When you join a private software company, you usually would be asked to sign a document agreeing to their terms and conditions of employment. In that they would mention a point about something called period of notice. This point clearly states that after placing your resignation, you are entitled to serve the company, a specified number of weeks/months before you quit the company and get the relieving letter.
In other words, you should inform the company prior as many months as specified in the notice period, before you can resign from the company. Notice period varies from company to company and also varies depending upon the grade or title that the employee is currently working with. Typically for a 5 year experienced person, notice period is 3 months and for a 2 year experienced employee, notice period is 2 months. It also varies from country to country. In the USA, typically the notice period is 2 weeks.
The notice period is mere formality to ensure a smooth hand over of all the responsibilities and knowledge transfer necessary for a new resource replacing the quitting employee.
Many a times, notice period is shortened by weeks or by months or even entirely waived off. The HR Manager and the Project Manager have complete power to shorten or waive off this notice period.
Now comes an interesting story. You successfully clear an interview with a company that promises you a hike of 20-50% of your current pay. Your future employer tells you to join within 2 weeks or within a month. But your notice period with the company that you are working is 2 months. You hurriedly tell this to your project manager and drop your resignation papers. Your boss is a moron who doesn’t like the idea of you quitting his team and the company in such a short notice. He comes to know that your future employer gave you a time limit of just one month shorter than the formal notice period you agreed with the current company. He gets horns on his head and smiles wickedly. The ball is in his court now.
He asserts that you are obliged to serve the complete notice period of 2 months before you can quit. You take another chance and talk to your future employer if your date of joining could be postponed by a month. They blatantly reject your proposal. You are now in a dilemma. Should you lose the valuable offer for a job that pays you well. Or should you quit the current job unofficially.
Ignore your boss and try quitting the company without serving the notice period, you invite problems.
What problems?? My future employer is ready to take me if I can show him my salary slips for the last three months.
You obviously won’t get an experience certificate from the company. This may become a serious problem in long term future. Some companies are really strict in recruitment and background check. They insist to see your experience certificate in an official letter head of your previous employer.
What’s worse is that company would never settle your balance money. Furthermore, you could be bad mouthed for unprofessionally quitting when called by your future employer for employee background checks.
Have you underwent this kind of situation in the past? How did you manage to grab your experience certificate from your employer? Share your story in comments.
About the Author: Sridhar Jammalamadaka is the Editor of Interview Mantra. He's a typically non-typical Software Engineer from Pune, India. He likes entrepreneurship, web technologies and Micro Controller programming. He enjoys playing cricket and piano (but rarely does these activities). Through this website, he wishes to gather a large community of aspiring engineers, entrepreneurs and professionals from all parts of the globe. You can connect with him on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/sridhar.j