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How much time is appropriate to ask for between firms? Is 3 months from acceptance of offer to start date too long? 2 months? I’m expecting this time to include both conflicts and 2 weeks notice.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 02, 2021 3:48 pm

How much time is appropriate to ask for between firms? Is 3 months from acceptance of offer to start date too long? 2 months? I’m expecting this time to include both conflicts and 2 weeks notice.

3 months?! They are going to think you are lazy or you risk of a downturn and the offer getting pulled for financial reasons. You will be lucky to get 1 month. You could leave during the conflict check, but that is risky. Try to give 2 weeks notice, but use week 2 as your final vacation days.

Throw out a start date and see what they say. Depends on what they're giving you as far as bonus is concerned as well.

I've taken a month+ between biglaw jobs. Fucking amazing. Take as much as you can.

Just ask politely. They’re not going to think you’re lazy or pull the offer due to economic changes (unless the world really goes to hell in 3 months in which case you have bigger problems). I think if you want to justify it right now you could easily throw out something like visiting family/family commitments that had to be put off due to covid. But just feel them out - ask what start date they’re looking for and go from there, and be prepared for pushback on your preferred date and decide how you want to handle that.

I never understand why people freak out about the idea taking a break between jobs. If you take a vacation in between you won’t need to take one for a while after you start.

As a poster above mentioned, this may also differ based on how much in signing bonuses they are giving you. If they’re paying you six figures, they probably need you ASAP. I don’t think 3 months is going to fly, but it never hurts to ask