Burn your boat, not your bridge

As Recruiter, it is my job to help candidates in their resignations. Over the years, I have had my fair share of candidates leaving on good terms as well as completely burning their bridge with their previous employers.

In this article, I would like to share with you my thoughts on how to handle resignation and departing your current company gracefully.

Your resignation:

Your resignation is just as important as your how you entered the company. When resigning make sure you do the following;

1. Sit down with your manager, preferably F2F and discuss about your departure. Do share your reason for leaving professionally and express an interest to do a proper hand-over.
2. Do not just send a resignation email as it will come off as disrespectful and it might impact your relationship with the people in the organization.
3. When speaking about your reason for leaving, try to do with with respect, professionalism and diplomacy. The last thing that you want to happen is your resignation turns into an argument and playing the victim card or blaming game.
4. Do not be emotional about it, no matter the reason for your departure, leave yourself some dignity and do not allow your emotions to take over you. First impressions matters, so as last.
5. When giving feedback to the company, be sure to provide a constructive feedback and be professional about it.

Your hand-over

1. Document and prepare a proper hand-over with full transparency.
2. Make sure to support your boss and your peers with the proper handover for a seamless transition.
3. Write an email to your clients, vendors or partners that you will be departing from the company and indicate the key person who will be taking on your role temporarily.
4. Say proper good-bye - Resignations are just part of the process and people do come and go. Send a thank you email to everyone that you have worked with and express gratitude for everything that you have learned. If possible, provide any contact information that you colleagues, peers can reach you in the future.

While serving your notice (What's NOT to do)

1. Do not walk around and bad mouth your company, managers or peers while serving notice. These information can spread and it might affect the last impression of people about you. Additionally, bad-mouthing reflects more on you rather than the other person so it doesn't really help you in any way.
2. Just because you have resigned, it doesn't mean that you are not supposed to do your tasks and responsibilities. You are still employed until your last day so be sure to still perform whatever your are required to do or assist in some tasks that you have handed over.

After your leave

1. Burn your boat - Burning your boat means to forget everything that have happened. Move on, move forward with your new employer.
2. Leave the bad things behind and bring the good things forward - Be sure to learn from your experience and never repeat the mistakes that you made in the past. However, remember to bring the good things forward. Good experiences and good memories and learnings.

Something to take note of, when you leave, your current manager will receive a form to fill out. Your manager will be asked a question if you are a "re-hire" or "non-rehire" eligible. This will be documented on your HR files and will be kept there forever. This is the single most important information that your future companies will care about. This will either positively impact your or negatively impact your future job applications.

Overall, resignations doesn't have to be ugly. It is just a normal thing that happens. Like I said, people come and go. But just remember that it is a small world, you might end up working with the same people that you have worked with before.

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