Handed in notice 2day. Boss wants to meet. HELP

happypartygirl

Hi all

As i have wanted to do for a while I have finally dedided to quit my job.
The boss wants to know why. I dont want to get pulled into listing all the negative things which made me want to leave. I want to leave on a positive note. How do I do this when he will be pressurising me to give reasons as to why I am going???

Please help!!!!

AARRRGH

You can tell him whatever you want.

I felt it was time to move on / want a new challenge / offered a position with great money / offered a position with great prospects / want to try a different career / etc.

I agree with you there is no point saying anything negative. He'll just take it personally and resent you.

seamus

dublindude wrote: »

I agree with you there is no point saying anything negative. He'll just take it personally and resent you.

Not necessarily.

Obviously if the reason you're leaving has anything to do with the boss him/herself then of course they're going to take it personally, but if there's something else, then feel free to mention it.

It's best to focus on yourself and basically treat it like a break-up - "It's not you, it's me". Just say that you felt you were getting institutionalised/stagnating where you were and you needed to move elsewhere and get a fresh start.

If there are any specific negatives that are totally out of your boss's hands, i then I would say mention them for the sake of your ex-colleagues.

Serafijn

There's a difference between negative and constructive. If there's things that are driving you crazy and could be changed/lessened/re-structured then you could mention them, along with potential solutions or improvements.

This will at least give your boss some useful info as to what his staff are feeling (as it's often only the ones who are on their way out who are honest about this type of thing).

I agree though; don't go in whinging about things that can't be changed as this doesn't help anyone and will only make you look bad.

Good luck.

AARRRGH

Well, in my experience, I've twice given honest reasons why I am leaving the company (the reasons were constructive). In both cases it went down badly, and in one of them it resulted in me being fired!

Insane.

Personally, I don't think it's worth the risk of potentially damaging your referrence.

techdiver

dublindude wrote: »

Well, in my experience, I've twice given honest reasons why I am leaving the company (the reasons were constructive). In both cases it went down badly, and in one of them it resulted in me being fired!

Insane.

Personally, I don't think it's worth the risk of potentially damaging your referrence.

How can you be fired after resigning? Either way you can't/shouldn't be fired for outlining your reasons for leaving a company. I don't think the labour court would look to kindly on your employers for that. If management can't take it they need to look at themselves.

The truth often hurts.

AARRRGH

They gave me a cheque for the remainder of the month and asked me to leave.

Tbh I was happy with this, as the place was horrible.

techdiver

dublindude wrote: »

They gave me a cheque for the remainder of the month and asked me to leave.

Tbh I was happy with this, as the place was horrible.

Suppose it's better than working the month out.

snellers

gardening leave isn't the same as being fired. - looks like they decided not to make you work your notice...happens a lot in certain industries/professions

unless rules have changed it's better to be fired from an unemployment benefits perspective...not better from a next job perspective of course though

techdiver

snellers wrote: »

not better from a next job perspective of course though

From a legal standpoint no company can give a bad reference to a former employee regardless of the nature in which his/her employment was terminated.

I know that no large company allows personal references whether it be positive or negative as it could be construed as defamation of character or slander as when you are fired there is not always an arbitrary hearing.

HR departments can only give verification references to requesters. In fact the reference process has been merely reduced to a lie detection about previous experience.

Drummerboy2

If you are depending on a reference I'd be very careful what you say. Some employers don't like criticism and may be vindictive. If you already have a job to go to and don't need a ref, feel free to dismantle you ex-employers notions of how his business is performing.

Gone West

techdiver wrote: »

From a legal standpoint no company can give a bad reference to a former employee regardless of the nature in which his/her employment was terminated.

I know that no large company allows personal references whether it be positive or negative as it could be construed as defamation of character or slander as when you are fired there is not always an arbitrary hearing.

HR departments can only give verification references to requesters. In fact the reference process has been merely reduced to a lie detection about previous experience.

From a legal standpoint, yes.
In reality, no.

Q: "Would you hire this employee again?"
A: "no" / "yes"

Thats all it takes, and yes every single potential employer/HR head checking a reference will ask this question.

techdiver

FuzzyLogic wrote: »

From a legal standpoint, yes.
In reality, no.

Q: "Would you hire this employee again?"
A: "no" / "yes"

Thats all it takes, and yes every single potential employer/HR head checking a reference will ask this question.

Usually the HR department are instructed not to answer such question as it would leave the company vulnerable to legal action. All most are permitted to say is - "John Doe worked here from Jan - Dec 2007.... bla bla".

AARRRGH

snellers wrote: »

gardening leave isn't the same as being fired. - looks like they decided not to make you work your notice...happens a lot in certain industries/professions

They told me it was specifically because of my feedback. They didn't want me "pointing out the problems to other staff members".

The company has since gone bust. I'm not surprised.

Gone West

techdiver wrote: »

Usually the HR department are instructed not to answer such question as it would leave the company vulnerable to legal action. All most are permitted to say is - "John Doe worked here from Jan - Dec 2007.... bla bla".

Ok well that is the exact opposite to the way it actually is, so we will just agree to disagree.

Eoin

techdiver wrote: »

From a legal standpoint no company can give a bad reference to a former employee regardless of the nature in which his/her employment was terminated.

I know that no large company allows personal references whether it be positive or negative as it could be construed as defamation of character or slander as when you are fired there is not always an arbitrary hearing.

HR departments can only give verification references to requesters. In fact the reference process has been merely reduced to a lie detection about previous experience.

The key part of your post is that it could be seen as slander / defamation of character. I don't believe there is any law that says you can't give a bad references, it's just normally the practise. If it was all on record, then I'd say they could give a bad reference quite safely.

How do you know that "no large company" allows personal references? This is purely a company by company policy, not the law. I know for an absolute fact that more than the employment dates were given about ex-employers in my last company. At the very least, as Fuzzylogic said they just have to ask "would you hire x again?". That does happen.

dublindude wrote: »

They told me it was specifically because of my feedback. They didn't want me "pointing out the problems to other staff members".

The company has since gone bust. I'm not surprised.

They did something similar in one of my old companies. As soon as someone resigned, they were straight out the door with the month's pay. Mostly because the majority of people leaving were on a really shìtty project, and were quite likely to be even more vocal about the problems in their last few weeks there.

Gardening leave is also not that uncommon in situations where the person may be leaving on good terms, but they just don't want someone with access to sensitive data being there any longer than necessary.

flash harry

you can say whatever the hell you want in a reference - if it's true and you can priove it=no problem....

Q-would you rehire them
A-No they were late 7 out of last Fridays
A-no htey underperformed relative to their peers

as I said once you can back this up with fact, perfectly entitled to say it.....

as someone else said, in reality these are normally a phone call were you can say anything and deny it if you're so inclined.....

You can be fired after resigning obviously! Gross misconduct is gross misconduct even if you have resigned e.g. telling customer to f**k off or you'll kill them (okay sligh over exagerration but you get the drift). I'm guessing bad mouthing the company could be construed as misconduct, and continued bad mouthing be grounds to be fired even if in notice period......

eth0_

What if you were asked to give a reference for an employee who broke the law while in your employment?

For instance, I worked in a place years ago and one of my colleagues was discovered to have been thieving laptops and LCD screens and flogging them online. He was caught but he had stolen a not inconsiderable amount of equipment by that point. I believe he admitted to the crime and signed a document admitting to it and agreeing to re-pay the company. AFAIK he never made any payments and the company didn't take legal action because they didn't want the bad press.

I would have thought if he gave that company as a reference, the HR department should be OBLIGED to disclose that information, especially as he admitted in writing to the thefts and then reneged on his promise to repay the company.

MIN2511

Topic gone way off topic:D

OP have you talked with the boss?


IMO sometimes being honest is not always the best!

Eoin

All of that would be absolutely provable, so I can't see how disclosing that could leave the company liable. I would imagine that it's only subjective opinions that could be an issue.

Some companies chose to just give the start and end date of employment, and some managers may officially or unofficially give a more detailed reference.

mickoneill30

If you're leaving for negative reasons tell the boss. They might not be aware that there is / was a problem. When I was leaving my last job one of the reasons why was because we had to go through so many hoops to get approved for working from home for one or two days a week (I'd applied months before and was put on the long finger). I kept my eye out for a job nearer to home and gave my notice when I got one. Before I finished my notice period every member on my team that had applied for working from home got approved for it. Wasn't much use to me but generally most managers want to keep their staff happy.

By the way the boss might want to meet to see if there's anything he can do to get you to stay. You never know. More money might be on the table.

Eoin

mickoneill30 wrote: »

If you're leaving for negative reasons tell the boss. They might not be aware that there is / was a problem.

Depends on the negative reasons though. There's not much to be gained if the negative reason is that you think your colleagues are idiots.

mickoneill30

eoin_s wrote: »

Depends on the negative reasons though. There's not much to be gained if the negative reason is that you think your colleagues are idiots.

What if the boss doesn't know that? He'd need to look at his hiring guy or HR dept or his own criteria / procedure for hiring. As long as you didn't just say you think your colleagues are idiots and had nothing to back you up it'd be something the boss would want to know I think. Although who leaves just because coworkers are idiots? If you're working with an idiot and it's affecting your job you should give your boss that feedback before you're looking for a new job. It might be one reason but it'd never be 100% of the reasoning for me to be looking for another job.
There's covering for someone and then theres having to do their job because they can't. Two seperate things.

If you think the boss is an idiot though I'd probably keep that to yourself

Calina

It fascinates me to some extent that there's all this talk about references. I have only ever needed one reference and that was for a company here in Ireland. I have worked in the UK, Belgium, France and Germany and in all occasions I was provided with a statement of my working term for each employee and that was all I required for any other employer in Belgium, France and Germany.

eth0_

True. Two previous jobs i've had, I know for a FACT they never checked my references..

MIN2511

eth0_ wrote: »

True. Two previous jobs i've had, I know for a FACT they never checked my references..

+1

It may be due to the Industry though... I have never been asked for reference but if it's IT(i believe it's either you know what you are talking about or not)

mickoneill30

eth0_ wrote: »

True. Two previous jobs i've had, I know for a FACT they never checked my references..

For my current job (in IT) I was asked for references to cover the last 10 years of jobs. I never get written references (as many companies don't give them) so I gave contact details for my ex bosses. They got on to each of them.

seamus

Every job I've gotten since I've left college has involved checking my references.