHOULD quit your job and also how to quit your job and avoid some common mistakes while parting ways with your current employer. However, it’s also true that sometimes you’re just not ready to let go of your job or perhaps you shouldn’t do it, even if you want to.
Mistake 1: You didn’t read your contract
If you are thinking about quitting your job, maybe you already have a job lined up but maybe you haven’t read your contract in a hot minute then my honest advice to you is to find wherever you have it stored and give it a read. This is especially true if you’re working internationally aka not in your home country and where different employment law will apply.
You want to specifically look for terms of you terminating your employment and what conditions you agreed to when you signed your contract. To give you an example, most countries in Europe allow you 1 month notice to quit your job and the same for your employer giving you notice of termination. However, when this month starts isn’t uniform across all countries and it might be required that month start either on the 15th of the month or the 30th of the month. Some companies put additional conditions and specifications on top of the local law provisions so you need to understand what these are before you quit. To give you an example, while I was working for Amazon, my contract stated that if you worked for over 5 years your notice period is 2 months, if you worked over 10 years there you will have a 3 month notice period. So make sure that you are full informed as to what your contract is saying even before you start your new job hunt. If I can guarantee one question that every recruiter in the world will ask you, that is:
How soon can you start?
So it’s useful to have this answer already researched so you can save yourself some back and forth.
Another thing you want to check your contract for is any non-compete clauses. To be fair, not every company will have such a clause, especially if they’re smaller in size. But you need to make sure that you’re not joining a company that is in the non-compete clause because if you do, your current employer does have legal ground to sue you and its going to be quite a mess. So, make sure that if you do have a job lined up that this is not included in the “fobiden list” that you signed. Save yourself the lawsuit!
Mistake 2: You blow up at work or online
Please tell me I’m not the only one on the maladaptive daydreaming train that makes you want to imagine just how good it would feel to tell off your mean boss, and tell of your backstabbing coworkers, flipping everyone off and get that perfectly witty line in on your way out. You know, the one line you’ve spent many morning showers rehearsing. Am I the only one? I think not!
But alas, in reality you should definitely not start a fight, don’t start yelling, and whatever you do don’t start a physical fight with anyone on your way out. I can guarantee that in this case you WILL get the cops called on your and ultimately, you’re just trying to quit you corporate job not get a criminal record going. I know it’s tempting to let lose and just say whatever is on your mind, it’s tempting to just delete your crucial files and so on. Let me advocate for some restraint because you never know who you piss off and they might have a big influence over maybe your new job or in your industry and it will come back to bite you in the behind. Let’s try to keep it civil!
Another point I sometimes can’t believe I have to stress:
Don’t try to steal or damage company property.
Unless you have it in writing from HR and your manager that you can keep certain equipment (eg laptop, phone etc.), you should assume you have to turn it in at the end of your employment there. Again, you might be pissed, furious about how your job treated you but for the love of God let’s not get yourself a criminal record trying to quit a run of the mill job. It is so not worth the risk, not worth the repercussions so don’t try to rob your former place of work.
While we’re on this topic, I’m going to include another tip: Don’t trash talk your company on Linkedin! Remember that Linkedin is a professional network that is used by many recruiters. If they see that you’re basically throwing a tantrum online, trash talking everyone you’ve worked with, this might dissuade them from offering you any new opportunities.
I know… I know… there is an now infamous post on Linkedin form a disgruntled Amazon employee going around (now edited). But, by and large, you should not start dissing your company, your boss, your coworkers online, especially not on Linkedin. Don’t go off on twitter or other places either but definitely not on Linkedin
Mistake 3: You quit without giving notice
As tempting it is to just not show up one day and you might feel you’re going to burst out in flame when you enter the building of your old place of work don’t try to quit without giving notice. Follow as much of the process as possible. If your new company - or any other future company - will call for references, definitely it’ll not be a good look if they find out you just left. Also this might complicate your legal situation, should you be on the line for multiple months of notice period. Avoid all this hassle and just follow the process.
Mistake 4: You didn’t collect your documents before leaving
Leaving a job means you’re going to be deactivated in system so make sure that before you hand in your notice you actually download all of your documents. The reason why I say you should do this before you hand in your notice is because depending on your company or your job, you might be not allowed back to your desk, you might not be allowed on your computer when you announce that you’re leaving. This is especially true for jobs that work extensively with client, jobs that are related to application of the law or taxes. These jobs tend to not just let you loiter around the company until it’s time for you to go because, realistically, if you were extremely pissed off you could do a LOT of damage. So many companies will just cut your access right away, your login will simply no longer work and you might get escorted out of the building as well. This doesn’t mean that you’re notice period doesn’t apply but rather that you might just be put on what is called a “garden leave” until you can legally change your job.
The documents you should download before giving notice, in my opinion cover:
all your salary slips
copies of your annual feedback sessions if your company allows you to take them
all your employee information - your employee number, badge number etc, you contract if you don’t already have it stored somewhere else.
Of course, if you were also using your work laptop for personal stuff, make sure you take that off, put it in your cloud or whatever else storage you might use.
Mistake 5: You didn’t think it through
Listen, we've all been in jobs that sucked the literal life out of us and all we daydreamed about was just quitting and burning the building BUT .. if you don’t have a plan of what happens next, maybe don’t send in your resignation just yet.
For most of us out there, unless you have some productive side hustle, passive income, supportive partner or parents, we still need to pay all the bills at the end of the day. While I do think that everyone should have an emergency fund to dip into in case you do have to hastily quit or get fired, ideally you would wait to have another job lined up, with the contract already signed before you put in your resignation.
Does this mean you’re 100% in the safe? Not really, your new company can change their mind, life can happen, but you should at least try to have a back up before quitting. Don’t try be overly confident in getting a new job even if maybe your resume looks AMAZING.
I don’t want to make it sounds that changing your job is something you can’t do or that is too complicate but I would encourage you to spend some time to understand why you want to quit your job - and I’m probably going to do a video on how to know that it’s time to quit your job. Why do you not want to work there anymore? Is the money not enough? Is the growth not enough? Is that job just plain toxic and you can’t take it? Why are you looking for a change?
I think it’s very useful to understand not only what made you unhappy in this current position but also what you career objectives are going forward. Having this discussion with your self can save you a lot of headache, give you direction in searching for a new job. I will do a post/video on how to set your long term goals as well.
Finishing Remarks: Should you tell the truth?
Have we gotten used to the fact that I am very opinionated on these topics? I hope so.
Well, there’s a theme going around a lot of these job advice columns on not badmouthing your job or your boss to your replacement or your coworkers. And I have thought about this! Okay, don’t go around say
My boss is an idiot! I can’t believe natural selection didn’t get them already! Who would want to work here? Good luck buddy!
Yeah, that’s not really productive despite how good it might feel. HOWEVER, I do live by a policy of truth and perhaps you want to entertain this as well. This means that if you ask me if I like my job or if I like my manager, I will tell you the truth.
So if I were in a job where I hated my manager and my coworkers might ask me how I feel about them I would say something along the lines of:
I don’t like working for them. They don’t have any direction, I don’t think they’re experienced growing a team which makes optimizing work very difficult, they don’t know how to develop people…
And so on, whatever those reasons might be. I would be truthful and so should you. I don’t consider this badmouthing, because it’s not just going off on someone with no rhyme or reason, you’re simply telling the truth. And if someone argues that telling the truth is badmouthing, then they have ulterior reasons which is usually tied to employee retention.
I can’t name one person who has asked me about how my team is and that wasn’t thankful when I was honest about the experience of working there. Did it mean that a lot of good internal candidates didn’t choose to work in that team? Yes, yes it did. But if management wished that wasn’t the case, then they would change their habits.
What are some mistakes that you made while quitting your job? Let me know in the comments down below.
That’s it for today, folks.
Until next time, this is Laura signing off.
