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What I’ve usually seen is they’ll give you 2 options:
1. If you quit immediately they’ll likely offer you a severance of say a month or so of salary to give you some runway while you look for a new job (but now you don’t qualify for unemployment benefits, ultimately paying unemployment benefits and having to worry about a lawsuit from you for wrongful termination is what they’re trying to avoid). So you quitting right away is a major win for them.
2. You acknowledge (but never sign the PIP, ever, by refusing to sign this shows you do not agree with their assessment of your performance and keeps them on their toes for a potential wrongful termination lawsuit, leverage) and they give you a certain amount of time to improve, if they see improvement during that time they may keep you around a bit longer but you’ll likely never fully recover your reputation at the firm. If they decide you haven’t improved after the period of time they’ll likely fire you.
What I would do: I would do option 2 but look for jobs the entire time, definitely prioritize job hunting over any work they assign you. You know your career at this firm is coming to an end soon anyway so why bother trying to turn it around. Job market is so hot you have a good shot of finding something soon and can put in your 2 weeks toward the very end of the PIP. They won’t fire you at this point because they’re afraid of the wrongful termination lawsuit still (because you never signed the PIP, just acknowledged receiving it) plus you’re already halfway out the door anyway. What they might try to do is shorten your 2 week notice to just 1 week just to save themselves a little bit of dough, technically they can’t do this though as I believe 2 weeks is standard and you’re quitting so you get to pick your last day. If they want to pick your last day for you before the date you chose, they’ll have to fire you. By resigning all the way at the end of the PIP period you essentially just bought yourself another 2 weeks and hopefully by then you’ll have or be close to getting another offer.
If you’re nowhere near having an offer and the job hunt is going really really bad I would heavily weigh how much you need unemployment benefits before allowing them to fire you, especially if you’re trying to work in this same industry again, remember every job app asks why you left a job and will background check. If you resign and never signed the PIP there’s not much to background check. This really comes down to your current financial situation and whether you think you can survive long enough without unemployment benefits before finding a new job.
One last thing to note, this will likely be one of the most uncomfortable periods of your life but know that as uncomfortable as you are they are literally walking on eggshells trying not to screw anything up that could warrant a lawsuit. There’s ways you can take advantage of this but assuming they’re not incompetent they’ll likely come prepared so I wouldn’t waste your time trying to trick the inexperienced HR person to say something dumb to you and would focus on finding your next new job.
Best of luck
Rising Star
lol what? Pip = performance improvement plan. So if you aren’t performing, you expect them to give you money to fire you? Doesn’t work that way. Severance only happens if you are laid off
K. It’s extremely common practice in consulting. Typically T2 abs up firms give you not a cash payment, but several months unstaffed at the end doing admin work to look for new gig
Can you apply for unemployment?
Yea but it’s like super low so I suggest you start job hunting.