How to quit a job with dignity (even if you don’t want to)

As much as we don’t like to admit it, everything in our life has an expiration date. The best of relationships can fizzle out one day, the place we live in can lose its sheen, and every job we work in eventually has an end date.

Like most people, I’ve had good and bad experiences with leaving jobs. Some of them I’ve just wanted to finish on the final day and pretend like it never happened, and others involved detangling myself after many years in the same company.

An exit interview can be a useful way for both you and the company to reflect on your employment.

Coming to terms with leaving a job can be difficult, but it doesn’t have to be. Studies show that most of us will have around 12 different jobs in our working lives, with that number increasing with each younger generation.

That means we’re going to do this over a dozen times on average, so how can we get better at ending a job with dignity and respect? Well, there are four things you can do to ensure you’re a great leaver.

Time it well

Every employment contract you sign has a minimum number of weeks (or sometimes months if you’re senior) that you need to inform a business you’re moving on.

Of course, you’re perfectly within your rights to give just the minimum amount of notice and not a day more, however if you’re able to give more time than your contract, it’s almost always appreciated by your employer.

This gives both sides additional weeks to look for and hire a replacement, train them up to replace you and usually results in leaving a business on better terms than just rushing out the door on the quickest possible date.

Leave a guidebook

Once you’ve informed your boss, and colleagues, that your time is up, the best thing you can do to ensure a smooth transition is create a solid handover document. This should detail exactly how to do your job, and where everything you’re responsible for is currently at.

An exit interview is not just an opportunity to list all the negative things you hate about your job and co-workers.

I like to think about this from the other side. The first few weeks of any new job are an overwhelming blur where you’re attempting to drink from a firehouse of information.

Imagine if the person before you had left a manual on every little detail you needed to know about it. That should be the type of guidebook you aspire to leave behind, getting everything out of your head while it’s still fresh. Creating a successful handover is one of the things that separates average from excellent leavers.

Reverse interview

We all have to sit through job interviews before we start in a new role, but you should also ensure you close the loop with an exit interview at the other end. Many companies do this as part of their usual process, but you should ask for one if yours doesn’t.

An exit interview is not just an opportunity to list all the negative things you hate about your job and co-workers that you’ve been holding on to for years, it’s a chance to give honest, constructive and valuable feedback.

Use the time to explain what you liked about your job, and any areas for improvement. Don’t just use it to emotionally unload on your way out the door, an exit interview is an underused way to help improve a workplace for future employees.

Stay connected

The final way to leave a job well is all about what happens after you’re gone. When you leave a company, you should try to maintain connections with colleagues and the work they do.

Every industry is smaller than you think, and you will inevitably cross paths with them again at industry events and in future roles. Some of the best humans in my life are former colleagues who became friends long after our work email addresses changed.

Learning how to leave a job well is an underrated skill that you can use over and over in your career. The more we can normalise the process of leaving, the more we’re able to turn it from a potentially negative into a surprisingly positive experience for everyone involved.

Tim Duggan is the author of Work Backwards: The Revolutionary Method to Work Smarter and Live Better. He writes a regular newsletter at timduggan.substack.com

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