Tag Archives: quit

How fast can you find a new job and get your career back on track?

steam engine crashed out of a building

Getting your career back on track? It depends on where you are right now.

How fast can you find a new job?  Let’s talk about the Beatles.  They were an overnight sensation….except for the years they spent playing clubs in Germany and England.  Years lost to the world.

I bet you know a guy who quit and had a new job a week later.  He wasn’t even looking when he quit.  He told you so, and he wouldn’t exaggerate.  So how long will it take you to get a new job? No one knows.

The best way to find a job (It actually speeds things up)

The best thing to do is keep your current job and start looking.  Use your network.  The first thing to ask them is not, “Find me a job,” but, “How’s the job market?”  Get the people you know to tell you how long it took for their acquaintances to find a job.  This will tell your network to keep their eyes open.

Be careful how widely you let it be known you are looking for a job.  If you are employed, use your network, recruiters and respond to ads.  LinkedIn, Indeed, Monster, CareerBuilder, and others are great places to put your resume. You have to understand that you will be getting calls for a year or two if you put your resume on the internet.

How long will it take?

Executives often look a month for every $10,000 in income they want.  If they are earning $120,000 then they may search for a year.  Technical experts are often either hired within days of their search beginning, or they take 12 months and then get 3 job offers at once.  Why?  They may have critical skills, but there is no job until someone else quits or a project starts. Then openings pop up as a mass of people all change jobs at once.

Your job search will be over much more quickly if you will commute a long distance or relocate.

The modern steam locomotive can cross the plains at the lightning speed of 15 mile per hour.  The only thing faster is a telegraph. (circa 1870)

Let’s get serious about money.  Are you overpaid?  Do you have golden handcuffs that will keep you from leaving?  Then you may never find another job without taking a pay cut.  If you are underpaid, you’ll get a new job quickly.  That’s just a fact.

How fast will you get a new job?  No one knows.  So it is probably best to start looking while you are still employed.

Again, here is the first step to finding out how fast you can find a job.

Don’t just ask your network to help you find a job.  Ask people how long it took for folks they know to find a job.  Search for stories of quick searches and also ask for horror stories.

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Next:      Daydream

Audible

Down by 20 at halftime

Feel the fear, and¼

Signs you will be laid off or fired

How to resign your job – part 2

The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn. (Russell)

bridge-512086_640-pixabay“Take this job and shove it” – can really hurt YOU

Every week I hear, “I know that candidate from a previous job.  I wouldn’t touch him with a ten foot pole. He was not a team player.”

Sometimes that comes from the way the person left a previous team.  Often the comment arises from an incident a decade or more before the comment.  Someone burned bridges as they left a job.  They were rude, bitter, destructive or insufferable.

Your boss may be getting ready to quit too.  He could be your new boss again at your next job, or in 10 years.  A current teammate may be on your future interview team. Leaving in a professional manner makes it possible to work together with members from your old team in the future.

Professionals leave relationships intact.  I have heard it put: “Be wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove.”  Don’t let people take advantage of you, and don’t purposely hurt anyone.

We are back to the right way to quit.  Hand your boss a simple letter that states:

“I have appreciated the opportunity to work for XYZ company.  I am resigning with my last day of work on -date-.”

Then keep your mouth shut.  Say only positive things.  Never brag about where you are going.  Cooperate with your boss and coworkers.  Avoid all questions about where you are going geographically or with which company.

Be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove.

Something To Do Today

Have you got a network list?  People who you are actively cultivating to help your career should be in that network. How many of them would like to work for the same type of company you find ideal?  Count it up.  Really.  Count it up.  Doesn’t it make sense to have them as future allies?

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Tomorrow:     A successful email

Later:              The guy who invented running died

I make the milk every morning, my wife will keep me

Propagating blueberries guerilla style

Great ideas are a dime a dozen

What is the best day to quit?

30 seconds before I wrote this, I checked my voicemail.  A friend said, “I’m driving in to quit today.  There are a lot of reasons to quit today.  I know you said not to quit last Friday, but there it is.”

Smart woman!  She quit when it was to her advantage.  I suspect she will get an extra month of health insurance because of the day she quit.  That is good planning.

The best day to quit is when it is best for you. Can you get an extra month of health insurance, a bonus, or an extra weeks pay for unused vacation time if you stay a few more days?

I usually recommend you quit as soon as you accept a job offer and everything is settled.  There is no reason to wait unless you can get some free benefits or a bonus by waiting until the first or 15th of the month.

Something to do today

Secret spy time.  Find out when your health benefits stop if you quit. Be careful you don’t get fired for asking.

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“People shopping less” affects your job search

Top 4 reasons people quit

From actual surveys, not from the top of some recruiters brain.  Here are the top reasons people quit.

I just quit and my old boss wants me back

Counteroffer!  You quit and your old boss wants you to stay.  They’ll pay way more than your new job.  You’ll get an office instead of a cubicle.  The actual President came to ask you to stay.  It just makes sense to stay, right?

Don’t do it.  Sever a snakes head with one blow and it dies.  Slowly cut off the tip of its tail and it will turn and bite you.

This is a “Fear Factor” moment. You’ve been eating cockroach puree for years.  Now they want to give you a 20% raise and an office.  Will that make the cockroach puree taste better?

In the last month we have seen two people, who stayed because of fabulous counteroffers, soon leave their old company. We are talking amazing counteroffers:  raises, promotions, new responsibilities, respect.

They quit again, even for lower pay.  The reason is that the old company didn’t really change.  The opportunities didn’t really change.  Their bosses treated them nicely only under blackmail.

Yes, I just wrote about how to “blackmail” your boss without quitting.  What I really wrote was “How to ask for a raise or promotion.”  If you are seriously underpaid or under appreciated and they won’t change, don’t go back to them if they promise to do what is right only when someone else wants to hire you away.

90% of people who take a counteroffer are looking for a new job in 6 months.  The rate approaches 100% after a year.  That’s because counteroffers are forced.  Your old boss feels betrayed.  He needs you for one more quarter and is looking hard for your replacement. You just gave up a great opportunity and he only wants to replace you without a disruption.  Who wins?  Not you!

I must admit, I see some counteroffers and say, “How can they refuse to stay?”  Inevitably that person is soon gone. Why? Their job was so bad that it took a huge bribe to get them to stay.  The size of the bribe indicates the true foulness of the position.

Think about it. If you are offered a huge reward to stay, you were robbed for the previous year.  Will they also offer a year’s back pay as an immediate bonus?  If they do, how about for the year before that?  How guilty is their conscience?

Don’t accept a counteroffer.  The chances are less than 1 in 30 that it will work out.  No matter how much they pay you, a cockroach milkshake is still a cockroach milkshake.

Something To Do Today

Ask your boss for a raise or promotion if that is what would keep you there.  If they don’t give it to you freely, don’t accept it as the fruits of blackmail.

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Next:     Quit or be fired?

How to read a book or magazine (you don’t have to finish)

Coyote traps – when to gnaw your arm off

Some mornings it just doesn’t seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps. (Phillips)

Coyotes stuck in a trap have been known to gnaw their foot off to escape.  A lot of these three footed coyotes survive for years and do very well. Okay, they do well compared to coyotes that were killed by the trapper.

Scared to leave your job? Nasty non compete?  Family responsibilities?  Too comfortable?

Are you really going to stay in that job until you retire no matter how you are treated?

If the company starts losing money is the president going to fire himself, or fire YOU?

Do you have to shoot your boss to get a promotion?

Don’t leave just because you can.  If your job is fulfilling, pays well and gives you a chance to progress to where YOU want to go in your career, STAY.  If you have a history of job skipping, stay awhile even if you don’t like it there.  There are good reasons to stay in your current job.  Fear is not a good reason.

Yesterday I wrote about non competes.  If you are concerned about yours, talk to a lawyer who specializes in employment law.  Many non competes are not enforceable. That means they are legally unfair or immoral.  You are not morally obligated to do something immoral.  It does not make sense to feel obligated to do what is not legal to expect of you.

If you have a valid non compete, consider doing whatever you have to do to get out of it.  One good way is to go to your boss and say, “I want a new contract with a more limited non compete.”  Don’t threaten to quit, just ask him to reasonably limit the non compete.  If he says, “No,” you can always start looking for a job.  If he fires you for asking, check with your lawyer.  He may have just voided the non compete.  And last of all, he may realize you are upset and give you a raise or a promotion.

Even if you have to quit and commute 3 hours a day, it is better to quit now rather than later. Do you really think that in 3 years or 10 years you will have LESS obligations and lower expenses than you do now?  Slavery is illegal.  Don’t allow yourself to be a slave.

Don’t let fear paralyze you. Carpe diem. Seize the day.  Carpe jugulum. Grab the day by the throat and make life give you what you deserve.  You CAN change your life.

Something To Do Today

Like your job?  Tell your boss.

Want to leave?  Figure out how.  Don’t be chained to a life of low expectations.