How to Write a Resignation Letter From Scratch

A resignation letter is one of the shortest documents you will ever write and one of the easiest to overwrite. Knowing how to write a resignation letter is mostly knowing what to leave out.

The four elements

Everything else is optional, and most of it is a mistake.

1. A statement that you are resigning. Unambiguous, in the first sentence.
2. Your role. So the letter stands alone in a personnel file years later.
3. Your last working day, as an explicit date.
4. An offer to help with the handover. One line.

That is the whole document. Anything you add beyond it should have to justify itself.

Paragraph by paragraph

Paragraph one: the fact.

I am writing to give notice of my resignation from my role as Operations Coordinator. My last working day will be Friday 14 March.

Name the date rather than writing “two weeks from today”, which reliably produces an argument later about which day was meant. Count from the day you hand it over, and check your contract first, since notice periods vary and some roles require considerably more than two weeks.

Paragraph two: the handover.

I am happy to help with the handover in whatever way is most useful, including documenting my current work and briefing whoever picks it up.

This is the paragraph that does the most for your reference and costs you the least.

Paragraph three: the close.

Thank you for the opportunity to work here.

One line. Warmer if the relationship warrants it, but do not manufacture warmth that was not there, because forced gratitude reads worse than brevity.

On giving a reason

You are not obliged to explain, and most people should not.

The letter outlives the conversation. It sits in a file, it can be read by people who were not there, and it may be looked at years later by someone deciding whether to rehire you or give a reference. A reason written down becomes permanent in a way a spoken one does not.

If you want to give one, keep it forward-looking and impersonal: an opportunity you are taking, a direction you are moving in. Never a grievance, never a comparison, never a person.

The complete letter

Dear [Manager’s name],

I am writing to give notice of my resignation from my role as [job title]. My last working day will be [date].

I am happy to help with the handover in whatever way is most useful, including documenting my current work and briefing whoever takes it on.

Thank you for the opportunity to work here.

Best regards, [Your name]

Around 70 words. If yours is significantly longer, the extra is almost certainly explanation you do not owe.

Sequence matters more than wording

Tell your manager first, in person or by call. Send the letter straight afterwards.

A resignation letter arriving cold, with no conversation, is the single most common way an ordinary exit becomes a bad one. The letter is documentation; the conversation is the courtesy.

Do not tell colleagues before your manager. It travels faster than you expect, and hearing it secondhand changes how the rest of the notice period goes.

If the relationship is difficult

Write it shorter, not longer. A plain, factual, unemotional letter gives nobody anything to react to, and that is exactly what you want when the situation is tense.

Whatever happened, it does not go in this document. If you need it on record, that is a separate conversation with HR, in a separate document, written after you have slept on it.

Related

For ready-made versions, see resignation letter templates for every notice period and free downloadable templates. For the situational questions around timing and counteroffers, see resignation letter tips. For sending it by email, see how to write a resignation email.

Our resignation letter generator produces the standard, short-notice and sensitive versions, and it is worth using the notice period to update your resume while the detail is fresh.

Four elements, under 200 words, conversation first. You can update your resume before you go.