Live data from Hacker News

Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit

davidlaprade.github.io

161–170 of 405 posts

Re: Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit

#161

No, no, no, no a billion times no to this absolutely not no The moment you give your resignation, there are good odds your company will say "we accept your resignation effective immediately. Goodbye." Sometimes it's a blanket company policy to do this, sometimes it's because they know you're going to a competitor and they don't want you to start training for your new job, sometimes they were on the fence about you st…

Sounds like you don't have a good relationship with your company and/or manager, and a lack of trust and thats whats driving your "no, no, no...".

What i've learned is if I can't have some kind of conversation with my manager about possibly leaving or being unhappy in the role, unhappy with compensation, etc.. then that is partially on me having let that relationship sour.

Obviously a lot of this depends on the kind of manager you have, and situation with the company and loads of other factors.

Re: Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit

#162
post #7

I've generally given a lot of notice as an IC, 2-3 months in some cases. and I have to say, I think it's not been appreciated, not even once. I've tried to spend the time wrapping things up, communicating my tacit knowledge to my coworkers, and writing documentation for things that I've done and created and am responsible for; I'm fairly certain that no one has given my opinions and thoughts any more than a cursory a…

> But now when I "give notice" and they don't even let me try to work the next 2 weeks, I'm grateful. Life hack: Put your resignation in writing with a date in the future. In many states, if the employer attempts to move the termination date (without compensation), they will award wages until your resignation date... I've used this twice, and in both cases, I was sent home, but HR told the manager that any severance…

> Life hack: Put your resignation in writing with a date in the future.

This sounds like such a neat way to deal with it. I wonder if it's legally valid in my jurisdiction (in Sweden.) I have never heard of it but yet again, why not?

Re: Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit

#163
Coming from EU, one month notice both ways is the norm (a lot of people get hired on temporary contracts 6/12 months before becoming full time employees)

Only once I've given ~ 3 months notice simply because I didn't think I was a good fit in the company long term and I didn't have anything lined up yet.

Re: Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit

#164

No, no, no, no a billion times no to this absolutely not no The moment you give your resignation, there are good odds your company will say "we accept your resignation effective immediately. Goodbye." Sometimes it's a blanket company policy to do this, sometimes it's because they know you're going to a competitor and they don't want you to start training for your new job, sometimes they were on the fence about you st…

> there are good odds your company will say "we accept your resignation effective immediately. Goodbye."

No, it's not common practice for tech companies to immediately fire anyone who resigns.

A 2 week notice period is basically standard in the US tech industry. Some companies will take resignations and then remove the employee's access to sensitive material (code, chats, documentation, etc.) but require them to be available for 2 weeks to participate in handoff conversations. They continue to be paid, however.

It does happen that companies will immediately fired people. However, companies rarely do it because they stand to lose a lot of transition information and it also poisons the well for any future resignations. It also sets a precedent for remaining employees to not give any notice, which means everyone is going to start quitting without any notice in the future. This is bad, and companies want to avoid it.

Giving extremely long notice periods (e.g. "I plan to quit in a few months") could push the company to move up your departure date, though. The only time long departure notice is really warranted is for executives and truly key employees. Most people over-estimate their importance to their company and their project, IMO, but in some rare cases a single person can be instrumental to a company. It's nowhere near as common as people assume, though.

In practice, it's not really a huge loss even if it does happen. Most people get raises when they change jobs and the new company is often willing to move start dates up if you ask.

Re: Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit

#165
post #21

2 weeks is the standard? I am amazed. In Switzerland where I live, it is 3 full calendar months. And I thought Switzerland is very similar to the USA... My god 2 weeks lol, someone quits and he is gone the next day. How is this legal?

> My god 2 weeks lol, someone quits and he is gone the next day. How is this legal? How is it legal for this not to be the case? We have constitutional laws against enslavement or indentured servitude here. Nobody can force you to work if you don’t want to. You can quit right now if you want to. What happens if you stop showing up to work in Switzerland? Do you go to prison?

I have never understood this "slavery" argument. It's not enslavement, it's fulfilling a contract. They won't put you in jail if you don't show up, you're simply in breach of contract.

It's like if you're a freelance and you accept a project. They can't force you to work on the project until completed, but they can certainly levy financial penalties against you if you don't.

Re: Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moment you give your resignation, there are good odds your company will say "we accept your resignation effective immediately. Goodbye." Genuine question; is this a US thing? I've never, ever seen this or heard of it happening. I don't think I've ever worked at a company that didn't state in the contract the notice period. I have seen companies decide they don't want that person on site anymore when someone quits…

US person here who has participated in a lot of online advice/mentoring forums. I've never once seen a tech company immediately "fire" someone who says they're resigning like the parent comment claims. The only exceptions I can think of were when people gave multiple months of notice that they were going to quit and already had declining performance due to e.g. unhappiness about the job. If you're not performing well…

I think this MIGHT work at a lot of smaller companies, but BIG tech companies tend to have a policy that you are a security risk as soon as you admit you're quitting. I suppose that falls under the umbrella of "working for a competitor"

If you work for Microsoft (for example) pretty much EVERY tech company is a competitor of theirs because they have soooo many products and services.

I saw this happen multiple times. You tell them you're leaving, and get escorted out by security. It's just not worth the risk for them.

Re: Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit

#167

Sounds very navie. Many companies walk you out the door the moment you give notice. If anything you should give at MOST 2 weeks notice. Nothing bad happens if you only give 1 week, or even if you just walk out. Remember, they reserve the right to terminate you without cause at any time.

US corporate culture is such a horrifying shit show...

Where is live, 3 months notice from both sides is a typical contract clause, and walking people who resign out of the door is unheard of.

Re: Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit

#168
I dunno... be careful with this advice - a long exit ramp can be shortened by the company, or they can make your life miserable during that time if they don't.

I once worked at a place where notice was neither expected nor tolerated: the moment you decided to leave, you were done - a quick exit interview with HR, grab any personal items from your desk, and out the door you went. I think the time between informing my boss that I was quitting and permanently driving away was about half an hour.

I don't know if I'd argue that their policy was "best", but there is some logic to it - once a person has decided to leave, they are often mentally already out the door anyway, and having them stick around can be a pretty big drain on everyone who is still there, especially with the tendency for some people to need to justify a decision in the eyes of other people. Some people can be really good about a long goodbye, while others will just sort of poison the well the whole time and drag down morale.

Re: Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US person here who has participated in a lot of online advice/mentoring forums. I've never once seen a tech company immediately "fire" someone who says they're resigning like the parent comment claims. The only exceptions I can think of were when people gave multiple months of notice that they were going to quit and already had declining performance due to e.g. unhappiness about the job. If you're not performing well…

I think this MIGHT work at a lot of smaller companies, but BIG tech companies tend to have a policy that you are a security risk as soon as you admit you're quitting. I suppose that falls under the umbrella of "working for a competitor" If you work for Microsoft (for example) pretty much EVERY tech company is a competitor of theirs because they have soooo many products and services. I saw this happen multiple times.…

> I saw this happen multiple times. You tell them you're leaving, and get escorted out by security. It's just not worth the risk for them.

Right, but did they cut off paychecks too?

Being walked out of the office is equivalent to having your access removed like I said above. It doesn't mean the person is fired, it just means they don't have access to sensitive information.

In practice, it's not really a big deal. If someone is going from a high-paid FAANG job to another high-paid FAANG job, the new company is usually eager to have you onboard. They can move your start date up. New compensation might be higher, too, so it's a net win.

Re: Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit

#170
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard of employers paying signing bonuses to make up for the fact that an employee is leaving a partially-accrued bonus on the table at the employer he's leaving.

Sure, getting your bonus bought out provides some superficial relief for this problem. But if your next employer thinks that your value is high enough to buy out your bonus, they likely think that independent of the current date (modulo a special case where your value /now/ is significantly higher than it would be in another quarter or whatever). Your next employer gets no value from the fact that you're leaving prev…

I get what you're saying, but it could just be a way for a new employer to say "we have a policy of treating people fairly. We know that some new hires are going to lose out on bonuses depending when they join, so we have a policy of compensating these new hires for this loss".

I wouldn't want to start off with a new employer by negotiating for a bonus buyout and then staying long enough to get my original bonus (and expecting the buyout anyway). I would be interested to know if anyone has done this successfully. If I thought I had the upper hand in negotiations, I'd just ask for more pay, or a signing bonus independent of my foregone bonus.

Post reply on HN