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.