How To Quit
An anonymous correspondent writes:
I may need to resign my current position soon; I’m employed as a web developer by a rather shall we say parsimonious firm and have good prospects for an offer at better pay from a different firm. As I am planning my exit, I’m realizing I’ve never needed to write a resignation letter before. I have no idea how to quit; having cut my software teeth during the boom-bust 90s, I’ve only ever been laid off.
That said, I need to know what to do when quitting time arrives; do I have to offer a reason for leaving? How do I do this in such a way that I still get a good reference? Clearly, more than manners might be involved in securing a good reference, but what are the etiquette ducks that have to be kept in a row? And what goes into a good resignation letter, anyway?
How very timely. I’ve recently quit my own job, so I’ve had to consider these questions myself.
I got my advice for my resignation letter from Ask the Headhunter. In short, keep it short. Since it will go on record, you want to say the bare minimum to get your message across. Print two copies out in hard copy, sign them both, keep one and give the other to your direct manager. Your manager will then pass it on to Human Resources, assuming your company has such a department.
Here’s an acceptable very short resignation letter:
$YOUR_FULL_POSTAL_ADDRESS
$DATETo whom it may concern,
I hereby resign my position as $JOB_TITLE at $COMPANY_NAME, effective immediately.
Yours sincerely,
$YOUR_SIGNATURE
$YOUR_NAME
(”To whom it may concern” means that it can be handed to your supervisor, the big boss, or HR, and still apply to them. You can optionally address it directly to your manager, if you think that’s more suitable in your particular case.)
If you are required to give notice in advance of leaving, you may wish to write:
I hereby give $N weeks’ notice of my intent to resign my position as $JOB_TITLE at $COMPANY_NAME.
You are not required to give any reasons for quitting, and I advise against doing so on paper if you can help it. In particular, writing a “fuck you” letter outlining all your frustrations with your job may be cathartic but is not necessarily helpful for your future job prospects.1
However, many workplaces conduct exit interviews in order to understand why you’re leaving and to wrap up any business or paperwork that needs attention, and you may find that they expect you to give your reasons for leaving at that interview. Even if there is no formal exit interview process, your boss may want to talk to you informally about the subject.
In these cases, you need to weigh up any possible offence you may cause against your need for a glowing reference.
If you are leaving for reasons which do not reflect specifically on the management of the company, or on your boss personally, then by all means share those reasons. Examples include:
- An offer of more money than you could possibly refuse
- Need to move for family reasons, further education, etc
- Desire to travel
If your reasons for leaving reflect negatively on the company, the management, or your co-workers, you will need to be more diplomatic. Examples:
- Unreasonable workload or deadlines
- Hostile work environment
- Lack of recognition of your skills and achievements
- Lack of training or scope for career progression
The question here is, what possible benefit is there to telling them about their flaws, and what risks are you taking to do so? If you think that the company (or your co-workers, whose welfare is probably closer to your own heart) would benefit from knowing, and you want to give them that benefit, then by all means tell them. If you think management will take it badly enough to refuse to give you a reference, or to penalise you in some other way, then weigh that risk against the benefits.
When pointing out the company’s flaws, try to speak as diplomatically as possible. Keep your voice calm, your language couth, and don’t make ad hominem attacks. Offer suggestions for how things could be improved, rather than simply telling them what’s wrong; if they couldn’t see what was wrong for themselves before you quit, what makes you think they’ll know how to fix it as soon as it’s pointed out to them?
If you don’t want to tell them what they did wrong, remember that you can always maintain a stubborn silence or, indeed, tell relatively innocuous white lies in the cause of politeness. Examples:
- “Personal reasons; I prefer not to discuss it.”
- “The new job was just too good to refuse.”
- “I felt that this was the right direction for my personal growth.”
One final note: you don’t necessarily need to get a reference from every job you’ve been at, and you particularly don’t need that reference to be from management. It is valid to give a colleague or subordinate’s contact details as a reference, though I would suggest that you don’t want to have more than one of these on your resume. As long as you don’t piss them off enough that they’ll want to actively go out and badmouth you across the industry, you should be fine.
Note 1: The letter I’ve linked is a classic of its genre and a great read. It was also written in 1998, when any of us could walk out of one job and into a higher paying one, no matter what communication devices we had advised our employers to insert into their nether orifices. This is no longer the case, and your humble correspondent feels that it would be inadvisable — as well as impolite — to write this kind of letter.
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I would suggest that instead of saying “2 weeks” that you say “my last day will be mm/dd/yyyy”.
The other reason not to do the big kiss-off is that it’s not at all unlikely that you may run into these people again in your career. Maybe someone at Old Company will later be in a hiring position at Yet Another Company years down the road, and when she sees your resume she remembers “He was the guy who told our boss to stuff it; what a jerk!” and tosses your resume.
It’s a small small community we live in.
I hereby give $N weeks’ notice of my intent to resign my position as $JOB_TITLE at $COMPANY_NAME.
You might want to remove the apostrophe on weeks; plurals do not get apostrophes :)
Pedantic,
Possessive plurals, however, do. The question is whether the “two weeks” here are possessive. When I wrote what’s there, that’s what I was thinking… but now I’m not sure. “Notice of two weeks” certainly works, but the two weeks don’t really own/possess the notice. If I were to talk about having had “two weeks’ entertainment” it would match the case a little better, as the entertainment is more closely linked, and could be said to belong, to the two weeks in question. In any case, I am looking into it. Can you offer a definitive reference that gives a clear answer one way or the other?
Skud
If you want to know about Hostile Work Environments, you should check out: http://caseysoftware.com/?q=node/34
I always make sure to add a nice positive words and phrases, as long as they don’t actually make me puke or sound phoney.
So I often preface with something like “It with some sadness that ….” and end with “… I would like to wish everyone at Scumbag Company every success in the future” or “… and I would like to thank my colleagues for their support and friendship during my time at Scumbag”.
A little grease never hurts, just be careful to make it sound sincere – which means it must not be a lie. Also keep it short like the lady said i.e. never offer a reason for leaving.
Re: comments 2/3 (2 Weeks(’)? Notice)—
Look for a copy of the utterly hilarious punctuation/etc. book “Eats, Shoots and Leaves”, by Lynne Truss (http://isbn.nu/1592400876). The statement is correct as originally written, “two weeks’ notice”. (Mnemonic: The movie’s wrong.)
The apostrophe should definitely be there. You’d say “one week’s notice”, not “one week notice”.
Excellent post. I do want to reveal a secret about exit interviews: The feedback you give never makes it to management. It’s just a done to make the person leaving feel good. It lets you vent, which gives you closure. The brilliant advice about how to make your departing company a success is politely recorded and thrown away.
I was crushed to learn this. I mean, all that excellent free advice I was giving to the company I was leaving. How could they survive without me?
You don’t have to agree to an exit interview or answer any questions. It’s up to you. You also don’t have to give a reason for leaving (and shouldn’t). I wouldn’t tell them where you are going (if you have a job lined up): a spiteful boss or co-worker might try to sour your new job. Two-weeks’ notice is a courtesy, seldom a legal requirement. In most states you can quit whenever you want for any reason (or no reason). If you signed anything resembling an employment contract when you started, or if you are a state or federal government employee, the laws may be different. In general a contract can’t override or nullify state or federal law, but it may be create contractual obligations you can be sued over. Some employers have policies about cashing out accrued earned leave if you don’t give notice; those policies may be contrary to law — if you think you’ve been screwed out of money or benefits get an attorney or educate yourself (Nolo Press has good employment law books).
Only stupid former employers will give a “bad” reference, because they risk legal action if they slander or libel you, or interfere with your future employment. In general a former employer will only confirm the period you worked there, and may answer some general questions about your title or job responsibilities. References you give to possible employers may say anything about you, but you should never give someone’s name as a reference unless you are very sure what they will say.
If you quit and your employer tries to get you to sign anything, or coerces you into an interview, get your stuff, ask them to mail the forms and paperwork to you (you’ll want some of it, like the COBRA insurance forms), politely remind them that they are obligated by law to pay any salary (possibly including accrued earned leave/vacation) owed to you, and that you are aware of your rights. If they try to screw you or get intimidating, leave and contact your state labor bureau or whatever state agency handles employment issues — they will work on your behalf for free.
Greg, things are a bit different in other countries. In Australia: salaried employees are usually required to give the notice between their pay periods (ie if you’re paid fortnightly, 2 weeks’ notice) unless on a contract, and many salaried IT workers are on a contract with notice of 4 weeks required. And you can indeed get a bad reference: in fact your referees apparently expose themselves to liability if they fail to answer a direct question from the hiring manager honestly.
Oh and one other thing about resigning: it’s a good idea, just in case, to be all packed up and ready to leave before you walk into the office to hand in your letter, even if you’re giving $N weeks’ notice. Some companies, for security reasons, have employees escorted from the premises the second they resign. This seems to vary by company, but if you work in security or for a government agency it’s pretty likely. If you’ve got all your personal possessions packed up in a box you can either ask to snag it on the way out or request that they send it on. (An itemised copy of its contents might be a good thing to have.) Likewise, if you have personal work or whatever on a company owned laptop or a company account you’ll want to have made copies before resigning, assuming that you own the IP. (Obviously, do not keep copies of company owned data and if you have done so — perhaps you were working from home on your own equipment — immediately destroy them.)
The rationale is that an employee who has resigned is a potentially disgruntled employee and therefore a potential white collar criminal. This may seem stupid — you were just as discontent, presumably, before you handed in the letter — but it makes sense from a warped due diligence perspective. The moment of resignation is the moment that the company *knows* that you are a potential liability and for due diligence reasons they need to act as soon as they know or expose themselves to legal liability for letting a known disgruntled employee have system access. Or so the argument goes.
ARTICOL: my right to quit the job (how to quit)
( sursa: http://geeketiquette.infotrope.net/archives/2005/02/08/how-to-quit/ )
An anonymous correspondent writes:
I may need to resign my current position soon; I’m employed as a web developer by a rather shall we say parsimonious firm and have good
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