Company Loyalty
It is a conundrum. You’re currently working but you’re ready for a change. How do you look for a job when you’re working full time? Should you tell your supervisor you’re looking?
Lily Garcia, in her career news column in the Washington Post advises you to be careful. In Should You Give Full Disclosure When Job Hunting? she admits that in a perfect world we would tell all, but there are likely to be reprisals if you do.
So I’ll ask the question again: How do you look for a job when you’re working? The answer is ‘very carefully.’ It could be considered unethical to use company time to post resumes, make phone calls and work on your search. And if you’re taking time off work to interview, make sure it is unpaid time off and that you’re careful about saying why you’re taking time away. All this sounds logical, right?
But according to statistics about when people actually use job boards:
- Nearly 80% of job searches are done during weekday business hours.
- Approximately 75% of all job applications are submitted during the business day.
- Workday registrations/applications peak on Wednesday and Thursday.
- On Saturday and Sunday the numbers are significantly lower.
So, are we abusing our current employers? Is it unethical to use company time to look for a new job?
What do you think?
March 10th, 2008 at 11:49 am
To me, this is too easy a easy question. It’s simply unethical to use company time to look for a new job – no matter how unhappy you might be at your current job.
But there can be some gray area, depending on the nature of your job and the demands of your company. Let’s say you’re required to put in eight hours a day, but you don’t have that many “time sensitive” things to do in the course of a day (e.g., meetings, calls with clients). If you were to take a half hour to leave the building to talk with a potential employer on a cell phone, you owe it to your current employer to make up that half hour at the end of the day. This is a bit easier, though, if you work at home since there’s less of a chance you’ll arouse suspicion.
By all means, be discreet about your job search but if your employer is expecting you to fulfill the duties of your role, it’s just plain dishonest if you’re using some of that time to look for another job, and even worse if that’s causing you to miss deadlines.