( sursa:
http://geeketiquette.infotrope.net/archives/2005/02/08/how-to-quit/ )
An anonymous correspondent writes:
I may need to resign my current position soon; I’m employed as a web developer by a rather shall we say parsimonious firm and have good prospects for an offer at better pay from a different firm. As I am planning my exit, I’m realizing I’ve never needed to write a resignation letter before. I have no idea how to quit; having cut my software teeth during the boom-bust 90s, I’ve only ever been laid off.
That said, I need to know what to do when quitting time arrives; do I have to offer a reason for leaving? How do I do this in such a way that I still get a good reference? Clearly, more than manners might be involved in securing a good reference, but what are the etiquette ducks that have to be kept in a row? And what goes into a good resignation letter, anyway?
How very timely. I’ve recently quit my own job, so I’ve had to consider these questions myself.
I got my advice for my resignation letter from Ask the Headhunter. In short, keep it short. Since it will go on record, you want to say the bare minimum to get your message across. Print two copies out in hard copy, sign them both, keep one and give the other to your direct manager. Your manager will then pass it on to Human Resources, assuming your company has such a department.
Here’s an acceptable very short resignation letter:
$YOUR_FULL_POSTAL_ADDRESS
$DATE
To whom it may concern,
I hereby resign my position as $JOB_TITLE at $COMPANY_NAME, effective immediately.
Yours sincerely,
$YOUR_SIGNATURE
$YOUR_NAME
(”To whom it may concern” means that it can be handed to your supervisor, the big boss, or HR, and still apply to them. You can optionally address it directly to your manager, if you think that’s more suitable in your particular case.)
If you are required to give notice in advance of leaving, you may wish to write:
I hereby give $N weeks’ notice of my intent to resign my position as $JOB_TITLE at $COMPANY_NAME.
You are not required to give any reasons for quitting, and I advise against doing so on paper if you can help it. In particular, writing a “fuck you” letter outlining all your frustrations with your job may be cathartic but is not necessarily helpful for your future job prospects.1
However, many workplaces conduct exit interviews in order to understand why you’re leaving and to wrap up any business or paperwork that needs attention, and you may find that they expect you to give your reasons for leaving at that interview. Even if there is no formal exit interview process, your boss may want to talk to you informally about the subject.
In these cases, you need to weigh up any possible offence you may cause against your need for a glowing reference.
If you are leaving for reasons which do not reflect specifically on the management of the company, or on your boss personally, then by all means share those reasons. Examples include:
An offer of more money than you could possibly refuse
Need to move for family reasons, further education, etc
Desire to travel
If your reasons for leaving reflect negatively on the company, the management, or your co-workers, you will need to be more diplomatic. Examples:
Unreasonable workload or deadlines
Hostile work environment
Lack of recognition of your skills and achievements
Lack of training or scope for career progression
The question here is, what possible benefit is there to telling them about their flaws, and what risks are you taking to do so? If you think that the company (or your co-workers, whose welfare is probably closer to your own heart) would benefit from knowing, and you want to give them that benefit, then by all means tell them. If you think management will take it badly enough to refuse to give you a reference, or to penalise you in some other way, then weigh that risk against the benefits.
When pointing out the company’s flaws, try to speak as diplomatically as possible. Keep your voice calm, your language couth, and don’t make ad hominem attacks. Offer suggestions for how things could be improved, rather than simply telling them what’s wrong; if they couldn’t see what was wrong for themselves before you quit, what makes you think they’ll know how to fix it as soon as it’s pointed out to them?
If you don’t want to tell them what they did wrong, remember that you can always maintain a stubborn silence or, indeed, tell relatively innocuous white lies in the cause of politeness. Examples:
“Personal reasons; I prefer not to discuss it.”
“The new job was just too good to refuse.”
“I felt that this was the right direction for my personal growth.”
One final note: you don’t necessarily need to get a reference from every job you’ve been at, and you particularly don’t need that reference to be from management. It is valid to give a colleague or subordinate’s contact details as a reference, though I would suggest that you don’t want to have more than one of these on your resume. As long as you don’t piss them off enough that they’ll want to actively go out and badmouth you across the industry, you should be fine.
Note 1: The letter I’ve linked is a classic of its genre and a great read. It was also written in 1998, when any of us could walk out of one job and into a higher paying one, no matter what communication devices we had advised our employers to insert into their nether orifices. This is no longer the case, and your humble correspondent feels that it would be inadvisable — as well as impolite — to write this kind of letter.
agregate