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Leaving Long-Term Job: How?
Rhesus Positive
GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
The Background
My wife and I are planning to move to Yorkshire in September to start a new life - nothing dramatic, but she grew up there and it's cheaper and closer to family. I have worked in the same job for five and a bit years, moving from operations to senior management.
The Problems
My official notice period is five weeks, so I don't need to tell my boss I'm leaving until August (and, obviously, I want to have a job lined up before doing so). However, my annual appraisal is coming up, and I'm in a position where my job role impacts the growth of the company; it's a small company, and I'm sort-of head of a significant chunk of it. I'm not irreplaceable, but I worry about leaving the business in the lurch. Is this pointless sentimentality? Should the first thing my line manager (who is also the MD - like I said, small company) know about it be when I hand in my notice?
The CV
I haven't had to worry about my CV for five years. I went from university to a crappy job for six months, then started here. My thinking is that I mention the crappy job in one line just so there isn't a blank, ignore the two months at Gamestation as Christmas cover, then break down my career at this job more or less on a project basis - say what I did at each job role, and talk about how my responsibilities developed. Does that sound sensible?
This is a scary step for me as I first got this job through a temp agency while having the crappy job to fall back on, and I don't know whether to go that route again (find a temp agency in Yorkshire near where we want to live, get a short-term position, then keep looking until I get a permanent position) or apply directly to jobs.
Any advice would be appreciated. Even writing this down has helped get my thoughts in order.
My wife and I are planning to move to Yorkshire in September to start a new life - nothing dramatic, but she grew up there and it's cheaper and closer to family. I have worked in the same job for five and a bit years, moving from operations to senior management.
The Problems
My official notice period is five weeks, so I don't need to tell my boss I'm leaving until August (and, obviously, I want to have a job lined up before doing so). However, my annual appraisal is coming up, and I'm in a position where my job role impacts the growth of the company; it's a small company, and I'm sort-of head of a significant chunk of it. I'm not irreplaceable, but I worry about leaving the business in the lurch. Is this pointless sentimentality? Should the first thing my line manager (who is also the MD - like I said, small company) know about it be when I hand in my notice?
The CV
I haven't had to worry about my CV for five years. I went from university to a crappy job for six months, then started here. My thinking is that I mention the crappy job in one line just so there isn't a blank, ignore the two months at Gamestation as Christmas cover, then break down my career at this job more or less on a project basis - say what I did at each job role, and talk about how my responsibilities developed. Does that sound sensible?
This is a scary step for me as I first got this job through a temp agency while having the crappy job to fall back on, and I don't know whether to go that route again (find a temp agency in Yorkshire near where we want to live, get a short-term position, then keep looking until I get a permanent position) or apply directly to jobs.
Any advice would be appreciated. Even writing this down has helped get my thoughts in order.
[Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
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Posts
For the CV, your plan sounds perfect. Will your new role care what you did 5 years ago... unlikely. A simple 1 liner of "I worked here, doing this" should be more than sufficient. Breaking down your current role and showing progression within the company is where you want to focus.
So don't tell them until you have a job lined up; if you're that critical, they may not want someone who's not invested in the company to be making decisions. Usually less a concern with executive-type roles.
I'm not sure how a new job lined up changes things unless the move is conditional on his finding a job in Yorkshire. I can understand the case that you only give your required minimum and I can understand the case for giving as much as you feel comfortable with but the new job part doesn't seem to have any impact on either of those.
IIRC he's in the UK so the standard American advice may be a bit more aggressive than required in a country with non-ridiculous employment law. He's also approaching the level where word of mouth about you is important in a given industry so burning the relationship behind you is more of an issue than more interchangeable positions.
I strongly suspect that the best course of action here is strongly influenced by the relationships involved. In a small company they often are. I assume they are fairly well disposed towards you if you're in charge of a large section of things. If you've worked with the guy for five years you should have some idea of how he'd react to a person leaving, a big weighing factor is how that is and how confident you're right about it.
There is always a risk of getting forced out the door, but if your role is as critical as you say and it's questionable that five weeks will be enough time for a transition already, the company won't be able to easily afford pushing you out. I mean, people can be jerks, but it seems you have a good relationship with your current employer and executive level management.
What I would do - and your mileage may vary - is I would broach the subject at my annual review. Not mention anything concrete, just that this is something my wife and I are considering, because family, etc and it may happen in the next year. Then, as soon as I was sure of a timeline, I would give them the actual notice / timeline in advance of the five week deadline.
Alternatively, I wouldn't bring it up until I was putting my notice in. Five weeks is a good amount of time for a transition. Do what you can now to get things wrapped up and tidy, but that should be plenty of time to get someone up to speed with just the standard pains that are going to be part of any change.
Not really - there are some people who telecommute, but it's only one day a week for them and there's a limit to the work they can do on those days.