Perry Newman, CPC CSMS read my post titled If you hate your new job, quit now. Perry disagreed with my conclusions. I wanted to provide that counter-point to my point to provide you, the reader, with some additional food for thought:

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Lavie: Parts of what you say has validity but, no offense, in my opinion this is not sound career advice; unless you are talking specifically to young people quitting their first job or at best youngsters in the early stages of their career, or to people who took a job outside their chosen field who need to begin working in their chosen profession.

You are correct, just like many companies put new employees on an official or informal 90 day probationary period to see whether this was a good hire and/or how well they have adapted to the new environment, employees should do the same evaluation of the short and long term value of their new job and new employer.

However people should also follow most company’s next move. Unless a new employee is easy to replace, or the company can temporarily fill in the gap with current staff, or the new hire is so bad they must be axed immediately, most companies will not fire them until a suitable replacement is found.

This is my advice about quitting a job. If you really made up your mind that you hate this new job start to look for a new one ASAP, but do not quit.

You should first test the waters to see how easy or hard it will be to find a new job. In the first 30 days if you’re being called in for many interviews and are turning down job offers you may consider quitting as a viable option. If you are getting some interviews but no offers you may want to quit but be cautious. If you are getting no responses keep looking but keep your mouth shut and try a new job search approach.

Here are my top 5 reasons I disagree with this advice.

* I’ve been given many reasons and don’t fully agree with them, but it seems employers prefer to hire someone who is employed rather than someone who is out of work.

* While a recruiter, business owner and when I was in HR I found it easier to accept why a currently employed employee wanted to leave a job after a short stay then to accept why they left after a short stay without having first found a new position.
* Whereas Lavie is technically correct that if you leave after a few weeks you don’t have to list the job on your resume, many of you may need to list it on a job application if you will be working for a company that does a thorough background check and can fire you for falsification of application. If so having it on the application and not the resume will not be looked upon favorably.
* Lavie’s final hypothesis that “you will be asked regarding the relatively shorter gap on your resume in an interview but you will be given an opportunity to explain” has a limited shelf life. Seeing how the average job time in between jobs in a job search today is 285 days, this only applies in your first 30-60 days out of work and not during the final 225 of an average job search.

* When you quit your job for any most any reason you get no unemployment benefits or COBRA.

Thanks Perry for sharing your thoughts on this important subject. It is now up to the reader to choose the advice that works best for him or her.


-Lavie Margolin Contact me for coaching, resume writing, interview prep., salary negotiation, LinkedIn tutoring, outplacement or to speak at your next event! (914) 525-0965 Laviemarg@lioncubjobsearch.com
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Labels: Career Planning Frustration Stress Career Change
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