quitting while ahead

Have any of u guys ever quit a job - without another to go to??
I am toying with the idea. I will probably get some possible jobs before I work my 1 month notice..but does it count against you when you are trying to justify your career to the next boss??

 

hmmm depends why, usually, yes it does count against you big style. Petty I know, but that's the way it is. Its viewed as no staying power, committment, and all that crapola.

Only way to do it is for a good reason...home to look after kids, start a new business of your own, which doesn't work out , or travel the world/do a dream.

If you can't come up with a valid reason, they will usually look down on you.

 

yes i told an ex manager to stick the job up his arse if that was his attitude,i'd had enough of the 9-5 bullshit , it hasnt affected my employment chances yet

 

imo,its preferable to stay in work until you get another job,the next employer may be suspicious.You also need to gaurantee your reference,most employers will offer jobs subject to satisfactory references.

 

Oh yes! I quit my first job in the chemical industry in 1984 without any firm plan of what to do next. Ended up doing a TOPS course in programming and systems analysis and never looked back.

I also quit a job in 1994 and took 9 months off just pleasing myself (I am so looking forward to retirement ). Got another job quite easily - and a good one at that.

I quit that one in 1996 and skipped to the caribbean for a few months to write a computer system for a friend's business out there. Again got a good job shortly after returning.

I don't believe most of what I read about ageism in the computer industry. Good people are always in demand regardless of age.

I will almost certainly quit my current job without having another lined up. That's a little way off yet though.

The key is to know what you can do and believe in yourself.

 

Not sure. When I've gone through application forms I've always viewed with a little suspicion those who have given up good jobs for what seems to odd reasons. Certainly in my field (education) a complete employment record is desirable. It comes down to looking for team players I guess.

 

When I sift through job applications, one of the first things I look for are gaps in employment or frequent changes of jobs. This would not stop me interviewing someone, but the application would have to include a very good explanation. I would also be more inclined to ask for references going back more than the usual two or three previous jobs.

The other thing to consider is your credit rating. Lenders like to see a good employment history.

Rod

 

No employer of mine has ever asked me for a reference..

Once I had a year out, and I just did some charity work (it was because I'd just graduated and couldnt get a good job). Because I was keeping myself busy, it didnt detract I dont think..

 

Cheers all, some very relevant advice. FWIW I agree with all of you[....?].
Please keep up the advice, I might need to bail myself out at some point. BTW, why does an employer have access/interest in your credit rating, Rodrat?? [edit: I now re-read your post re credit..don't worry, I couldnt give a stuff about the never never. Hopefully I won't be looking for work in St Albans either. I guess if you can't get work near London, there probably IS something wrong with u!]
Anyhow, I finish on Friday 13th Aug..the day before Isaacs bash.

cheers,

Graham

 

I'm also potenially toying with the idea...
the company I work for (IT outsourcing) has lost a big contract that I'm working on, now I have 3 options -
to work with the new su[pplier (but its down in Swindon...),
relocate within the company - many options there..?
or take redundancy and look for a new job...now, this would mean about 6k in my pocket...it's very tempting like, but Ideally I would like to have a month off then to walk into a new job...
I think I'cve got a few months to wait tho

 

Start testing the waters now. Go for some interviews if you can get them. IT'S ALL USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. The jobsearch market is total bollox [at least outside IT] and there are trillions of IT guys about. Me? I've got various aspirations. As long as I'm not selling, or at a desk all day.

 

That's the one thing I hate most about my job

 

Hey Mr Cat,

It's not an IT outsourcing company with 3 letters and the first and last are the same is it ?

If it is it's the same one that I work for.

 

nah, its e*s ...!!!

and the account that we lost - it was the NHS e-mail system... 1.2 million users, but it was at my level (support), or management, or even company level - it was much higher...all down to politics....sigh...the NHS are gonna just keep spending their IT budget until its all gone, and nothing accomplished....they're just a bunch of clowns.

but the new supplier - cable and wireless reckon they can supply a complete new solution in 60 days (90 if you include weekends) without using any of our existing system , except for an LDIF export (of user details) and some connector info...but I guess the infrastructure is now in place...

I remember watching a tv program - must have been about 10 years ago on how the NHS were going to utilise computers, some NHSIA (IA = information authority) bloke said that they wanted to eventually replace doctors and nurses with computers - asked how this was going to be done, he didn't have a clue but just thought that they could some how...

 

As others have said, if you have a valid reason for taking a break in your career or work history then there's no problem. Valid reason are usual to look after your family or health reasons. Also, if you have a past history of doing a lot of freelance work which happens a lot in the IT industry with long breaks in-between then that is usually acceptable to a perspective employer. I knew a guy at a place I use to work who'd spend 6 months of the year doing a freelance assignment and then just spend the other 6 months off work doing as he pleased before getting another assignment 6 months later, although I don't think that that sort of lifestyle would be viable any longer seeing as the bottom seem to have fallen out of the IT freelancers market, most employers seem to be going back to wanting permanent staff.

Having said that, employers seem to be looking out for staff who they judge at the interview stage are willing to staying them for the long term, yet the amount of job insecurity and the concept of a "job for life" have all but been eroded away in today's society. Having been made redundant twice make me all the more cynical. Employers can't have it both ways. I certainly don't walk into a job these days and expect to still be there 2 to 3 years down the line, in fact I have never experienced being with the same employer for more than 3 years.

 

From the FT: Think twice about giving up the day job

Hot of the press from the Thursday FT, might be worth a quick look.


Auric

APPOINTMENTS: Think twice about giving up the day job
By Kevin Done
Financial Times; Jul 22, 2004

We all know that the way we work is changing but it is difficult to assess the strength or the direction of change. Equally, we can be seduced by images of change that portray a future of work quite unlike our existing experience.

I became so attracted to the vision of portfolio careers, promoted by the management writer Charles Handy, that two-and-a-half years ago I stepped out of salaried work into the uncertain world of the self-employed.

The experience has been a happy one so far. But I would hesitate about recommending it for everyone, not because of the usual worries about social isolation - I enjoy working from home - but because of the inefficiencies in this type of work that keep you away from the job you do best.

Working for an employer meant that I could concentrate on research and writing - the essence of a news reporter's job. Today I must invest time in marketing, sales, negotiating, networking, presenting and administration. This is fine. I always preferred to lick my own stamps anyway. But writing - still my chief source of income - has become a luxury that I struggle to make time for among all the other stuff.

A new book* on the changing workplace has reinforced my belief that most of us should stick to our day jobs. Written by four leading employment experts, it is an impressive and comprehensive analysis of the forces of workplace change in Britain.

Instead of engaging in populist futurology, the authors ground their observations in a 2002 survey of employment practices among 2,000 private and public sector workplaces ranging in size between five and 7,500 employees.

The impact of the research is not so much in the practices it reveals - all of them are widely recognised - but the degree to which companies have been changing their employment policies.

"The picture from the survey is one of tumultuous change," say the authors. "The great majority of workplaces have engaged in new forms of recruitment, have added to flexibility, [and] have made a multiplicity of advances in their human resource development or people practices."

The book identifies four pervasive trends underpinning the transformation of employment policies: broadening competition, the rise of "knowledge work", a sharper focus on the management of people and external regulation.

It also sheds new light on the nature of flexible working practices, making a distinction between "bought-in" flexibility to substitute for permanent jobs and what it calls "intelligent flexibility". This involves training, multi-skilling and varying work experience to equip internal employees with transferable skills that can be used in different parts of an organisation.

Evidence from the survey, say the authors, suggests that the use of temporary and contract labour, now entrenched across the labour market, may be "running out of steam". I would question the weight given to this observation since more employers than not were expecting to increase their use of temporary, contract and outsourced work in the three-year period covered.

Even so, the distinction between two different types of flexibility is worth making as a counter to populist beliefs that long-term career paths will disappear from the labour market. In fact the evidence points to a continuing determination among employers to retain long-term career prospects for their best staff.

The offer of long-term prospects, the authors argue, is an effective way of retaining good staff who might otherwise be lured away by recruiters skilled at identifying talent in competitor companies.

The research is set against broad economic change in which manufacturing has given way to services as the dominant source of employment in the UK within a single generation. In the same period, manual work has shrunk from providing the majority of jobs to representing less than one job in three while managerial and professional jobs have increased their share of the market to 40 per cent.

Another influential change in the latter half of the 20th century has been a big increase in the proportion of jobs held by women, up from one-third to almost a half of all jobs today. The book also notes the decline in trade union influence. In 1980, seven in 10 employees had their pay set by collective bargaining. In 1998 the proportion was down to four in 10, mostly in the public sector. No wonder employees are becoming increasingly individualist in their approach to their careers. Old-style collectivism is on the retreat across society.

One of the most telling collection of statistics presented in the book is a table of selected changes in employment practices (in the three years to the survey date) that reveal broad-based change. Training people to cover other jobs, job rotation, the expectation of staff to fill varying roles, and team working have all shown a marked increase. The same is true for individual performance assessment and the use of group-based incentives.

Although a significant number of companies among those surveyed were continuing to reduce the number of management grades and the proportion of managers to employees during this period, a far larger number were recording increases in both these areas, indicating a reversal of the trend towards "de-layering" of management grades.

The research, however, should not be interpreted as a sign that employers are returning to traditional employment practices. It found that companies were experimenting increasingly with "hot-desking", teleworking and home working.

The most comforting finding for people who want to retain permanent jobs, however, must be the evidence suggesting that long-term careers remain a necessary feature of organisational strength. "Employees and managers have come through troubling years of insecurity in the early 90s. Relative to that experience, the current trends are much improved. Flexibility is turning intelligent, careers are back, knowledge and know-how are valued, recruitment barriers are lowered," say the authors.

But they do include caveats. Employers, they note, have yet to find ways of easing the burden of increasingly longer office hours keeping people away from their domestic responsibilities.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of this research is that it should be regarded as surprising. Viewed separately the trends reflect what might be expected. Viewed together, however, with some convincing interpretation added, the findings portray a remarkable transformation in the British workplace. As the authors remind us: "Despite all the uncertainties and shortcomings, British workplaces are managing to change."

*Managing to Change? British Workplaces and the Future of Work, by Michael White, Stephen Hill, Colin Mills and Deborah Smeaton, is published by Palgrave Macmillan, price £50, as part of the Economic & Social Research Council's Future of Work Series www.richarddonkin.com
© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd

 

And did your right hand recover yet?

 

:lol: Naughty man! How rude

That did occur to me after I wrote it but I couldn't be bothered to change it

Back on topic, it's amazing how much your life can change in just one week. Previously I was bored and tired of my job. I wanted out. I needed a change from the daily same old. Then I met someone new and something called 'chemistry' seems to have occurred. My outlook has completely changed. Now I have someone to share my life with again, I am no longer bothered by whatever the job throws at me. I now have so many other possibilities beyond work occupying my thoughts that I no longer have time to dwell on whether work is interesting or not. I just get on with it.

My point is, if you feel you are tired of your career, try taking a step back and looking beyond the office (or whatever) before you blame your job for all that ails you. The cause of your boredom may actually lie elsewhere.

 

Sorry, couldn't resist. I'm surprised other posters have shown so much restraint.

 

And congrats on your 1,000th post!