When should I give notice? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Just gave notice. Yay!

Congrats! Hope it went smoothly. I'm a 5th year M&A associate in a major market, and I have accepted a job offer at one of my firm's clients in the same market. I don't start until February, but thinking I should give my notice soon.

Curious as to how you approached giving notice in the remote world? In normal times, I'd just walk in to the group chair's office and break the news. Did you call the partner out of the blue? Or did you ask to speak to the partner about "career development" and set up a call to break the news? I'm working on a couple deals with this partner, so I can piggyback off of one of those calls, but seems like this warrants a separate discussion.

Thanks!

[Anonymous User]

Curious as to how you approached giving notice in the remote world? In normal times, I'd just walk in to the group chair's office and break the news. Did you call the partner out of the blue? Or did you ask to speak to the partner about "career development" and set up a call to break the news? I'm working on a couple deals with this partner, so I can piggyback off of one of those calls, but seems like this warrants a separate discussion.

Thanks!

Having been on the other side of this a few times, I think the best route is to send your group chair an email asking to talk, and then give them the news over the phone. No need to frame it as "career development" - around this time, if I get an email from an associate saying "Please let me know when you have a few minutes to talk," I'm 90% sure I know what it's about.

[Anonymous User]

Curious if anyone giving notice has instant regret after doing so? What do you think the likelihood of unringing that bell is (assuming a well-regarded corp associate)?

[M458]

Curious if anyone giving notice has instant regret after doing so? What do you think the likelihood of unringing that bell is (assuming a well-regarded corp associate)?

What are you feeling regrets about? Take some time to process why it is you wanted to leave in the first place and if any of those reasons have changed since you made the decision to accept the lateral offer. I've seen associates renege and stay at their original firm after giving notice and while it doesn't always end up poorly, note that you've now signaled that you were at least looking to leave at one point.

It's unlikely that whatever made you unhappy in the first place will change if you stay.

[Anonymous User]

Curious if anyone giving notice has instant regret after doing so? What do you think the likelihood of unringing that bell is (assuming a well-regarded corp associate)?

What are you feeling regrets about? Take some time to process why it is you wanted to leave in the first place and if any of those reasons have changed since you made the decision to accept the lateral offer. I've seen associates renege and stay at their original firm after giving notice and while it doesn't always end up poorly, note that you've now signaled that you were at least looking to leave at one point.

It's unlikely that whatever made you unhappy in the first place will change if you stay.

Think it is more a question of my lateral choice. Think I could last another year at firm, but would just look for a more prudent lateral move. Any ideas on how to sell this?

[M458]

Curious if anyone giving notice has instant regret after doing so? What do you think the likelihood of unringing that bell is (assuming a well-regarded corp associate)?

What are you feeling regrets about? Take some time to process why it is you wanted to leave in the first place and if any of those reasons have changed since you made the decision to accept the lateral offer. I've seen associates renege and stay at their original firm after giving notice and while it doesn't always end up poorly, note that you've now signaled that you were at least looking to leave at one point.

It's unlikely that whatever made you unhappy in the first place will change if you stay.

Think it is more a question of my lateral choice. Think I could last another year at firm, but would just look for a more prudent lateral move. Any ideas on how to sell this?

When giving notice, did any partners say anything about staying/leaving the door open/convincing you to change your mind?

[Elston Gunn]

Curious if anyone giving notice has instant regret after doing so? What do you think the likelihood of unringing that bell is (assuming a well-regarded corp associate)?

What are you feeling regrets about? Take some time to process why it is you wanted to leave in the first place and if any of those reasons have changed since you made the decision to accept the lateral offer. I've seen associates renege and stay at their original firm after giving notice and while it doesn't always end up poorly, note that you've now signaled that you were at least looking to leave at one point.

It's unlikely that whatever made you unhappy in the first place will change if you stay.

Think it is more a question of my lateral choice. Think I could last another year at firm, but would just look for a more prudent lateral move. Any ideas on how to sell this?

I obviously don’t know your particular circumstances, but do know that it’s very normal to get cold feet after you’ve made the decision. When I accepted my offer to leave my firm, I had *tons* of second thoughts, and was really stressed about it. (Didn’t help that I had over two months from accepting to actually leaving the firm.) But once I actually left I was super happy about it.

Again, obviously that’s just one example, and you may have good reason to think you made a bad choice, but there’s also probably a good reason you decided to accept the offer in the first place.

[Anonymous User]

Curious if anyone giving notice has instant regret after doing so? What do you think the likelihood of unringing that bell is (assuming a well-regarded corp associate)?

What are you feeling regrets about? Take some time to process why it is you wanted to leave in the first place and if any of those reasons have changed since you made the decision to accept the lateral offer. I've seen associates renege and stay at their original firm after giving notice and while it doesn't always end up poorly, note that you've now signaled that you were at least looking to leave at one point.

It's unlikely that whatever made you unhappy in the first place will change if you stay.

Think it is more a question of my lateral choice. Think I could last another year at firm, but would just look for a more prudent lateral move. Any ideas on how to sell this?

When giving notice, did any partners say anything about staying/leaving the door open/convincing you to change your mind?

They did not - they were very nice about it though and said they understood.

And to the poster above - thanks for sharing and I'm hoping I am just having bad case of being overly neurotic right now.

[Anonymous User]

When I gave two weeks notice, I was told they only needed one week. Do what is right for you, they certainly are going to put themselves first.

They aren't dumb, they will understand the timing. And if you give 10 days because of the timing of their bonus payouts, and don't immediately mentally check out, they aren't going to care. If they do, they're shit bricks anyway.

[Anonymous User]

When I gave two weeks notice, I was told they only needed one week. Do what is right for you, they certainly are going to put themselves first.

They aren't dumb, they will understand the timing. And if you give 10 days because of the timing of their bonus payouts, and don't immediately mentally check out, they aren't going to care. If they do, they're shit bricks anyway.