It’s a bittersweet feeling. You’ve been a loyal, long-term employee and you’ve come to a crossroads in your career where it is now time to move on and pursue a new opportunity. You will miss the daily interactions and relationships you’ve built with your co-workers, at least for a moment. But you tell yourself you will find this same feeling of rapport with a new employer. And most importantly, you will reach new heights in your next job and that thought is exciting!

I’m sure your decision was made by a calculated assessment of what will be best for your career. Perhaps you have already accepted the new job offer or you are on the verge of doing so. If so, this month’s column is for you. If not, this is the “clip and save” variety of article, because the scenario will certainly happen to you down the road.

This month, we’ll cover the best ways to leave your current employer on good terms. It is easy to become so focused on your future that you lose sight of what is still right in front of you. It is important to finish strong during your last weeks and give it everything you’ve got—it’s better for everyone that you go out on good terms and with a great feeling of accomplishment, the wind at your back.

Leave with a complete commitment to your decision
How many times have you seen someone put in their resignation and just coast to their going away party? What if that person had actually worked with full determination until the very end? Wouldn’t this garner more respect? I think you know the answer.

When you meet a former colleague later at a conference, that last effort they gave your team will subtly influence how you feel about them. As a recruiter, I can tell you that the quality of the network connections you carry forward will be important, regardless of where you end up. That’s why you must properly manage your departure.

Whether you have worked for your current company for 5 or 20 years, in the U.S. we operate on the “two week notice,” which can come as quite the surprise to your boss. Two weeks isn’t long for your employer to scramble to find a replacement. You owe it to them to make the transition go as smooth as possible, because your departure can be stressful for both parties and your goal is to minimize that stress.

Typically, there is one major stressor directed at you from your employer at this stage, and you should recognize it ahead of time. That’s the counter-offer. While it may feel good to have people fussing over what a great job you’ve done and offering you opportunities to move up the ladder, those don’t generally pan out well in the end. Accepting a counter-offer can be seen in a negative light, and your peers and bosses will remember this in the future. That’s why you always go into these discussions making the point that it’s a firm decision, completely unchangeable.

Before you resign
Before you put in your notice, you should come up with an outline of your current projects that you have been working on or are still outstanding. Get ready to tie up all those loose ends. Assuming you have taken pride in your work, there is also an incentive for you to see your unfinished projects come to fruition even if you no longer work for the company.
Start by outlining what you intend to achieve in the last two weeks. This is where you assess what is realistic and fair to your employer and, most importantly, to your team. You will then have a better discussion with your boss. Having a list of priorities that you’ve agreed to should be your main focus; it will make it easier to avoid becoming sidetracked with requests from team members approaching you to do additional work. It will also keep your motivation up during those final weeks and help you to stay organized.

Include in your outline a snapshot of your team projects, current status, remaining action items with dates, and who should have ownership. Your goal at resignation time will be to give your boss a high-level overview with a bit of granularity as you itemize the tasks. Following this, you’ll want to set up meetings with appropriate team members to inform them of your departure and review the remaining tasks with them.

Drafting and handing in your notice
Whether it’s two weeks’ notice or a month, you’ll want to have a personal meeting with your boss and a formal resignation letter in-hand. That letter does not need to be overly detailed; your goal is to make this as painless as possible without going into any great detail. Generalities are fine, such as, “I am leaving to pursue new opportunities, but I greatly appreciate the experience I have been given in my current role and over my years at XYZ.” 

For the same reason that companies like Fridays for pink slips in a layoff, it is often smart to set up your meeting to resign right at the end of the week. That way, the news will have time to sink in and settle down over the weekend.

Put yourself in your manager’s shoes. How do you think he or she feels in this moment? They may be discouraged to lose you, but you can make it much easier on them if you take all the guess work out of the picture and show him or her what your expectations are for a proper closure of your term. Once you hand in your letter, that counteroffer may drop from the sky, or you could get a reaction that you weren’t expecting. Don’t second guess yourself and stick to your guns.

Questions! And even a possibleexit interview
Your boss or the HR staff may ask you to go into detail about your reasons for leaving. Whether it be salary, professional development, lack of upward mobility, a new location or new interest (emerging science or technology), or even a mismatch of company culture, your decision to leave is typically not isolated to just one category. And it’s not always a smart idea to  open up and be transparent about your reasons for leaving. You may want to editorialize, but it is probably in your best interests to stick to generalities.

Once again, you need to state that your decision is irreversible. Leaving a job is like leaving a relationship and once you’ve expressed a desire to leave, the trust and dynamics of the relationship have been permanently altered. There is a lot more to job satisfaction than simply a higher salary or increased benefits, so throwing an extra $10K at you shouldn’t be the deciding factor or entice you.

Focus on the new opportunity and take your emotions out of the equation in your discussions with the company. Keep moving forward while distractions are kept to a minimum. But make sure you focus on completing your mission before you move onto the next chapter in your life, and your transition will go much easier. Even though you already have ‘one foot out the door’ and perhaps don’t feel as vested in your current work, it needs to remain your priority at this stage.

Finish up strong
On your last day, it is very tempting to punch out at noon and go home. Or to leave right after lunch. But you need to finish the race. Everything you do in your last few weeks is all about perception. How you act and are perceived will affect you in the future in ways that you can’t measure. When you leave on good terms, those LinkedIn recommendations from your coworkers will carry weight and references will always reinforce the positives. You may end up working with these ex-colleagues someday!
Finish strong because it is in your true nature to do so, not because you are putting on a show.

One of our favorite quotes is from Silicon Valley entrepreneur Ryan Freitas (Uber and Facebook) who said, “Your reputation is far more important than your paycheck and your integrity is worth more than your career.” How you finish at your last employer will help maintain and protect your reputation moving forward, so make sure you put in the full effort and you will be rewarded now and into the future.