Hacker News Reader

Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

I’ve both told bosses and been the boss who has been told by my direct report that they’re interviewing. Not all of those cases ended up in someone changing jobs, but some did. I’ve given relevant advice to my directs who were considering changing roles.

Sometimes someone up and quits without saying anything (and that’s their right), but I think it’s more productive if we can have a real conversation about the situation and maybe we can change something or maybe we can’t.

The very worst that I’ve done knowing someone was looking was not putting them onto a long project that would require substantial personal commitment to accomplish if I knew they were looking. Otherwise, no impact (and even there it made their departure easier on both sides).

View on HN

This is why I told my manager I was going to leave the team; it was time to kick off the vision for and start executing on a new project, and telling my manager I wasn't the right person to own that seemed like the right call. It worked out well, but I was very privileged to have a really good manager.

The problem I have with disclosing this information is that the benefit is all one-sided and the risk is all on the employee.

I think at most I would be extremely vague about declining a project like that.

It benefited me in the short term by allowing me to conduct my job search without having to continually make excuses for things I was doing, and by giving me time to work on leaving my team in good hands it had the long term benefit of leaving me on good terms with my team and manager who may work with me again in the future.

But I see this as very context specific. I was confident that this would work out well in this case, but can easily imagine situations where it would not. I don't mean this as universal advice at all.

How does telling your boss you are interviewing help? What does each party gain? The “very worst you’ve done” is not put someone on a long term project. That is detrimental to your direct report’s career if they decide to stay. No one wins.

As someone who's had a direct discuss this with me, it put a fire under my ass to apply pressure at higher levels to address to reasons they're looking elsewhere. Pay, responsibility, lack of opportunity for upward mobility. I was able to provide assurances that a raise/promotion was likely during the next evaluation and even openly discussed my professional rating of them (including stratification) when I submitted for end of fiscal year.

Obviously this varies, but if you have a good relationship with your manager, this can be a huge benefit down the line. That person can be part of your professional network, and may possibly reach out to you several years down the line with a new position at the new company they work for. Leaving right after a large project has been assigned to you does have a negative impact on your manager and current team, so it may be beneficial to let them know early.

People change positions fast in this industry, so keeping on good terms with coworkers you respect can be good later when they have moved on and are looking to hire.

> Sometimes someone up and quits without saying anything (and that’s their right), but I think it’s more productive if we can have a real conversation about the situation and maybe we can change something or maybe we can’t.

Those conversations should have started way before the person even started looking.

Yes. Exactly.

I mean, I agree, but to be fair I had a positive experience once by letting my employer know when I had already started interviewing elsewhere (really just giving them a heads up that I was planning on leaving within the next 6 months) and to my surprise they were more than happy to match the salary and make changes (for example going fully remote) to accomodate me. I'm still there nearly 3 years later.

Really depends on the employer and on how much they want to keep you and how willing you are to stay there.

The problem I have with this is that all the upsides of having that conversation go to the employer.

I’ve been through too many layoffs as participant and spectator to have any concern for the difficulty of transitions. Here we are encouraging employees to plan out their departure months in advance, but my employer has no problem sending out “if you got this email you aren’t fired” bulk emails. My two week notice is generous in comparison, and I can guarantee that the transition sure won’t be difficult on my end.

And while our EMs are surely nice people, they have no power to enact real change in the majority of organizations. They have no say over budget, headcount, and often their cries about misguided priorities are ignored.

In other words, if your VP and Director are the wrong people there’s no amount of planing or negotiating that’s going to save the situation. On to the next one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com