You’re leaving your job! Congratulations! Hopefully it’s because you’ve accepted another (more lucrative) offer, or maybe you’ve just realized that you’ve got one of The 5 Jobs Most Likely to Make You Sick and you’re getting out while you still can. Whatever your reason, now comes the tough part—or the fun part, depending on how much you hate your job. You have to tell your boss.
Can you just walk out the door, or do you owe him or her a full two weeks notice that you’re leaving?
“There’s no defined, historical reason why we’ve been told to give two weeks’ notice,” says Laurie Ruettimann, an HR consultant in Raleigh, North Carolina. “It’s one of those things where everyone started doing it, and eventually it became the standard.”
That’s why you’re better off tailoring your departure date to your current status at the company.
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If your recent responsibilities have involved beating your high score in Candy Crush, then you should be safe offering a shorter time frame—especially if you’re moving to a competitor, says Wendy Boswell, Ph.D., a professor of management at Texas A&M University.
In fact, terminate-at-will policies are the norm in certain industries, so you may be told to leave on the spot anyway.
On the other hand, if you’re one of the critical cogs, offer 2 weeks—three weeks max to finish up strong.
“Don’t assume that your leaving is going to devastate your company,” Ruettimann says.
That is, unless you really are that important, in which case your employer should have countered.