How to Quit a Job: The Full Sequence

Quitting well is a sequence, not a decision. The people who look back on an exit with regret almost always got the order wrong rather than the wording.

Settle the offer first

Nothing else on this page matters until the new offer is signed, the start date is confirmed, and any contingency such as a background check has cleared.

Verbal offers fall through. Budgets get pulled and roles get restructured between agreement and paperwork, and a resignation cannot be taken back cleanly. If you are leaving without a role to go to, that is a legitimate choice, but make it deliberately rather than in a bad week.

Read the contract before you write anything

Fifteen minutes here saves more than any advice on wording. You are looking for four things.

• Your notice period. Two weeks is a convention, not a rule. In at-will employment either side can generally end the relationship at any time, as the Legal Information Institute explains, so what you owe comes from your agreement.
• Clawback clauses. Signing bonuses, relocation costs and funded training often carry repayment tied to a minimum tenure.
• Bonus and vesting dates. Sometimes a leaving date two weeks later is worth a great deal of money.
• Non-solicit and non-compete terms, particularly if you are going to a competitor.

Sort the money and the coverage

Do this before the conversation, because afterwards you may have less access and less time.

Health coverage frequently ends on or shortly after your last day, and losing it opens a special enrolment window rather than leaving you to wait. HealthCare.gov sets out the options when job-based coverage ends.

Your retirement balance is a separate decision. If you take a distribution rather than a direct rollover, the IRS gives you 60 days to roll it over and applies mandatory 20% withholding to anything paid to you. Neither of those deadlines waits for you to feel ready.

Work out your runway too. Not a rule about how many months, since that depends on your obligations, but an actual number you have calculated rather than a feeling.

Copy what is yours, and only what is yours

Access usually ends on the last day and sometimes on the day you resign.

Take your own performance reviews, your payslips, the personal contact details of colleagues you want to keep, and any certificate or training record you paid for. Take nothing that belongs to the company: no client lists, no documents you wrote on their time, no code. The distinction matters legally and reputationally, and the second list is where people get themselves into real trouble.

Have the conversation, then send the letter

Tell your manager first, in person or by call, before anyone else. Mid-week and mid-morning is kinder to both of you than Friday at five.

Keep it short. You are resigning, here is your intended last day, you want the handover to go well. You do not owe a reason, and offering one invites a negotiation you have already had with yourself.

Send the letter the same day so it lands as documentation rather than as news. For the wording, see how to write a resignation letter, and for the situational questions around counteroffers and a bad reaction see resignation letter tips.

Work the notice properly

This is the part people remember, more than the years before it.

Write the handover before anyone asks. A short document listing what you own, where it lives, who should pick it up and what breaks if nobody does is the single most appreciated thing you can leave. Finish what can be finished. Say nothing about the new job beyond the fact of it.

Do not coast, and do not campaign. A fortnight of visible disengagement undoes a lot of goodwill, and a fortnight of parting feedback nobody asked for undoes more.

Ask for the reference now

While your manager still has the detail fresh, and while the relationship is at its most cooperative.

Ask specifically: whether they are willing to act as a reference, and whether they would prefer a call or a written one. Then give them what they need, which is a short note of what you actually did, because most people remember roles rather than outcomes.

The week after

Four things, all in writing.

Confirm your final pay, accrued leave balance and leaving date with HR. Deal with health coverage inside its window. Make the retirement plan decision. And update your own record of what you achieved, while you still remember the numbers.

Then update the CV. The resume checker will tell you what a stale one is missing, and the application tracker is worth setting up before the next search rather than during it.

Related

For the mistakes people make around the edges of this process, see quitting job tips. If you are still deciding whether to go at all, start with what to do when you hate your job. For leaving without notice, see immediate resignation, and for retirement see how to write a retirement letter.

Offer signed, contract read, coverage sorted, conversation first, handover written. You can update your resume before you go.