Quitting is permanently and voluntarily leaving a job. It is not usually good career or financial move.

Layoffs and Survival: Layoff Survival Home Signs of a Pending Layoff Layoff Self-Defense Layoff Preparations Where You Work Layoff Preparations at Home Surviving a Layoff Related Articles: Don't Quit Your Job FIRST Watch Where You're Going

Exceptions exist, of course, but typically it is not a good idea to quit one job before you have landed the next one.

[Note: Being laid off is not the same as quitting. Wikipedia defines a layoff as "the termination of employment of an employee or (more commonly) a group of employees for business reasons." A layoff is not related to your performance, and it is not volunary. See Job-Hunt's information for people being laid off for more information about handling that situation.]

Why not quit?

Two primary reasons:

1. The myth of the "passive" job seeker handicaps unemployed job seekers.
   
   Many recruiters and employers currently believe that the world of employment is divided into 2 parts: first, people looking for new jobs (also known as "active" job seekers) and, second, happily employed people who are not looking for new jobs (a.k.a. "passive" job seekers).
   
   Obviously (?), the most desirable potential employees are those passive job seekers who aren't looking for a job. The passive job seekers are happily employed because they are well-paid, highly-successful people. It's similar to the old "playing hard to get" dating strategy. It's not logical, but it is human nature.
   
   If you quit your job, you are automatically included in the less desirable active job seeker category.
   
   Following this somewhat twisted logic, if you are still employed, however tenuously and unhappily, the fact that you are currently employed makes you more interesting to recruiters and employers than you would be if you were not employed.
   
   
2. If you quit, you may forfeit your rights to receive unemployment compensation in the U.S.
   
   If you do quit, try to register for unemployment to be sure, though, just in case your employer has been tagged as unfair or there are mitigating circumstances.

So, if you can avoid it, don't quit one job before you find a replacement.

Time for a stealth job hunt.

People do lose their jobs when their employers discovers that they are job hunting - not 100% of the time, to be sure, but often enough to make searching from home and being careful at work a very wise strategy.

Even though employers prefer job seekers who are currently employed, most of them view one of their own employees who is job hunting as "disloyal" or a "risk" to the organization. They fear that customer lists or product secrets or something critical will be stolen by the departing employee and given to the new employer, possibly a competitor.

See Job-Hunt's Stealth Job Search Tips for suggestions on how to keep your job search a secret from your current employer.

What if you've already quit your job?

Hopefully you quit for a really good reason, not because you were angry with someone or embarrassed about something. So, time to move on. Your will get a new job, and the best way - by far - is to network your way to that next job. Networking beats resume distribution, even online, much more than half the time (networking works 80% of the time according to the experts). See Job-Hunt's Job-Search Networking section for more information.

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Article by Susan P. Joyce, Job-Hunt's editor and senior job hunter

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