Leave your job gracefully and responsibly

There are many reasons why a person leaves the job. There could be reason that you have a better offer from competitors, you have grown to dislike the current environment or perhaps, you feel that you’re ready for the next role… Whichever your reasons of leaving may be, always remember not to burn bridges.

The first thing is to bring across your resignation to your boss. You must react and break the news to your employer in a professional way. It is imperative to leave your job on a high note, and should not impact your future career negatively.

Don’t slack off during your notice period

You want to give your best till your last day at work. Use that notice period, limited days left, to complete the projects you have on hand. Never tell yourself that your days at work is numbered and you should just leave your work alone. Your uncompleted tasks would mean that you might jeopardized a good referee to your future employers, and tarnish your reputation.

Assist in transition

Plan through a proper transition to your replacement. It is important that you hand over your tasks or duties properly. Even if you do not have a replacement reaching your last few days of your employment, you should prepare a detailed handover list or instructions for the transition. You do not want to leave the job and your successor goes around putting comments that you did not provide the details. It would be good to create a daily work tasks and sit down with your managers on the delegation of the uncompleted tasks so you can hand over before your last day.

Don’t burn bridges

Do not leave the job looking too excited. You might make people envious thinking that they are in a very bad environment now.

Resist badmouthing your current environment or colleagues to anyone and no matter how bad it could be, you might just want to leave the job quietly. You never know if you never return or work with the same company again.

BE prepared for exit interview

As much as you have grievances in why some people leave a job, remember that you should keep exit interview professional. You know information are never exactly confidential, as much you the exit interview is conducted with HR personnel and not your direct superior. However, if there are information that can help the company improve areas that they are lacking of, it would be helpful for them.

Improve Your Social Resume

Technology plays a major role in our lives, so it is essentially, even critical, to use it as a tool to complement our offline activities. While having a proper paper resume is key, recruiters are increasingly going the extra mile to determine if an individual is a right fit for the company based on their social resume.

Social resume is a combination of online profiles under an individual’s moniker, and can consist of multiple platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Depending on the privacy settings, it is easy to find out and determine the personalities behind such profiles with a few clicks. It helps to put a face to the cover letter, and without even having an actual interview, filter out the candidates from their online lifestyle. Whether the employer is looking to headhunt or confirm credentials, one can definitely benefit from having a strong and positive online presence from these tips.

STEER AWAY FROM CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS

While many of us like to separate our personal and working lives, it is easy to mix both of them once they are online. Any public information shared on social networking platforms becomes accessible by anyone, and can paint a whole different picture of the candidate. Although the skill set requirement is met, sharing or posting about such negative practices may be a huge disadvantage. Generally, recruiters dislike behavior that deal with illegal drugs, sexual content, spelling errors, and regular alcohol consumption. If this is part of an individual’s lifestyle, consider a private profile because it can also negatively affect the company’s brand image in the long run.

BE CREATIVE WITH INFORMATION PRESENTATION

There is an information overload online, and one of the ways to beat this is to present such important information creatively. This can help to narrow down the information to focus on certain core aspects or skills, and leaves the employer with a good impression. One of the ways to achieve is to go the extra mile and design your resume, such as presenting the information in pie charts or a landscape graph. These help to form an information landscape that is readily accessible by the recruiters. Another way is to alter the content to suit each company specifically, so that it becomes an unique appeal and memorable design to get into their good books.

HAVE A PROFESSIONAL ONLINE AVATAR OR PROFILE PICTURE

It goes without saying that a good photograph can make all the difference with the attention and likes, but maintaining a professional online avatar or profile image is equally as important, especially for individuals looking to make a good first impression. Photographs with skimpy outfits or questionable activities should generally be avoided as it can cloud the potential of the resume. Instead, consider investing in a professional business photoshoot so that your best appearance is put forward for the company's’ consideration. Other than having proper business attire, a good smile and strong posture will help to convey the individual’s suitability with the company.