The Proper Way to Resign

 

Have you ever heard “Don’t burn that bridge!” or even worse “I shouldn’t have burned that bridge!”? Resigning from a job and an employer is one of those situations in your professional life that can be smooth or tumultuous and you play a large part in which way it goes. Making it a negative experience is akin to “burning a bridge” in which you can never cross again or one that the crossing will be extremely difficult in time to come.

Once you have accepted a new job, you need to consider the timing of your resignation. Since two weeks’ notice is considered the norm, make sure your resignation properly coincides with your start date at your new company.

Try to avoid an extended start date. Even if your new job begins in 10 weeks, don’t give 10 weeks’ notice; wait eight weeks and then give two weeks’ notice. This way, you’ll protect yourself from disaster; in the unlikely event your new company announces a hiring freeze a month before you come on board. By staying at your old job for only two weeks after you’ve announced your resignation, you won’t be subjected to the envy, scorn, or feelings of professional impotence that may result from your new role as a lame-duck employee.

Some companies will make your exit plans for you. We’ve seen candidates whose employers had the security guard escort them out of the building the moment they announced their intention to go to work for a direct competitor. Fortunately, most are still given two weeks’ pay.

Your resignation should be handled in person, preferably on a Friday afternoon. Ask your direct supervisor if you can speak with him or her privately in their office. When you announce your intention to resign, you should also hand your supervisor a letter which states your last date of employment with the company. Let them know that you’ve enjoyed working with them, but that an opportunity came along that you couldn’t pass up, and that your decision to leave was made carefully, and doesn’t reflect any negative feelings you have toward the company or the staff.

You should also add that your decision is final, and that you would prefer not to be made a counteroffer, since you wouldn’t want your refusal to accept more money to appear as a personal affront. Let your supervisor know that you appreciate all the company’s done for you; and that you’ll do everything in your power to make your departure as smooth and painless as possible.

Finally, ask if there’s anything you can do during the transition period over the next two weeks, such as help train your successor, tie up loose ends, or delegate tasks.

Keep your resignation letter short, simple, and to the point. There’s no need to go into detail about your new job, or what led to your decision to leave. If these issues are important to your old employer, they’ll schedule an exit interview for you, at which time you can hash out your differences ad infinitum. Be sure to provide a photocopy of your resignation letter for your company’s personnel file. This way, the circumstances surrounding your resignation will be well documented for future reference.

How to Leave a Job Gracefully

Imagine a co-worker who trashes his office, plays practical jokes on his replacement and slinks off with critical documents or equipment on their last day of work. Is this a person you’d recommend to a prospective employer? Or expect your company to rehire? Or want to work with again? Probably not.

As recruiters, we’re constantly hearing of such antics from professionals at all levels and such negative behavior—degrades the employment experience for everyone else.
When faced with leaving a job, it’s best to exercise decorum, whether the move is voluntary or forced. To make the best of an awkward situation, here are some tips to remember:

• Keep your mouth shut. Leaving a job (like ending a personal relationship) is strictly a private matter; and waving your dirty laundry serves no purpose.
• Stay cool. Even in the context of a “confidential” exit interview, there’s nothing to gain from scorching the Earth.
• Keep your distance. Soliciting support (or fomenting dissent) from your co-workers might create the impression of a conspiracy or coup d’etat—and unwittingly implicate innocent people.
• Burn bridges at your own peril. The company you left yesterday may need your services tomorrow. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it.

Sure, it’s easy to be gracious when everything’s rosy. But it takes an extra dose of character to act like an adult when the going gets tough. If you’re ever caught in a sudden employment shift, try to maintain your composure and consider the consequences of your actions.

Workplace trends like flexible schedules and casual Fridays may come and go—but good manners are forever. Otherwise, Shakespeare wouldn’t have written, “A person is remembered for his entrances and exits.”

Your Resignation: Beware the Retaliatory Strike

If your intention to make a job change is sincere, and nothing will change your decision to leave, you should still keep up your guard.

Why? Because unless you know how to diffuse your current employer’s retaliation, you may end up psychologically wounded, or right back at the job you wanted to leave.

The best way to shield yourself from the inevitable mixture of emotions surrounding the act of submitting your resignation is to remember that employers follow a predictable, three-stage pattern when faced with a resignation:

Tactic #1: Your boss will express his/her shock. “You sure picked a fine time to leave! Who’s going to finish the project we started?” they might say.

The implication is that you’re irreplaceable. To answer this assertion, you can reply, “I am going to stay two weeks to help you recruit and select my replacement. I will also be available to answer any question you may have until everything is back to normal.”

Tactic #2: Your boss will start to probe. “Who’s the new company? What sort of position did you accept? What are they paying you?”

Here you must be careful not to disclose too much information, or appear too enthusiastic. Otherwise, you run the risk of feeding your current employer with ammunition he can use against you later, such as, “I’ve heard some pretty terrible things about your new company” or, “They’ll make everything look great until you actually get there. Then you’ll see what a sweat shop that place really is.”

Tactic #3: Your boss will make you an offer to try and keep you from leaving. “You know that raise you and I were talking about a few months back? Well, I forgot to tell you: We were just getting it processed yesterday.”

To this you can respond, “Gee, I am sorry but, I have just committed my word that I would start working with this new company. I wish I knew that in advance because I wouldn’t need to look for something else?”

It may take several days for the three stages to run their course, but believe me, sooner or later, you’ll find yourself engaged in conversations similar to these. More than once, candidates have called me after they’ve resigned, to tell me that their old company followed this pattern as I’ve described it. Not only were they better prepared to diffuse a counteroffer attempt, they found the whole sequence to be almost comical in its predictability.

Once you’ve properly prepared and committed to a job change, commit yourself to follow-through with it and don’t let your employer dissuade you. Respect your employer and maintain your professional decorum at all times. To do otherwise, could mean burning a bridge that can never be crossed again!

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Qualifind Bilingual Careers

Successful Interviews Happen to Properly Prepared Candidates!

So… your recruiter has successfully secured an interview for you! This now provides you with the opportunity to sell yourself and further validate your credentials that your recruiter presented. Are you ready for this next step???

I usually advise professionals to think of themselves as a business or independent company with a service to sell. This seems to be especially beneficial to the inexperienced interviewer or someone who has been in the same company for the bulk of their career.

Consider that you have an opportunity to pitch your services to a potential customer (the potential employer), but put it in the context of thinking that the more you know about their needs, the better you’ll be prepared to properly communicate and “sell” the services of your business (yourself).

Assuming you’re qualified for the job, the outcome of your employment interview will be dependent on your ability to discover needs and empathize with the interviewer.

You can do this by asking questions that verify your understanding of what the interviewer has just said, without editorializing or expressing an opinion. By establishing empathy in this manner, you’ll be in a better position to freely exchange ideas, and demonstrate your suitability for the job.

In addition to empathy, there are four other intangible fundamentals to a successful interview. These intangibles will influence the way your personality is perceived, and will affect the degree of rapport, or personal chemistry you’ll share with the employer. They are:

Enthusiasm. Leave no doubt as to your level of interest in the job. You may think it’s unnecessary to do this, but employers often choose the more enthusiastic candidate in the case of a two-way tie. Besides, it’s best to keep your options open. Wouldn’t you rather be in a position to turn down an offer, than have a prospective job evaporate from your grasp by giving a lethargic or less-than-enthusiastic interview?

Technical interest. Employers look for people who love what they do, and get excited by the prospect of tearing into the nitty-gritty of the job.

Confidence. No one likes a braggart or someone with excessive ego, but the candidate who’s sure of his or her abilities will almost certainly be more favorably received.

Intensity. The last thing you want to do is come across as “flat” in your interview. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being a laid back person; but sleepwalkers rarely get hired.

Most employers are aware of how stressful it can be to interview for a new position, and will do everything they can to put you at ease.

Other Important Factors
Since interviewing also involves the exchange of tangible information, always make sure to present your background in a thorough and accurate manner and gather data concerning the company, the industry, the position, and the specific opportunity. It is critical, that you be prepared to engage in “informed dialogue” regarding the company and the direction they are going in.

A worthwhile interviewing goal is to link your abilities with the company needs in the mind of the employer so you can build a strong case for why the company should hire you. The more you know about each other, the more potential you’ll have for establishing rapport, and making an informed decision.

Don’t Talk Yourself Out of a Job
There are two ways to answer interview questions: the short version and the long version. When a question is open-ended, I always suggest to candidates that they say, “Let me give you the short version. If we need to explore some aspect of the answer more fully, I’d be happy to go into greater depth, and give you the long version.”
The reason you should respond this way is because it’s often difficult to know what type of answer each question will need. A question like, “What was your most difficult assignment?” might take anywhere from thirty seconds to thirty minutes to answer, depending on the detail you choose to give.

Therefore, you must always remember that the interviewer’s the one who asked the question. So you should tailor your answer to what he or she needs to know, without a lot of extraneous rambling or superfluous explanation. Why waste time and create a negative impression by giving a long-rambling speech when a short summary would do just fine?
Let’s suppose you were interviewing for an operations management position, and the interviewer asked you to describe, “What types of operations management experience have you had in the past?”
Well, that’s exactly the sort of question that can get you into trouble if you don’t use the short version/long version method. Most people would just start rattling off everything in their memory that relates to their operations experience. We’ve seen cases where the candidate begins a lengthy accounting of their entire career history leading to the experience in question. Though the information might be useful to the interviewer, your answer could get pretty complicated and long-winded unless it’s neatly packaged and can result in your entire effort being a waste when you are ultimately rejected.
One way to answer the question might be, “I’ve held operations positions with three different types of manufacturing and distribution organizations over a nine-year period. Where would you like me to start?”
Or, you might simply say, “Let me give you the short version first, and you can tell me where you want to go into more depth. I’ve had nine years experience in electronic and automotive industries with three different companies, and held the titles of Operations, Business Unit, and Plant Manager. What aspect of my background would you like to concentrate on?”
By using this method, you quickly communicate to the interviewer that your thoughts are well organized, and that you want to understand the intent of the question before you travel too far in a direction neither of you wants to go. After you get the green light, you can spend your interviewing time discussing in detail the things that are important, not whatever happens to pop into your mind.

How to Answer Interview Questions

Here are eight of the most commonly asked (and basic) interviewing questions. Do yourself and the prospective employer a favor, and give them some thought before the interview occurs.

• Why do you want this job?
• Why do you want to leave your current job? 
• What are your personal and professional goals?
• What do you like most about your current job?
• Where do you see yourself in five years?
• What are your strengths?
• What are your weaknesses?
• What do you like least about your current job?

The last question is probably the hardest to answer: What do you like least about your current job?

I’ve found that rather than pointing out the faults of others (as in, “I can’t stand the organizational politics,” or, “My boss is a jerk”), it’s best to place the burden on yourself (“I feel I’m ready to exercise a new set of professional muscles,” or, “The type of technology I’m interested in isn’t available to me now.”). By answering in this manner, you’ll avoid pointing the finger at someone else, or coming across as a whiner or complainer. It does no good to speak negatively about others.

I suggest you think through the answers to the eight questions above for two reasons.

First, it won’t help your chances any to delay or spend too much time thinking over fundamental issues such as these. (The answers you give to these types of questions should be natural responses that further illustrate that you’ve thought these things through in advance.)

And second, the questions will help you evaluate your career choices before spending time and energy on an interview. If you don’t feel comfortable with the answers you come up with, then maybe this new job opportunity isn’t right for you.

What Should You Ask the Interviewer?

A job interview will quickly disintegrate into an interrogation or monologue unless you ask some high quality questions of your own. Candidate questions are the lifeblood of any successful interview, because they create dialogue and help clarify your understanding of the company and the responsibilities of the position.

In addition, the questions you ask serve to indicate your grasp of fundamental issues, reveal your ability to probe beyond the superficial and challenge the employer to reveal his or her own depth of knowledge and commitment to the job.

Your questions should always be slanted in such a way as to show empathy, interest, or understanding of the employer’s needs. After all, the reason you’re interviewing is because the employer’s company has a piece of work that needs to be completed, or has a problem that needs correcting. Here are some questions that have proven to be very effective:

• What’s the most important issue facing the company (or department)?
• How can I help you accomplish this objective?
• How long has it been since you first identified this need?
• How long have you been trying to correct it?
• Have you tried using your present staff to get the job done? If so, what was the result?  
• Is there any particular skill or attitude you feel is critical to getting the job done?
• Is there a certain aspect of my background you’d like to exploit to help accomplish your objectives?

Questions like these will not only give you a sense of the company’s goals and priorities, but they will also indicate to the interviewer that you have the appropriate insight and concern for satisfying the company’s objectives.

Four Classic Interview Questions—and How to Prepare for Them

Experienced job seekers know there are four basic types of interview questions—and they prepare accordingly.

First, there are the resume questions. These relate to your past experience, skills, job responsibilities, education, upbringing, personal interests, and so forth.

Resume questions require accurate, objective answers, since your resume consists of facts which tend to be quantifiable (and verifiable). Try to avoid answers which exaggerate your achievements, or appear to be opinionated, vague, or egocentric.

Second, interviewers will usually want you to comment on your abilities, or assess your past performance. They’ll ask self-appraisal questions like, “What do you think is your greatest asset?” or, “Can you tell me something you’ve done that was very creative?”

Third, interviewers like to know how you respond to different stimuli. Situation questions ask you to explain certain actions you took in the past, or require that you explore hypothetical scenarios that may occur in the future. “How would you stay profitable during a recession?” or, “How would you go about laying off 1,300 employees?” or, “How would you handle customer complaints if the company drastically raised its prices?” are typical situation questions.

And last, some employers like to test your mettle with stress questions such as, “After you die, what would you like your epitaph to read?” or, “If you were to compare yourself to any U.S. president, who would it be?” or, “It’s obvious your background makes you totally unqualified for this position. Why should we even waste our time talking?”

Stress questions are designed to evaluate your emotional reflexes, creativity, or attitudes while you’re under pressure. Since off-the-wall or confrontational questions tend to jolt your equilibrium, or put you in a defensive posture, the best way to handle them is to stay calm and give carefully considered answers.

Remember, your sense of humor will come in handy during the entire interviewing process, just so long as you don’t go over the edge. I once heard of a candidate who, when asked to describe his ideal job, replied, “To have beautiful women rub my back with hot oil.” Needless to say, he wasn’t hired.

Even if it were possible to anticipate every interview question, memorizing dozens of stock answers would be impractical, to say the least. The best policy is to review your background, your priorities, and your reasons for considering a new position; and to handle the interview as honestly as you can. If you don’t know the answer to a question, just say so, or ask for a moment to think about your response.
Your professional life is an extremely important piece of your overall life experience. The satisfaction you derive from how, where and when you work impacts your personal, family and spiritual life. Take it serious. Properly think it through and prepare yourself for the interview. If you have any questions over any of the content of this article or need further help in getting ready for your interview, feel free to contact your Qualifind recruiter for whatever additional assistance is needed. We’re here to help you!!!

 

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Don't wait until you are out of the job to plan your next career move.

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