Quitting for ethical reasons before obtaining a new job [duplicate]

Question

At my current job, I have been presented with an unavoidable situation in which I must immediately, continually, and indefinitely act in an unethical manner in order to stay employed. Even if I oblige, there is a good chance this could backfire and I'd be out of a job, anyway. Therefore, I am strongly considering quitting in the very near future.

That said, I do not have other employment lined up and am worried about job-seeking without a current job. I have never done that before in my professional life, so I don't know if that will negatively affect my chances during the hiring process. I've already seen questions like this one with highly-upvoted answers that warn against mentioning ethics as the reason for leaving an employer, but I have not found a Q&A that addresses this situation from the perspective of someone who has already left an unethical employer and is currently job-seeking.

I think that answering the interview question of "Why did you part ways with your employer?" with something vague like "Not a good fit" leaves too much to the imagination. Typically a career professional does not choose unemployment before looking for another job, but that's exactly what I want to do, and my conscience is making it hard to avoid.

How should I go about answering that tricky question?

EDIT: The reason why my question is distinct from the question I linked is because there is an additional explicit factor: I will have already quit. It's analogous to asking for a good apple pie recipe vs. asking for a good salted caramel apple pie recipe.

Answer 1

I think that answering the interview question of "Why did you part ways with your employer?" with something vague like "Not a good fit" leaves too much to the imagination. Typically a career professional does not choose unemployment before looking for another job, but that's exactly what I want to do, and my conscious is making it hard to avoid.

How should I go about answering that tricky question?

It is tricky. And without knowing the specifics of the ethical violations, it's a bit hard to give concrete advice.

But if your personal ethics about your situation strongly tell you that you must quit now, then do it. And if you do, then when asked why you left, just explain it the way you wrote it here. Explain that you were presented with an unavoidable situation in which you would be forced to act in a manner that went against your personal ethics. And explain that acting this way was something you simply wouldn't do.

Be aware of the risk that you will raise suspicions if you don't give details and context about what you were expected to do. Decide ahead of time how much detail you are willing to divulge. The specifics of the situation (that only you know) will help drive your decision.

And be aware that if you do divulge some specifics, a potential employer might disagree with your conclusions regarding the ethics of the situation. I would assume that if you feel this strongly about the situation and a potential employer disagreed, then you wouldn't want to work for that employer anyway. If so, then there is no real risk in this regard.

And of course consider the risk that it will take you a long time to find a new job, and consider the resulting financial implications.

I normally advise that everyone find their next job before quitting their current job. But it sounds like you have already concluded that you must quit now. So just think it through completely, then proceed with caution.

You may consider taking a hard-line stand with your boss and simply refusing to commit an unethical act. Since you are ready to quit now anyway, you might have nothing to lose with this approach. And it might buy you enough time to find your next job before leaving while still not committing any unethical acts.

Answer 2

First, be sure that what you're being asked to do is not actually illegal in your jurisdiction rather than just "immoral".

If you are a member of a professional body, they may have a "code of conduct" which includes industry expectations of types of behavior and ethical duties. If a professional body agrees with you on your specific type of ethical dilemma, this should give you the confidence and the official language to talk about the reasons for leaving your position.

e.g. in the UK the British Computer Society maintains a code of conduct for members: (https://www.bcs.org/upload/pdf/conduct.pdf)

Also bear in mind that Travel and Education/Training can be used as positive reasons for having a "gap" in your CV, rather than concentrating on the negative. It is better in an interview setting to avoid negative language and instead have a positive forward looking outlook.

Goodluck!

Answer 3

Typically a career professional does not choose unemployment before looking for another job, but that's exactly what I want to do, and my conscious is making it hard to avoid.

Good on you for feeling this way.

In an ideal world we could stick to our morals and expect the next employer to understand and give us a pat on the back for standing up for something and consider you the same as any other applicant.

Unfortunately in the real world people will assume you're lying and think you probably got fired or asked to quit after you got caught doing something terrible. If you ever got to the stage of speaking to someone and you told them exactly why you left you run the risk of sounding like a moral crusader or a kook.

Unless your employer is asking you to do really horrible things like trample and burn down villages or go on a rampage killing kittens its probably best to find employment first before quitting, as much as you might not enjoy it. As adults we're sometimes in this position and have to think of our families and our future.