Resignation Strategy, Vacation and Contracts

Question

I have an offer in hand which needs a response on Tuesday. I am leaning toward leaving my current employer. I've also had a multi-week vacation planned, and has been on the calendar for months, reservations are in place and the office is prepared for my absence. It starts on Tuesday. I have a customer whom I've told (before I'd made up my mind) That I would be unavailable to assist until the middle of next month. Now that is looking more like never.

I have not completed the negotiation for the new position, this will probably happen on the last pre-vacation work day.

The most comfortable option would be if I can negotiate a start date which would give me enough time to tender my resignation after I return from Vacation, but we're talking about a month in the future. Naturally, the new company wants me to start ASAP.

I suppose it would be bad form to announce resignation from a hotel room. What other strategies might work here?

Answer 1

Option 1: Assuming the potential new company makes you an offer you can accept, tell them you will be available to start on the date you want, which gives you time for your trip and to provide adequate notice to your current company. You’re assuming they won’t wait, but most places will wait if it’s just four weeks. You won’t know unless you ask.

Option 2: Offer a shorter notice period to your current employer. Unless you’re contractually obligated to provide a specific notice period, you can walk out anytime you like. You’d just risk offending people you not want to offend.

Option 3: If you really don’t care what anybody thinks, resign from your hotel and don’t look back. Be sure to clean out your personal belongings before you leave, though. You won’t be welcome there anymore.

All of this assumes you have an acceptable offer in hand before you leave for vacation. If not, then option 1 becomes more likely and viable.

Answer 2

I had similar situation, but from my perspective month is often not enough to leave current company, especially when you didn't complete your negotiations yet. Some countries (Poland) even have special law that specify three month protection period after submitting resignation letter (if you were with given company for at least 3 years).

I would pick a comfortable date to finish my things at current job and start a new one and propose that to new employer. I imagine that employer who can't wait 2-3 months (without a good reason) can be inflexible in other fields down the road.