I'm worried people will tell my boss that I'm looking for a new job!

June 23, 2021 4:19 AM

I work for a person who is very high-profile and influential in our fairly small, competitive, sometimes dysfunctional field. I like my job and boss a lot, but I'd like to start exploring new opportunities for a variety of reasons. I'm concerned that others n my field (including folks involved in the hiring process at other organizations) may warn him I'm looking for a new job in order to curry favor. I've heard rumors that this has happened before. How should I manage my job hunt with that in mind?

I've had this role for a few years, and like it, but there's no opportunity for further advancement and I feel like I might be ready for a change. I'd like to start exploring new opportunities. However, my generally wonderful boss is well known for valuing loyalty (to a fault), and I'm concerned that other people in our field may tip him off that I'm looking. Similarly, it's possible that folks may not want to hire me out of concerns that my boss will be upset about me being "poached."

Intellectually my boss would absolutely understand why I would look for a new role. However, I'm concerned that it would at least temporarily damage our working relationship if he were to find out. Also, I'm concerned that I might not find a position that I like more than my current role and may want to stay. I think that would be difficult if he found out I was looking for other opportunities.

Does anyone have any tips for how to navigate this? Are there things you would do if you were me? Should I try to address it somehow during the interview process? If so, how? I worry that addressing it increases the likelihood that folks won't consider me because they don't want to damage their relationship with my current boss, but maybe I'm wrong? Should I just stop worrying about it? I'm also generally open to hearing anecdotes from folks who navigated similar situations.

I've job-hunted before in this field without many issues, but I've never worked for someone so high-profile and concerned with loyalty. I'm keeping the field intentionally vague, but if it helps, this is a non-profit operating in a currently trendy field in a large City in the US. I don't have a union, and our organization is too small to have an HR person.

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (16 answers total)

This almost never happens.

Those rumors are likely false.

Manage your search as you normally would.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 4:44 AM on June 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

Just chiming in to say that this does actually happen. I work in New York City and within the last month have had two coworkers leave. One was almost not hired because the new organization shares a a board member with our board, and the other almost didn't get the new job because it was for a consulting company we work with and they were worried about damaging the relationship for poaching. Poaching happens. A place that poaches isn't going to necessarily care what the feelings are of the place that was poached (except for my above example where we had an actual working professional relationship already and in that story, the person was offered and took the job and none of us are upset because we are adults).

And these are just two stories from the last month. There have been others over the year where we found out Person X was interviewing somewhere because fields can be incredibly incestuous and small even when they are large.

But to answer your question. You need to do whatever you need to do for your own happiness. The expectation when hiring is that your current employer likely doesn't know you are interviewing -- people don't normally announce this, they announce their resignation date when it happens. You can't control what someone does or does not do when reviewing a resume, but when interviewing you can clarify that this is being done quietly and you would prefer them not to contact your current employer. Many places as if it is OK to contact your current employer. And if someone does that, do you want to work in that kind of gossipy backstabby culture?

And if your boss does find out, be direct. I'm looking for a change and advancement. Can you offer something to make me stop looking?
posted by archimago at 5:05 AM on June 23, 2021 [3 favorites]

As a boss: If you are a top performer, I expect you to know what you are worth. I expect you to be benchmarking your talent. I expect you to know what else is going on in our industry. I expect you to know what skills you would like to learn or are relevant / adjacent to what we do. I expect that if you are working for me that you are doing so with the knowledge that this is *indeed* the best place that you could be working. As a boss, I expect that my top talent continues to flourish and grow and that as a leader *I* become known as one that fosters an environment for top talent to reach their potential. And with that, I also expect my top performers to be lifting up others around them and helping establish the foundations of mentorship through their own actions.

Not all bosses think like this.
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:11 AM on June 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

I just want to affirm that if you are worrying about this, you are right to worry. There is a huge variation in how people think about this. Good bosses, however they may feel privately, are supportive of employees pursuing their professional goals even when that means leaving, or exploring their options to leave. But there are plenty of bosses who "value loyalty" in the way that you describe, and there are plenty of other people who collude with them in that.

I have been in lots of conversations where people behave exactly the way you describe. Like, assuring each other they won't "poach." Telling someone when one of their employees is looking around. Telling other people to keep their hands off X, who works for them. I think it's appalling and I don't do it, but lots of people do.

It is perfectly okay to tell potential employees that your search is confidential. You don't need to wait for the interview stage; you can say it in your cover letter. You can also mitigate your risk a little by talking about how much you love your current position and you'd be happy to stay there forever, but this opportunity is potentially just too awesome to let slip by without exploration. But the truth is there are some people who will rat you out anyway, and I don't think there's anything you can do to stop them.

Your boss is a jerk by the way. It's super-entitled to expect this kind of "loyalty," and it's always a one-way street. It's usually baby boomer men who do it in my experience, and it's just so, so unsurprising.
posted by Susan PG at 5:25 AM on June 23, 2021 [18 favorites]

Also poaching is a bullshit concept. People have a right to job-hunt, and employers have a right to recruit. Employers don't own their employees.
posted by Susan PG at 5:29 AM on June 23, 2021 [20 favorites]

Does your boss see himself as a mentoring type? Can you actually approach him to talk about "your development in Industry X" and ask him for advice on how you can best grow your skills. If he himself suggests that it might be time for you to move on, he might find you a new job using all those contacts that won't want to burn bridges with him. If you aren't the first one to mention changing jobs, talking about developing your skills isn't inherently disloyal.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:05 AM on June 23, 2021 [17 favorites]

All you can do with people other than your boss (potential future employers) is ask them to be discreet (in most industries this is just understood, but it sounds like you have good reason to be concerned).

But I agree with jacquilynne that it may be worth just discussing opportunities for advancement with your boss. If there's a good chance he's going to find out you're looking anyway, working with him is going to come across as more "loyal" than having him find out from some other hiring manager.
posted by mskyle at 6:08 AM on June 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

It .. absolutely happens.

Mention the field is small and discretion is appreciated. Good luck!
posted by firstdaffodils at 6:29 AM on June 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

"And if someone does that, do you want to work in that kind of gossipy backstabby culture?"

This, to me, is the critical question. If you can't trust someone when you're applying for a job, what will change after you're hired? Nothing. It will remain a culture of going behind your back. In a way, a company behaving like this would almost be doing you a favor by letting you know you don't want to work there.

Likewise, if your current boss is petty enough that a mere application somewhere else would ruin your working relationship, you don't have much of a working relationship to begin with, and it's good to know that.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:29 AM on June 23, 2021

I like mskyle and jacquillynne's suggestion. People like your boss can get a lot of their influence by placing "loyal" people in positions, it benefits them both on both end of the connection. Someone they are connected to gets the "favor" of a good employee and through you they now have another connection. It makes them look good.

Can you look into what kinds of things other former employees have moved on to? Does he still have relationships with them?
posted by sepviva at 6:39 AM on June 23, 2021

I think part of it will have to involve accepting the risks that comes with this kind of move. Whether you approach him directly about creating new opportunities for advancing in your current position; you leave your current position first and then accept a new position; you do as you're currently planning; or something else altogether, each will carry its own risk trade-offs. It might help to organize for yourself what kind of risks you're most willing to take/able to tolerate, and how important various payoffs/outcomes are to you.
posted by obliterati at 6:47 AM on June 23, 2021 [4 favorites]

I think you have two potential approaches to this:
1. Stealth - isolate what you are looking for, what you will / will not accept. Apply for very specific roles only. If you aren’t close to 100% sure you’d take a role if offered, don’t apply and don’t interview. Be extra careful on the things that generally make it obvious that you are job hunting - odd absences, hushed or mysterious phone calls, wearing smarter clothes than usual. Basically fly under the radar until you resign. I’ve done this before, it was very satisfying!

2. Be open - discuss your career with your boss, plant the seeds that you want to develop in X area and ask for suggestions / advice etc. Express appropriate concern over lack of opportunities etc. If he finds out you are looking hopefully won’t be too much of a shock and you can go with the ‘I really enjoy working here but you know I really want to do more of X and this is just such a great opportunity that I have to go for it’ and ‘I’ve learned so much from you, you’ve helped me feel ready to stretch myself’ etc etc etc.

Above all, try not to feel or act guilty or ashamed of wanting to progress your career. Loyalty is important but your first loyalty is to yourself. Companies demand loyalty but dispense with us at the drop of a hat when it suits them! Best of luck.
posted by ElasticParrot at 6:57 AM on June 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

I agree with planting the seeds gently in your boss' mind that you are looking to stretch your skill set, develop your career etc. Hopefully this will help her not take it personally when you do leave.

Loyalty doesn't necessarily mean "my employee is always going to work for me" -- that's a highly unreasonable and unrealistic expectation. More importantly, it means "they share information with me and make me look good." Smart bosses know that having loyal employees eventually go elsewhere to be promoted is a very good thing: (a) it means their underlings aren't going to grab their own job, or the promotion opportunities they're eyeing, and (b) it places allies elsewhere in the industry, where they can be a huge asset in the event of an eventual job search.
posted by fingersandtoes at 8:00 AM on June 23, 2021

Consider telling your boss that you're looking for a new job. Obviously, only do this if you have reason to believe your boss will be gracious about this, and if you feel you are adequately protected from the worst consequences if he isn't.

But you say he values loyalty, and there's a way to go about this that reinforces that sense of loyalty. You're not telling him you're unhappy - you're getting his blessing. The script is basically "I love working with you, I've learned so much from you. I want to further that learning by pursuing X and Y and so I'm looking at such and such opportunities. I haven't applied for anything yet - I wanted to come to you first, to see what you think about this plan, and to ask you for help." Basically kissing his ring.

This is how things are standardly done in certain fields that value loyalty, like politics. I can't tell you if this would be appropriate in this situation or it makes sense in your field, but I can tell you that when I've done this in the past, or when my direct reports have done it with me, it absolutely made everything go smoother, both in terms of the transition and maintaining the relationship.
posted by lunasol at 2:23 PM on June 23, 2021 [4 favorites]

Here's what I did in a similar situation. I shared I was looking for new opportunities with people I trusted to be more loyal to me than my boss and they kept an eye out for opportunities. That's how I found my current job.

Otherwise, small as your field is, there are likely some companies in that field who don't share the same vision or approach as your current boss. As a result they probably aren't following what your boss is up to nor do they care to and further they are less likely to have any mutual connections. For example there aren't that many companies of a certain size and caliber in my industry in my geographic region, and yet my current company could not care less about my old company even though they are located within a few miles of each other. So look around with open eyes and disclose your search carefully, you won't be as completely constrained as you might think you are.

That said, you won't have zero constraints. My previous supervisor had no qualms about reaching out to a candidate's current company for a secret reference if he knew people at that company. I was aghast but apparently that is a thing people do when the relationship already exists.
posted by Goblin Barbarian at 3:22 PM on June 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

Caveat on my prior comment, because I wasn't clear on something.

Top talent leaves. That gives me the opportunity to foster and cultivate new top talent. If top talent stays, its because my work has changed. My goal is to grow at such a rate that I don't have my team all giving notice at the same time, that some migrate up and out, and junior members are qualified to transition into the vacant roles. A person who works 10 years in the same job on the same system doing the same thing that they did 10 years ago is ripe for automation and redundancy. Growth... I grow, you grow, the skils grow, the job grows. If I'm not upholding my end of the growth model, it is time to move on.
posted by Nanukthedog at 8:32 AM on June 24, 2021