If you have a job lined up, is it better to quit or get laid off from existing job?

You will only get severence if your company is laying you off and offering you severence. You won’t get it because you are moving on to another job. So I guess I’m confused as to the situation you are asking about.

You get severence and umemployment benefits if you get laid off. if you quit you get neither in most cases. Just something to think about.

I need to find out from HR the details…but I just posted this just in case there was a “general” advice. For example, I am not sure if you get all your unused PTO days in both situations.

If I had a great and better job ahead of me, I would give a two week notice to the people I am now working for. They can never begrudge you for a better salary or working conditions and it looks great on your resume in the future.

From an HR standpoint it is better to give a 2 week notice. In this job market, there is never a good reason to burn a bridge. You never know when you may need a reference.

Definitely get laid off. Suppose something happened to your new job. You need unemployment, You would not be eligible if you had quit your previous job.

And…I don’t think you can volunteer to be laid off. If you talk to HR, you may be tipping your hand.

Getting unused PTO days on termination is probably a matter of company policy. Do you have an employee handbook? or an HR web page?

In California they have to pay you your PTO

I’m not even sure what you’re asking here. What do you mean? Are you asking if it is better to get laid off rather than write down that you’ve left a job/company on your own freewill for future resume considerations? Or are you asking if it is better to lose/quit your job a certain way due to severence pay considerations?

Personally I think it is much better to use ‘getting laid off’ on a job resume vs resigning. Even if the reasons for resigning were deemed as very justifiable due to gaining better employment for whatever reasons it is still better to get laid off. I’m not saying that it is a good thing to get laid off. It is almost always better for employers to see that you lost a job through no fault of your own rather than give up a job for whatever reasons. Also you can receive severence benefits (if the company is offering them) from getting laid off, but you won’t receive severence pay for voluntarily leaving a job. It will be much easier to recieve unemployment insurance benefits as well by getting laid off.

Why is it such a great thing to tell future prospective employers that your previous boss decided they could do without you, while keeping other people on? It’s not much of a vote in your favor. Being laid off might not be your fault, exactly, but unless they shut down the whole section or project or company, they picked your name, and they didn’t pick randomly.

It’s severAnce, guys.

“It is almost always better for employers to see that you lost a job through no fault of your own rather than give up a job for whatever reasons. ”
I still think there is a negative connotation to getting laid off. Someone had to go – and it was you. Not the other guy. Resigning indicates that you were in control – you weren’t fired, you weren’t “downsized”, you weren’t laid off. (Of course sometimes people are asked to resign but if your next job starts the following Monday, most likely you got a job lined up and resigned on your own.) If you you resign and are out of work for a couple months, it could look like you were “asked to resign” or essentially fired.

@Jeruba @Charles I’m just going by my own experiences with employers at interviews. When I had to explain why I wasn’t with that particular company anymore it seemed that most of them were alot more accepting of the job losses where I had gotten laid off. That is my opinion and I didn’t criticize yours so why not show equal respect back?

@Charles Well you did ask the question and your wording was very poor. I also gave you an opinion, which you did ask for despite the question being worded unproperly. Now you’re criticizing me for giving you an answer to a question that you had just asked?!

It’s disrespectful to have a different opinion, @Paradox25? Nonsense. You’re also not the only one to have stated that view. It sure isn’t about you.

Getting laid off is better than being fired, for sure. Resigning voluntarily is better than getting laid off. And I’m just going on my experience from more than 40 years in the working world, on both sides of the hiring desk, having hired and fired and been laid off and seen mass layoffs and read hundreds of resumes. Think what you like. That’s my opinion, and if you disagree, I won’t call it disrespectful. A difference is nothing but a difference.