How to leave a job and make the most of it
It's not as obvious as turning in your resignation and waiting out your notice period
Hello from week two of adult gap yearing! It hasn’t been as monumental as I expected, perhaps because I’m still trying to figure out a new routine (or a lack thereof) and just catching up on a big backlog of life admin. I hope to have more revelations to share in the coming months – for today, you’re getting a little glimpse into my last few weeks of work and how I chose to make the most before leaving!
I think most people have the impression that once you turn in your notice for a job, you just sit back and relax and wait to collect your final paycheck. However, in both instances when I’ve left a job, I’ve found the final few weeks to be super valuable for my own professional development. I don’t think nearly enough people lean into this opportunity, perhaps because they’re overwhelmed by the time they leave a job and just ready to go, or perhaps because we don’t really talk about exit strategies when we discuss professional development.
Before I jump in, I want to emphasize the guiding principle here.
This is a piece of advice I got from a mentor of mine: Never burn bridges on the way out of a job. You never know when you may cross paths again, whether it’s in a client/service provider relationship or having a future boss in the same network/circles as your former boss, just to name a few possibilities.
Of course, there are some obvious tasks, such as wrapping up and documenting/handing over projects to others.
Align with your manager and make sure that you’re both on the same page when it comes to where various projects and responsibilities are being distributed. In cases where you have someone backfilling your role entirely, handover is a lot simpler; if your role is being split up across a number of people, communicate this plan extensively with the rest of your team, so no one is caught off guard. Additionally, this way everyone’s respective managers are also in the know about how their teams’ scopes may be increasing.
The next area I focused on was my more distant contacts.
In both jobs, I’ve built a lot of relationships with people both on my team and beyond, whether internal or external. I made sure to reach out to contacts beyond my direct team with whom I wanted to keep in touch. I sent a note and asked for time to catch up live in advance of my last day. Then I used that opportunity to share my personal contact information, give an update on what I’m doing next, and also to thank them for having been a part of my journey. In those conversations, if applicable, I also made sure to let them know the best point of contact for anything we’d worked on together. In certain cases, I provided some context on their future point of contact and my advice on how to best work together.
Finally, the last area of investment, which I found most fulfilling, was setting up 1:1s with all of my direct team members.
I used these 1:1s to do two things: to give and to receive feedback. Of course, if your team is very large, this may not be realistic. It’ll be up to you to define who counts as part of your direct team and who you do or don’t need time with. In my situation, since I was leaving a small startup, I made sure to do this with everyone on the team.
On giving feedback:
I often take notes on feedback for others when we work together and don’t always have a chance to share that feedback on an ongoing basis. Sometimes, I also jot down feedback with notes like “not sure if applicable” or “not sure if they’ve already been told this” and then I hold back from sharing it.
In my last few weeks, I decided that there was no time like the present and dove headfirst into my feedback notes. In advance of my 1:1s, I asked the other person for permission to share some feedback with them. In all cases, people were open and excited to hear what I had to share. For any teammates who weren’t in my reporting chain, I caveated the feedback consistently: If your manager disagrees or says something contradictory, then go with that instead of what I’m sharing.
It was very fulfilling to be able to share both positive and constructive feedback with others. For certain teammates whose reporting chains didn’t intersect with mine, I also passed on the feedback I had to their managers, as I wouldn’t be at the company the next time they collected 360 feedback.
Also, to be clear, the feedback I shared didn’t just go towards people who were more junior than me – I also used this as an opportunity to provide upwards feedback for my manager and lateral feedback for my peers.
On receiving feedback:
I was particularly excited about this. I received feedback pretty routinely from my manager but didn’t have as many opportunities other than 360 feedback to hear from others. Even then, the feedback was very work-centric. I wanted to take advantage of being in my last few weeks of work to get the most raw, unsolicited feedback I could possibly extract from those around me.
I sent each person a message along these lines a few days before our 1:1s:
For our final 1:1, I’d love your raw and unfiltered thoughts on:
My biggest strengths and weaknesses
If you were me, what job would you pursue next?
What do you think will be the thing that sets me apart the most from others?
Where do you think I’m going to get the most tripped up going forward?
Any other unsolicited advice you’ve ever wanted to give me
Thank you in advance!
In the conversations that ensued, I got tons of advice, wisdom, and perspective. I particularly enjoyed doing this with a range of my teammates, from those I worked very closely alongside to those with whom I worked a lot less directly. In addition, the people I spoke with had a range of backgrounds and experiences, so they were able to provide lots of food for thought.
I would encourage anyone who’s excited to tackle a similar exercise to think a lot about the prompts for the conversation. In my case, I wanted to hear about roles or jobs they’d see me doing well and things that would trip me up outside of the TestBox context, as those were the questions at the top of my mind. In other scenarios and job switches, I could imagine asking questions that are more focused on working style or specific skills to focus on developing or how to onboard best into a new role.
Tl;dr
All in all, it’s a real privilege to have time to ramp down at a role. Beyond just making sure you hand over your responsibilities well, there’s a lot of opportunity to connect with people, give and receive feedback, and set yourself up for success going forward. Knowing that someone won’t be your coworker anymore can lend itself to really productive conversations and opportunities to go deeper than you may have before.