Don’t Let Your Boss Catch You Reading This List

10 tips to land your next job without losing your current one

If finding a new job is on your list of New Year’s resolutions, you are not alone. Every year, millions of professionals initiate job searches while fully employed, a term we at LifeGuides call the “incognito” job search.

How does one initiate and execute an incognito job search? Exploring new professional opportunities may seem like a daunting process, but by using common sense, exercising discretion, and peppering in the following tips, you too can make a seamless transition from one workplace to the next. Learn about how to build your career, solidify professional relationships, and preserve your sanity in our LifeGuides 10 Tips for Quitting Your Job.

1. Mums the word

Protip: Never expect colleagues to keep your job search confidential.

One of the most important aspects of conducting an under-the-radar job search is controlling the flow of information. While it may be tempting to inform your colleagues of the growing companies with whom you are interviewing, experts recommend otherwise. According to research by Georgia Tech Professor Eric Gilbert, nearly one in seven office emails contains gossip. Gossip, verbal as well as electronic, is simply one means by which workers communicate information about one another. Revealing important workplace-relevant information to even one’s most trusted confidants virtually guarantees the eventual dissemination of that information. It’s science.

2. Use your own stuff

Protip: Never use your employer’s resources to conduct your search.

While using your employer’s computer, email address, or printer may prove tempting, don’t take the bait. In addition to being unethical, using a current employer’s resources is a sure fire way to telegraph one’s wandering intentions. In fact, the American Management Association reports that about 80% of employers monitor their employees’ internet usage, emails, or both.

To reduce the odds of your employer discovering your ongoing job search, use your own computer, email addresses, mobile phones, and office supplies. Even if your current employer is aware of and supports your job search efforts, using your current employer’s email address and phone number may convey disloyalty to potential employers, thus inhibiting the odds of a successful application.

3. Practice safe social

Protip: Use social media wisely by utilizing functionality that reduces the odds of tipping off your current employer.

With one in five individuals finding the best jobs of their careers via social media, those who fail to utilize resources such as LinkedIn, Twitter, or LifeGuides are at a serious disadvantage relative to their more social media-savvy peers.

Unfortunately, many employers monitor their employees’ social media accounts as a means of detecting potential defectors. In order to minimize the odds of being caught, disable the broadcast function and activity controls on your LinkedIn account (both are found in settings → privacy controls), which will prevent updates to your LinkedIn profile from being broadcast to your connections, your groups, and perhaps, your manager. Additionally, popular job listing sites such as Monster and The Ladders allow users to post resumes that obscure job seekers’ identities. Like a superhero’s disguise, these tools will allow you to fight the good fight while obscuring your real identity.

4. Stay positive

Protip: Never disparage a current employer when applying for a new position.

There are a lot of reasons to look for a new job, but the last thing any hiring manager wants to hear is a litany of grievances toward your current employer. While hiring managers understand an applicant may not love everything about his or her current position (otherwise, why would he or she be looking for a new job?), an overtly negative attitude toward one’s current employer can conveys a degree of disloyalty, a bad attitude that may carry over into the new position, or both. Given the immensely detrimental effects an employee’s bad attitude can have onworkplace productivity, it is no wonder why experienced hiring managers can detect the slightest hint of cynicism from a mile away.

To avoid falling into this trap, concentrate on the transferrable skills you gained while working for your current employer. By thoughtfully explaining how your prior experiences helped you build transferable skills, you can demonstrate both your personality and qualifications.

5. Interview outside work hours

Protip: Interview outside typical work hours to avoid suspicion and convey your high ethical standards.

Employees should always schedule interviews with the aim of minimizing the detrimental effects the process has on one’s existing work responsibilities. First, disappearing from work shortchanges a job-seeker’s current employer by decreasing that individual’s output. Second, a conspicuous midday absence is likely to raise workplace eyebrows and risks outing the job-seeker’s efforts.

While interviewing around your work schedule can be frustrating, it can serve as an asset in the job application process by demonstrating your integrity and commitment to professional responsibilities. Facilitating this effort are online job applications, which typically require applicants to submit the times of day when they are available for phone interviews. Furthermore, Forbes points out that employers are increasingly willing to schedule interviews early or late in the day for those applicants who wish to fulfill their normal job responsibilities.

6. Network like a pro

Protip: Job searchers should be thoughtful about those with whom they network and the messages conveyed.

Networking, both online and in person, is by far the most common means by which job seekers find employment. Right Management, a subsidiary of staffing giant Manpowergroup, found that person-to-person and online networking accounts for nearly half of all hires. While the benefits of networking are clear, the process poses unique opportunities and risks to the incognito job searcher.

First, job searchers should be judicious regarding those with whom they communicate their interests. Not only do a searcher’s colleagues pose a risk of ratting a searcher out to his or her current employer, so too can those outside the company, particularly when an industry is tightly-knit. By thoughtfully considering those with whom you share your job switching goals, you can maximize the risk/reward ratio associated with a incognito search.

Second, job searchers can further reduce their risk by carefully crafting their pitch in ways that communicate openness to new job opportunities while not explicitly stating a desire to leave their current employers. Not only does this reduce a searcher’s risk of being outed, it also avoids what might otherwise come off as a desperate plea to get off a sinking ship.

7. Explore lateral moves

Protip: Employees considering jumping ship should explore new opportunities within their existing employers.

In addition to throwing one’s hat into the proverbial job search ring, incognito searchers should explore whether their interests could be equally well-served by remaining with their current employers.

As with many other aspects of a discrete job search, messaging is incredibly important when exploring new opportunities within one’s employer. If a searcher is interested in a functional change, chatting with a colleague who works in another area of the company can be an invaluable means of learning about internal opportunities. If, on the other hand, an employee’s primary reason for exploring new opportunities is a suboptimal workplace dynamic, it may be worth offering constructive suggestions on how the team can work more efficiently. As Jayne Mattison at career management consulting firm Keystone Associates points out, HR managers are incentivised to help valuable employees deal with difficult managers, as the cost of doing so is less than the cost of replacing those employees.

8. Give sufficient notice

Protip: When deciding how much notice to provide your employer, consider how long it would reasonably take for your employer to fill your position.

Like most other aspects of a job search, the amount of notice an outgoing employee should provide his or her current employer is a nuanced subject. While the U.S. standard notice is two weeks, this policy is generally an informal one and is subject to a multitude of factors meant to balance the employee’s desire to move on with his or her employer’s need to fill the void caused by that employee’s departure.

As LifeHacker Deputy Editor Alan Henry points out, the amount of notice required to leave an employer on good terms generally depends on how easily that employer will be able to replace the outgoing employee. While the standard two weeks notice should be more than enough for those serving in relatively less specialized or low ranking positions (think line workers or clerical positions), managers involved in important initiatives or those who serve in particularly unique roles would be well-served to offer their employers at least a month’s notice.

9. Beware of counterofferers

Protip: The overwhelming majority of experts recommend against accepting counteroffers.

While many employers will propose counteroffers upon learning of an employee’s decision to leave the company, most experts advise against accepting these offers. According to various recruiters interviewed by Forbes, those who accept counteroffers are typically perceived by their employers as disloyal and thus, those employees will be unlikely to receive top billing when it comes to promotions or key positions of responsibility. In fact, many of those interviewed went on to note that many employers view counteroffers as stopgaps designed to keep key employees in place only until a suitably loyal replacement is found.

While accepting a counteroffer is probably not in an employee’s best interest, how that employee declines the offer can affect that employee’s relationship with his or her manager. By graciously declining a counteroffer, an outgoing employee can simultaneously express gratitude while demonstrating a focus on, and commitment to, his or her new employer.

10. Finish strong

Protip: Outgoing employees only have once chance to make a final impression. Finishing strong will generate goodwill and improve your personal brand.

After notifying current employers of their plans to move on, top employees view their remaining days at an employer not as a time to slack off, but as an opportunity to leave a positive lasting impression.

From a functional perspective, remaining motivated and productive in one’s final days at a job can make the difference between a positive and a negative future reference. KQED contributor Natalie Grace Sweet suggests outgoing employees front-end load their final days’ productivity, as one’s motivation usually decreases as his or her departure date nears.

It’s worth noting that one’s effectiveness at work is a two-way street that requires a constructive attitude on behalf of both the outgoing employee and his or her manager. If a manager marginalizes an outgoing employee, that will obviously inhibit that employee’s effectiveness, but the maintaining a positive attitude remains a critical element of engendering long-term goodwill with one’s soon-to-be former employer.