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

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

#391
post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What does that even mean?" It means you get 15 paid days a year to be sick. Beyond that, you have a certain number by law (I think 60) which you can take unpaid without risk of being fired. After that, sickness is theoretically grounds for termination, but very few large employers would do that because of the bad publicity. Also most IT workers here have long-term disability insurance for 'free' from their employers…

I guess there are tradeoffs both ways. I will gladly accept that downside(?) of having to give 3 months advanced notice for the upside of not being fired arbitrarily on the spot whenever my employer feels like it.

That's not the primary tradeoff -- that would be the reduced likelihood of being hired in the first place.

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

#392

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…

They even get the smell you might be shopping around and you are toast. This article is shit advice. I had Google recruit me for L6/7 and I was exuberant about it on LinkedIn, really really really bad idea to even mention it.

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

#393
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d guess most people, in the US at least, are employed at-will and could be fired right on the spot with no cause given. The problem with that though is you could turn around and file for unemployment which might end up increasing the associated taxes for them with increased headaches. I’d agree that most reasonable HR departments wouldn’t let it go that far but some people like to play dirty irrespective of the cos…

How can it increase taxes? Unemployment is funded by payroll taxes that are fixed and non-negotiable.

This is partially correct. FUTA is a federal payroll tax that in part funds unemployment insurance and is fixed and a pretty small amount. The other part, SUTA (State Unemployment TAx) is usually only fixed in the first few years of a business' existance, and then is annually adjusted by a bunch of factors including industry, unemployment claims, completeness of employer reporting and penalties for outstanding assessments. In practice, too many claims can land an employer in a situation where SUTA can go up substantially. In my state, SUTA ranges between .2% and 5.4% (of pay), so unemployment claims can be quite expensive if they result in an increase in SUTA.

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

#395
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.

IDK. All my colleagues leave after 2-3 weeks, sometimes less. It's just how things are done. My last employer moved my end date so the could claw back several hundred to a thousand off my last pay check, after I stayed a bit longer.

I know now I might have been able to fight this, and may have done that knowing what I know now. On the other hand it might not be worth the effort.

If you're wondering how, I think I didn't "earn" vacation until the end of the month, and was technically using "borrowed vacation". I stayed with that company for 7 years... I can't think of any other reason for them to end my employment two days early, right before the end of the month.

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

#396
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 completely agree. The part about infecting people with my attitude is especially relevant. It's normal that we talk. And when they ask "why?", it feels awkward. If I tell them all the reasons, it will influence their perception of their situation (which might be quite positive) and I prefer not to do that. But if I avoid answering, I will be perceived as dishonest or hiding something. So usually I invent some excus…

Just lie, but you don't normally have to really lie. Is there ever one single reason for leaving? You don't have to tell them the worst version of your decision.

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

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love when someone has an experience which is rather unique to them (or at least definitely not universal) and vehemently shouts in absolutes. I definitely agree with the article. I've given extended notice for many jobs I've left (again, usually on the order of several months). I had a good relationship with my manager, and I like to leave stuff "tied up with a bow". Similar to the experience in the article, it was…

Nothing about their comment is unique to an experience, yours on the other hand... Risk isn't just about the likelihood, it's also the outcome. Even if your manager loves you to death and there's just a .1% chance you misread the situation and your early notice goes wrong... the result of that .1% occurrence could be disastrous. On the other hand, if a 2 week notice is likely to screw over your team, that's a sign of…

3-4 weeks is okay too, but this super advanced notice stuff seems bizarre to me. It's a nice thing to do for some jobs, but a really bad idea for 70-90% of us.

Plus, IME nobody wants to wait that long.

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

#398

I completely disagree. in the long run, a company is not going to remember you gave them a lot of notice before leaving. your coworkers aren't likely to remember either, at least in terms of your ability to get references. at the same time giving a long notice has a lot of downsides. your offer can get rescinded and now you are either jobless or have a very awkward conversation. your managers in this time will not re…

Everyone thinks they’re irreplaceable. I’m still honestly shocked my last company didn’t collapse when I left. And yes with 2 weeks notice

IME, it almost always blows over relatively quickly... it's almost sad.

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

#399
How long of a notice period is considered reasonable probably varies drastically between different countries, different industries, etc. So the advice should largely be just do what is the norm in your environment to avoid burning bridges.

I have only worked for FAANGs and other big pre-IPO startups in the west coast for the past 15 years. I have quit like 5 times now and I have always offered only a 2 weeks notice. That is considered normal in these places. I have never burned bridges (I have gone back to work for the same company with the same people even).

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

#400
I was expecting the comment section to be negative about this, but not nearly unanimously so. I'll be contrary and say that in my last two jobs as a senior software eng, I've given six weeks notice and it's worked out very nicely.

I was not just shown the door immediately, I got a chance to get closure on some projects, and have a number of knowledge dump sessions that I hope were helpful to people. I think my collaborators appreciated the longer notice, but of course it's difficult to say.

The way I did it was to give my manager six weeks notice, then tell my close collaborators at four weeks, most everyone else I worked with at two weeks and then sent a "this is my last week" email. Still, six weeks seems like an outer edge to me—I can't think of any good reason to give three months notice.

The primary downside is that it is not really compatible with taking time off between jobs. Most places are reluctant to give you an offer for a start date more than a month out.

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