Congratulations. You've just landed a new job now, what do you need to do? Like most people,
if you're currently working, you're going to want to create a letter of resignation for your current
company. My name is Bill Benoist. I'm a certified professional career coach here in Silicon Valley.
This is going to be a short video, but I know a video that everybody wants to watch because they
all want to write that letter of resignation when they get the chance. Here's the thing
though. You need to keep it professional. Okay. I'm telling you this right now.
I learned the hard way about this. I'm when to share a quick story with you. About 30 years ago,
I worked with a government agency and that agency here in San Jose was actually closing down.
They were closing down the office and I was, there was two types of employees at the time.
They were we'd call GS, which is like a permanent type of employee, which, um, will essentially
be transferred by the government, you know, to a new location at the government's expense.
And then there was what was called an LG. And that was called liquid graded in those were people
that, Oh, they could work for many, many years, but essentially if the agency closed down, they
would not have to move. It was, it was like the military versus a civilian life. And I was in LG.
And so I had really enjoyed my time with this organization. But when we learned about it,
closing down, I was able to find a new job pretty quickly. And I had to write a letter
of resignation. Now, again, want to stress this? I enjoyed working there. I had a great boss,
some fun team members that I worked with, but as a joke, and again, I was young.
I was immature. I wrote to my, uh, my manager sometime like, you know, dear John,
sincerely, William Benoist.
Well, my manager, John, he thought that was funny. He got a kick out of it. It was all done in just
had I known something about 15 years later, I had already worked for another
number of different companies. In fact, I was actually working in technology by this time
I get this delivery by FedEx and I opened it up and it was my personnel file from 15 years
ago at this agency. I don't know why even to this day, I don't know why I received that. But when I
opened up the file, you know, first and foremost, what did I see? Michael letter of resignation?
That was so embarrassing because I had matured over time there, but I mean, it had everything in
there. It had meant even my employment application from when I had first started with the company
to various appraisals, performance, appraisals and stuff, but front and center.
The last thing that was entered in there was my letter of resignation. That little joke
I thing is, is it's proof here. A letter of resignation is gonna to, it could follow you.
Mine definitely did. So you need to make sure that you keep your letter of resignation
professional. Okay. As much as you want to write that letter that says, you know,
please don't do that. You need to be professional. I don't care
how bad that boss was that you were working for how toxic that company was. You need to keep it
professional. You need to keep it short. You don't need to go into why it is that you're leaving.
You certainly don't want to talk about anything negative. Like, you know, um, I'm leaving because
this happened or that happened. And I didn't get any support note,
just keep it professional something like, Dear Bob, please accept this
as my formal letter of resignation from XYZ company, effective XYZ date.” you could sit
there and say, um, something like, “Before I leave, I will ensure that the remaining work on
my plate is completed as best as possible.” And “During the next 14 days, or if that,
if you give me three weeks or in the next three weeks, I will make sure to help, um, transition
the next person into my position, as smooth as possible.” “I'd like to take this opportunity
to thank everyone that I worked for. I've enjoyed working with a team and I wish you all the best.”
Sincerely. And you know what I'll do. I'll even leave a template in the notes section below.
But the key is, is no matter how difficult things were, please don't be airing that kind of laundry
in the letter of resignation, because you never know how this could come back at you.
You know what? And tap in many times with many people is the person that you're reporting to.
Maybe they've moved on to a different company. And five, 10 years later, you're interviewing
with that company. Maybe that's not the boss, but that boss does have some influence maybe as
a manager of another team or another department or something you just never know. And you want to
keep things professional. So, like I say, short video this week, hopefully it was useful if you
haven't already subscribed to this channel, make sure that you do so hit the bell notification as
a do upload new career tips and strategies every Tuesday. And I'd hate for you to miss anything.