Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by rootusrootus » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 5:45 PM UTC

fredrikholm wrote: post #189

Reading the comments in this thread really feeds into my bias that worker rights in the US are ... n't? I vividly remember a job posting from last year that listed '15 allowed sick days' as a benefit. What does that even mean? In Scandinavia, you set a mutual duration of notice for both parties when signing the initial contracts to start working. For IT jobs, the standard is 2-3 months. This gives both parties ample…

> Are things really as bad as they sound online?

No, online rhetoric bears only a passing resemblance to reality. Especially on HN, where most folks these days get unlimited vacation and work less than 40 actual hours per week. If you're in a low skill blue collar job you will definitely struggle more than someone in the skilled trades. And if you went deeply in debt because someone convinced you that a four year degree in business would pay for itself, I'm sorry.

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

#212

Post by bityard » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 5:47 PM UTC

EliRivers wrote: post #136

chickenpotpie wrote: post #125

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…

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…

No, it is not standard in the US.

It generally only happens in exceptionally paranoid companies in sensitive industries or government organizations, which clearly exist but are already atypical workplaces.

I've never seen the point in treating your employer as an adversary, as the OP of this thread clearly does.

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

#213

Post by rootusrootus » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 5:50 PM UTC

KptMarchewa wrote: post #47

Loughla wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends on the worker, in my experience, and their approach to the situation. I had one person who gave a full year's notice, so that we could hire, train, and integrate the new worker before she left. It was glorious and resulted in zero down time. I have had another who gave one month's notice, and spent the entire time being toxic. Digging out from under that took the better part of three years. The over…

>I had one person who gave a full year's notice I don't understand how anyone could do this with exception of retirement. Who will hire you with one year long advance?

Someone on my team just gave a 1-year notice a couple months ago. She hasn't lined up the next gig, and won't start seriously looking until later this year. She has more than enough cushion to cover a gap, and she feels some loyalty to the team to make it a seamless transition (she's been here quite a long time).

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

#214

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 5:50 PM UTC

mecsred wrote: post #185

jdminhbg wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any termination of employment before then is either a with-cause firing or a layoff where severance is required. If they're paying you until that future resignation date, it's not a firing or a layoff, is it? The part that your employer is responsible for is your salary, not providing you with things to do.

I people usually don't keep getting paid after a "termination of employment"

[deleted]

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

#215

Post by rootusrootus » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 5:56 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #148

hnrodey wrote: post #26

Speaking as a manager who has managed numerous people through their exit as well as a job changer.... I have to say I disagree with the advice to give extended notice. Proper notice (in US at least) without severe mitigating circumstances is two weeks and that's what you get. If the employer wants to it to be less then so be it. FWIW I've changed job 5-6 times over my professional career and every single time it's be…

>As the employee submitting your notice - have your ducks-in-a-row before turning in your notice as it maximizes your chance for a smooth exit. Right. If you have vesting events, expected bonus payouts, etc. wait until after those happen before giving notice as opposed to just assuming the employer will keep you on the payroll as an employee for those two weeks.

If you gave two weeks notice and got terminated immediately to prevent you from benefiting from something that would have vested in that two week period, you have an excellent legal case. Very few businesses of any reasonable size would pull that stunt, it isn't worth the headache. Some very small businesses might try it, because they may not have competent legal counsel to warn them away.

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

#216

Post by addaon » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 5:56 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #209

addaon wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If an employer offers a bonus buyout during negotiations, that's a straight-up offer of more compensation, in the form of a signing bonus. It's hard to come up with scenarios where an employer would offer you a certain total compensation, and then revoke that offer because a different, previous company paid you a bonus. Would you expect your employer to reduce your compensation if you refinanced your mortgage, in the…

Say the company hiring you agreed to pay relocation expenses from NYC to SF. If they then learned you were actually already living in SF they wouldn't just give you the money.

If the company went through the approval chain and got everyone to sign off on you being worth $comp + $relo, and you're value isn't effected by not choosing to $relo (because, in this case, you're already there), it should be pretty trivial to get everyone to approve a change to call that $comp + $signing_bonus since everyone involved already agreed to spend that portion of their budget on you. The case this doesn't apply is if their assessment of your value changes because they no longer trust you as much -- which does hint at an underlying rule of "even during a negotiation, don't be a dick" -- but the failure risk here is that you're providing symmetric access to the information that you're an asshole they might not want to work with, not that you asked for the compensation to be categorized differently.

So, yeah, I definitely have never solicited a bonus buyout and then done a bait-and-switch. But I've never actually solicited a bonus buyout -- I negotiate in terms of compensation I receive, not labels on it. I've had companies offer me bonus buyouts before, sometimes quite significant, and I've always taken that as a direct indication of their assessment of my value, not as something specific to the time of year.

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

#217

Post by karaterobot » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 5:58 PM UTC

chickenpotpie wrote: post #125

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…

This doesn't seem correct to me. I've been in the industry coming up on 20 years, and I've never seen a company send someone home after putting in notice of resignation. Perhaps it happened and I didn't know about it, I can't rule that out, but I know that the majority of cases have not worked this way.

It's difficult to imagine why they would do this, since it would remove all the cushion that 2+ week period would provide the company for getting projects closed and documented, and bringing new people on to take over the employee's projects. It turns an unfortunate situation into an immediate crisis.

I have seen (recently) a company say "please, we are begging you not to resign, would you like to take a sabbatical and we can talk about it when you're back?"

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

#218

Post by JoeDaDude » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 5:59 PM UTC

lumost wrote: post #208

saulpw wrote: 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…

Something I realized. After you give notice, at most, the business needs about a week to decide what to do with the work you were handling. In tech, most projects can be deferred, and most services can go into KTLO. After the week is done to figure that stuff out - no one really cares about you anymore. There is likewise a tacit assumption that you won’t deliver anything again (why would you?). As such it’s usually b…

On the day I give notice, there is a bit if a shock and a "what are we gonna do now?" attitude. On the second day, word has got around and everyone wants to know where you're going, etc. On the third day, i brief whoever will take over my job. On the fourth day I am no longer invited to meetings or really have anything to do for the next several days until I leave.

In practice, even two weeks is more than enough for your role to be taken over by someone. I really see little value in giving more notice that that for either the employer or employee.

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

#219

Post by proxyon » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 6:00 PM UTC

This is such bad advice. My last career move I 2Xed my income. This guy is advising me to lose thousands of dollars so I can be more well liked at my previous company and stick around for longer? Cmon.

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

#220

Post by yodsanklai » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 6:00 PM UTC

saulpw wrote: 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…

> 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 personally think it's the right thing to do, not for the company, but for your colleagues. If staying longer can help your colleagues to take over your stuff, some will be grateful and will remember it if your paths cross again.