11 ms·

Never put in notice until background checks and all on boarding paperwork is 100% complete. Putting in notice on an offer letter is premature and, unfortunately

Never put in notice until background checks and all on boarding paperwork is 100% complete. Putting in notice on an offer letter is premature and, unfortunately, leads to bad results.

etherealG 4y ago
In France where I work an offer letter is binding to hire. After that if you are fired you are entitled to strong compensation if there is no proof you failed at your job. On top of that there is significant unemployment benefits to support you during looking for a new job for years. This seems like a normal societies way to secure the transition between jobs. I’m thankful I don’t live in any of these crazy places that make changing jobs seem like a severe stress way beyond what it should be.
zinclozenge 4y ago
For clarification, by on boarding paperwork do you mean forms i9 and w4?
300bps 4y ago
I’ve had a career lasting over three decades and counting. Have never gone a day without a job in that time. Part of the reason is because I followed your exact advice. To which I would also add - don’t have a big gap between your last day at your current job and your first day at your next. Simply walking in the door on your first day increases the amount of paperwork they have to file to get rid of you.
- haspok 4y ago
  Why do you belittle yourself so much? Maybe there is more paperwork if they let you go on the first day (but for the HR people it is just doing their job - to do that paperwork!), but I don't think so. It is also very common to have a short (1 week max) notice for the probation period, so they will let you go if there are any issues. The reason why you had a job was most probably not the amount of paperwork they would have had to do had they really wanted to fire you. Maybe you were doing your job right? And what if you are without a job for some time? Unless you are just starting out from nothing, your you depend on a visa, it is not the end of the world... Some people even do it on purpose.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    >Some people even do it on purpose. Yeah, when I took my current job I was more in the vein of "How much time off can I take that you won't mind?" We settled on something like 3 or 4 weeks and I booked a vacation. Sure, stuff can happen. But I try not to be paranoid about what are low probability events at the end of the day that I only have limited control over.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  > Simply walking in the door on your first day increases the amount of paperwork they have to file to get rid of you. How? I have fired an employee for walking in on their first day smelling like cannabis and being high as a kite and it did not it change any “paperwork” I had to do. Everywhere in the US has at will employment, so barring a union agreement, all the employer has to do is document that they no longer want to employ the person anymore.
yebyen 4y ago
How's that supposed to work, when the process dictates that onboarding begins on your start date? If only we could give -10 days notice.
- dilyevsky 4y ago
  > If only we could give -10 days notice Don't let your dreams be dreams!
- AlwaysRock 4y ago
  Then you give -10 days notice. 2 weeks is a nicety and not legally required in the USA. Probably not required in many other places as well. It's unfortunate but I've never had a manager get too upset about it.
  - 93po 4y ago
    Also jobs often/usually fire people with 0 day notice and no severance. I don't know why it's an expectation that employees would give notice without any reciprocation.
    - vikingerik 4y ago
      0 day notice and no severance is unusual, at least for skilled professional jobs in the US. It does happen, but usually only for some unusual circumstance, like some kind of employee misbehavior or a sudden financial calamity for the company. Two weeks notice by the employee or severance by the employer is the most common case on both sides, probably for roughly 80% or so of professional jobs including all of my own. Of course it does suck to be in the outlying 20%, and the anecdotes will trend towards reporting that case, but is the minority. Most actors on both sides behave well, even if there is a substantial minority of problems. (Edit since some replies seem to have the wrong idea - termination effective immediately without notice is common, but usually there is severance pay except in cases of misconduct or disaster.)
      - AlwaysRock 4y ago
xienze 4y ago
In previous jobs I’ve always given notice after receiving an offer. In hindsight, I realize that was pretty dumb, but it was a different time, long ago. Going forward I will absolutely wait until my first day on the new job to give notice to the old one. It’s not fair to either employer, but getting an offer pulled after quitting an existing job scares the hell out of me.
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  > Going forward I will absolutely wait until my first day on the new job to give notice to the old one. So... you'll give -1 days notice? "Hey old boss, you may have noticed I didn't come in today..."
  - mcast 4y ago
    I think OP meant they’ll be moonlighting 2 jobs for 2 weeks.
    - jrochkind1 4y ago
      Ah. I still don't understand how this isn't considered fraud, or people aren't worried about being prosecuted or sued over it. Getting paid to do two "full-time" jobs simultaneously, without them knowing about it. Maybe just confident they won't get caught.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        I think that they might be fired if new employer somehow finds out about it. (Though I doubt anyone would bother suing.) I don't understand all the people counseling getting some incremental protection against a low probability event (offer being withdrawn) when that incremental protection is something you'll probably get away with but better hope no one finds out.
        jrochkind1 4y ago
        Or if the OLD employer finds out about it -- that you were working a new job for two weeks while still taking a paycheck from OLD employer for those two weeks, I can't see them being happy about. but I guess there's little they could do to you, but try to stop payment on your last paycheck. My current (non-profit, academic) employer says in the employee manual that you can't do ANY outside work without disclosing it to them and getting approved -- so I'd be in violation of that policy if found out. At first I was annoyed by this -- why shouldn't I be able to do some consulting on the evenings and weekends without their permission? But as long as the process for approval is quick and easy and they generally approve... I can see how maybe it was actually intended, in a remote work world, to make it clear you are violating their policies if you take a second full time job and imply to both jobs you are on the clock simultaneously!
fuddle 4y ago
Agreed, not until I have a signed employment contract.
- that_guy_iain 4y ago
  You can still run into the same issues. As the blog author. For me, if you're going to be making a move, you've already decided you're making a move. Worrying about the other side withdrawing the offer doesn't worry me that much, especially since in quite a few country there are legal requirements about job offers.
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  It sounds like OP had a signed employment contract. > Thus, the contract with me has been terminated 10 days before it was supposed to take effect. Apparently a contract that allowed no-cause termination. I'm not sure what that contract is good for exactly, but I think this is common in the USA. Whether it's legal in the UK I couldn't say.
  - chippiewill 4y ago
    In the UK you don't get the typical employment rights until after 2 years of employment. Most employment contracts have you on zero-notice until 6 month probation is completed.
    - Arch-TK 4y ago
      > Most employment contracts have you on zero-notice until 6 month probation is completed. No? I've never been on zero months notice. A reduced notice period for probation yes, but never on no notice.
      - mytailorisrich 4y ago
        Always one week notice during probation in my experience. But the point remains that the company can terminate you with very little cause and very little notice when you've just started. So while it is a good idea to wait until at least receiving a signed contract before giving notice to your current job you'll still be at higher risk for some time.
davchana 4y ago
My state job did (& it was normal) all i9 w4 stuff on 1st day of joining.
smolder 4y ago
I'm sure the parent poster recognizes this is good advice in retrospect. It's a good lesson for others to learn vicariously, though.
makingstuffs 4y ago
100% this. Never hand in your notice until you have a contract in your hand. No contract means you’re relying on hopium.
- heyoni 4y ago
  Hopium?
bojangleslover 4y ago
Honestly if either one is remote, just keep them both for a little while
samstave 4y ago
YUP! This happened to me and a good friend of mine who is an Eng Manager at Netflix now... But we both went through a three month long panel interview and I was told I did "very well" on all my interviews and to expect an offer letter in the morning. The next day they called and told me that they wouldnt be making me an offer. The issue was that Brin was still the final sign off... The school that i went to in the early-mid 90s was "Mesmer Animation Labs" in seattle... one of only five animation schools at the time (because of the cost of all the SGIs) It was later bought and merged with UW to basically become the animation dept at UW the year after I graduated... and Mesmer no longer existed... so I put down UW on my resume because there was no Mesmer to confirm that I had gone there any longer... So because I called Mesmer "UW" I got kicked in the financial balls by Brin/Goog as I had opened my mouth any was told I got an offer to my then employer, Lockheed... Yeah - never tell anyone about a verbal offer.
- ghaff 4y ago
  A couple of things there. 1. A Verbal Contract Isn’t Worth the Paper It’s Written On -- attributed to Samuel Goldwyn, the G of MGM. I don't agree with all the advice to work 2 jobs simultaneously but definitely wait for a written offer. No sensible HR person is going to have an issue with that. 2. In the case of acquisitions/mergers/etc. make it crystal clear that you're not trying to claim a school/employer with maybe more cachet/recognition but where you actually went to/worked at is part of someone else now (or defunct) so if they want to confirm past attendance/employment that's where they need to go. I'm not going to say I worked for Dell even though a string of 2 past employers are "Dell" now via a string of acquisitions. (I might say, these employers, now part of Dell Technologies though the companies are well enough known that I could probably skip the Dell reference which is irrelevant other than they'll pay me a pension someday.)
  - samstave 4y ago
    To put icing on the cake, Google recruiters kept calling me for FIVE FUCKING YEARS for the same job... I had to finally tell them I had gone through three months of panel interviews, Ive designed parts of your data centers, video studio and have built every salesforce office in the US at that point, and designed shit for other FAAN companies so give me the damn job or lose my damn number. They stopped calling me for the job after that. (it was for a network PM under Raligh Mann, who was the ILM CIO before he went on to google... after I designed the DC for Lucas' Presidio campus. Also fun fact, I found out Goog was designing their own motherboards at the time - and I happened to see one when visiting a friend on-site, and saw one under his desk and said hey whats this? and he said "uh, you werent supposed to see that - lets go!" - This was before it was public that both Goog and FB were designing their own DC hardware... Some dope engineering though.

Never put in notice until background checks and all on boarding paperwork is 100% complete. Putting in notice on an offer letter is premature and, unfortunately, leads to bad results.

etherealG 4y ago

In France where I work an offer letter is binding to hire. After that if you are fired you are entitled to strong compensation if there is no proof you failed at your job. On top of that there is significant unemployment benefits to support you during looking for a new job for years. This seems like a normal societies way to secure the transition between jobs. I’m thankful I don’t live in any of these crazy places that make changing jobs seem like a severe stress way beyond what it should be.

zinclozenge 4y ago

For clarification, by on boarding paperwork do you mean forms i9 and w4?

300bps 4y ago

I’ve had a career lasting over three decades and counting. Have never gone a day without a job in that time. Part of the reason is because I followed your exact advice. To which I would also add - don’t have a big gap between your last day at your current job and your first day at your next. Simply walking in the door on your first day increases the amount of paperwork they have to file to get rid of you.

haspok 4y ago
Why do you belittle yourself so much? Maybe there is more paperwork if they let you go on the first day (but for the HR people it is just doing their job - to do that paperwork!), but I don't think so. It is also very common to have a short (1 week max) notice for the probation period, so they will let you go if there are any issues. The reason why you had a job was most probably not the amount of paperwork they would have had to do had they really wanted to fire you. Maybe you were doing your job right? And what if you are without a job for some time? Unless you are just starting out from nothing, your you depend on a visa, it is not the end of the world... Some people even do it on purpose.
- ghaff 4y ago
  >Some people even do it on purpose. Yeah, when I took my current job I was more in the vein of "How much time off can I take that you won't mind?" We settled on something like 3 or 4 weeks and I booked a vacation. Sure, stuff can happen. But I try not to be paranoid about what are low probability events at the end of the day that I only have limited control over.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
> Simply walking in the door on your first day increases the amount of paperwork they have to file to get rid of you. How? I have fired an employee for walking in on their first day smelling like cannabis and being high as a kite and it did not it change any “paperwork” I had to do. Everywhere in the US has at will employment, so barring a union agreement, all the employer has to do is document that they no longer want to employ the person anymore.

yebyen 4y ago

How's that supposed to work, when the process dictates that onboarding begins on your start date? If only we could give -10 days notice.

dilyevsky 4y ago
> If only we could give -10 days notice Don't let your dreams be dreams!
AlwaysRock 4y ago
Then you give -10 days notice. 2 weeks is a nicety and not legally required in the USA. Probably not required in many other places as well. It's unfortunate but I've never had a manager get too upset about it.
- 93po 4y ago
  Also jobs often/usually fire people with 0 day notice and no severance. I don't know why it's an expectation that employees would give notice without any reciprocation.
  - vikingerik 4y ago
    0 day notice and no severance is unusual, at least for skilled professional jobs in the US. It does happen, but usually only for some unusual circumstance, like some kind of employee misbehavior or a sudden financial calamity for the company. Two weeks notice by the employee or severance by the employer is the most common case on both sides, probably for roughly 80% or so of professional jobs including all of my own. Of course it does suck to be in the outlying 20%, and the anecdotes will trend towards reporting that case, but is the minority. Most actors on both sides behave well, even if there is a substantial minority of problems. (Edit since some replies seem to have the wrong idea - termination effective immediately without notice is common, but usually there is severance pay except in cases of misconduct or disaster.)
    - AlwaysRock 4y ago

xienze 4y ago

In previous jobs I’ve always given notice after receiving an offer. In hindsight, I realize that was pretty dumb, but it was a different time, long ago. Going forward I will absolutely wait until my first day on the new job to give notice to the old one. It’s not fair to either employer, but getting an offer pulled after quitting an existing job scares the hell out of me.

jrochkind1 4y ago
> Going forward I will absolutely wait until my first day on the new job to give notice to the old one. So... you'll give -1 days notice? "Hey old boss, you may have noticed I didn't come in today..."
- mcast 4y ago
  I think OP meant they’ll be moonlighting 2 jobs for 2 weeks.
  - jrochkind1 4y ago
    Ah. I still don't understand how this isn't considered fraud, or people aren't worried about being prosecuted or sued over it. Getting paid to do two "full-time" jobs simultaneously, without them knowing about it. Maybe just confident they won't get caught.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      I think that they might be fired if new employer somehow finds out about it. (Though I doubt anyone would bother suing.) I don't understand all the people counseling getting some incremental protection against a low probability event (offer being withdrawn) when that incremental protection is something you'll probably get away with but better hope no one finds out.
      - jrochkind1 4y ago
        Or if the OLD employer finds out about it -- that you were working a new job for two weeks while still taking a paycheck from OLD employer for those two weeks, I can't see them being happy about. but I guess there's little they could do to you, but try to stop payment on your last paycheck. My current (non-profit, academic) employer says in the employee manual that you can't do ANY outside work without disclosing it to them and getting approved -- so I'd be in violation of that policy if found out. At first I was annoyed by this -- why shouldn't I be able to do some consulting on the evenings and weekends without their permission? But as long as the process for approval is quick and easy and they generally approve... I can see how maybe it was actually intended, in a remote work world, to make it clear you are violating their policies if you take a second full time job and imply to both jobs you are on the clock simultaneously!

fuddle 4y ago

Agreed, not until I have a signed employment contract.

that_guy_iain 4y ago
You can still run into the same issues. As the blog author. For me, if you're going to be making a move, you've already decided you're making a move. Worrying about the other side withdrawing the offer doesn't worry me that much, especially since in quite a few country there are legal requirements about job offers.
jrochkind1 4y ago
It sounds like OP had a signed employment contract. > Thus, the contract with me has been terminated 10 days before it was supposed to take effect. Apparently a contract that allowed no-cause termination. I'm not sure what that contract is good for exactly, but I think this is common in the USA. Whether it's legal in the UK I couldn't say.
- chippiewill 4y ago
  In the UK you don't get the typical employment rights until after 2 years of employment. Most employment contracts have you on zero-notice until 6 month probation is completed.
  - Arch-TK 4y ago
    > Most employment contracts have you on zero-notice until 6 month probation is completed. No? I've never been on zero months notice. A reduced notice period for probation yes, but never on no notice.
    - mytailorisrich 4y ago
      Always one week notice during probation in my experience. But the point remains that the company can terminate you with very little cause and very little notice when you've just started. So while it is a good idea to wait until at least receiving a signed contract before giving notice to your current job you'll still be at higher risk for some time.

davchana 4y ago

My state job did (& it was normal) all i9 w4 stuff on 1st day of joining.

smolder 4y ago

I'm sure the parent poster recognizes this is good advice in retrospect. It's a good lesson for others to learn vicariously, though.

makingstuffs 4y ago

100% this. Never hand in your notice until you have a contract in your hand. No contract means you’re relying on hopium.

heyoni 4y ago
Hopium?

bojangleslover 4y ago

Honestly if either one is remote, just keep them both for a little while

samstave 4y ago

YUP! This happened to me and a good friend of mine who is an Eng Manager at Netflix now... But we both went through a three month long panel interview and I was told I did "very well" on all my interviews and to expect an offer letter in the morning. The next day they called and told me that they wouldnt be making me an offer. The issue was that Brin was still the final sign off... The school that i went to in the early-mid 90s was "Mesmer Animation Labs" in seattle... one of only five animation schools at the time (because of the cost of all the SGIs) It was later bought and merged with UW to basically become the animation dept at UW the year after I graduated... and Mesmer no longer existed... so I put down UW on my resume because there was no Mesmer to confirm that I had gone there any longer... So because I called Mesmer "UW" I got kicked in the financial balls by Brin/Goog as I had opened my mouth any was told I got an offer to my then employer, Lockheed... Yeah - never tell anyone about a verbal offer.

ghaff 4y ago
A couple of things there. 1. A Verbal Contract Isn’t Worth the Paper It’s Written On -- attributed to Samuel Goldwyn, the G of MGM. I don't agree with all the advice to work 2 jobs simultaneously but definitely wait for a written offer. No sensible HR person is going to have an issue with that. 2. In the case of acquisitions/mergers/etc. make it crystal clear that you're not trying to claim a school/employer with maybe more cachet/recognition but where you actually went to/worked at is part of someone else now (or defunct) so if they want to confirm past attendance/employment that's where they need to go. I'm not going to say I worked for Dell even though a string of 2 past employers are "Dell" now via a string of acquisitions. (I might say, these employers, now part of Dell Technologies though the companies are well enough known that I could probably skip the Dell reference which is irrelevant other than they'll pay me a pension someday.)
- samstave 4y ago
  To put icing on the cake, Google recruiters kept calling me for FIVE FUCKING YEARS for the same job... I had to finally tell them I had gone through three months of panel interviews, Ive designed parts of your data centers, video studio and have built every salesforce office in the US at that point, and designed shit for other FAAN companies so give me the damn job or lose my damn number. They stopped calling me for the job after that. (it was for a network PM under Raligh Mann, who was the ILM CIO before he went on to google... after I designed the DC for Lucas' Presidio campus. Also fun fact, I found out Goog was designing their own motherboards at the time - and I happened to see one when visiting a friend on-site, and saw one under his desk and said hey whats this? and he said "uh, you werent supposed to see that - lets go!" - This was before it was public that both Goog and FB were designing their own DC hardware... Some dope engineering though.