Taking the summer off (leaning back?) - what would you do?
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Anonymous
| I am not happy in my current job and am thinking about quitting before summer for an extended break, then looking for a job in late summer and hopefully starting work again in Sept when DC starts school. Bills would be covered by DHs salary for the short term, and we have emergency savings. Am I crazy? Anyone else done this? |
Anonymous
| Go for it, just be warned, you may never want to go back to 9-5. |
Anonymous
| Ps, I took 11 years off and will be going back in Fall, it is realy hard to go back to having a boss, etc. |
Anonymous
|
I took a year and a half off and I'm having trouble getting interviews due to the time off. I think people either resent the time off or feel I don't have recent experience?
Personally, I feel it was the best thing for my family. Professionally, worst mistake ever! But, as a disclaimer, I am pretty old so that makes it harder to find a job. And the economy really sucks right now. Hmm, or maybe this is how the rest of the country feels and we are just feeling it now (oops, another thread). |
Anonymous
| Honestly, it depends on your field. What field are you in or looking to go into once you start looking? Do you have any education? At what level? |
Anonymous
| It might take a lot longer to get a job than to start looking in late summer and think you will be working by Sept. |
Anonymous
| What is the job market like in your field? Generally it is always easiest to find a job when you already have one, so you don't have to explain a period of unemployment, and bc unemployed candidates are just not as well-regarded, all other things being equal. But if you work in a field where jobs are easy to come by and your skills are in demand, this sound like a good plan. |
Anonymous
| I did it and so far don't regret the decision. I haven't started to look for a job yet, though, so I don't know how I feel when I start that process but so far not having a paycheck has been something we all had to adapt to but once we got in the swing of it everyone has been good about cutting back on "wants" and enjoying ways to save money or do things that are free. Best of all is I love how I feel, how I related to my family and how much more time I have on the weekends to spend to with them since I can get all of the other stuff out of the way when they are at work/school. I had a friend that was out of the work force 12 years and for her what was successful was keeping current on professional aspects - attending conferences, doing webinars etc so while there was a gap in her resume she was still in the "know" professionally. |
Anonymous
| I'm pretty conservative financially, so I wouldn't do it unless I knew we could live a long time on one salary, but it's your life (and yolo). |
Anonymous
| You could consider searching for a job now and, when you find one, ask if you can start in Sept. |
Anonymous
| I'd start the job search at the end of May/early June and hope that by the time the offer came through it would be reasonable enough to ask for a September start date. If you start the job search in May and have no interviews 3 months later in July, then I don't think it would be wise to quit. |
Anonymous
Good advice. |
Anonymous
|
It took me a little over a year to find a job, once I started looking seriously.
So just be sure your savings can cover an extended period of unemployment before you walk away. The job-seeker is not in a strong position in this economy. |
Anonymous
Just curious - what field are you in? |