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Searching while you still have a job

Harder to find time, much easier to negotiate. Here is how to protect both.

Searching from inside a job is the stronger position and the more awkward one. The strength is that you can walk away from a bad offer. The awkwardness is everything else.

Protect the search

• Never use your work laptop, work email or work phone. Assume anything on them is visible to your employer, because it usually is.
• Turn off LinkedIn activity broadcasts before you edit your profile.
• Schedule calls at lunch or early morning, and do not take them from a meeting room with a glass wall.

Protect the job

Keep delivering. A visible drop in output during a search is both unfair to colleagues and damaging to the reference you will need. It also removes your leverage if you end up staying.

Use the leverage properly

Being employed means you can decline a low offer without panic. Say so plainly: I am not in a hurry, and I would move for the right role. That single sentence changes the tone of a negotiation.

On counter offers

If you accept a counter offer, be honest about why. If the answer is only money, the reasons you started looking will still be there in six months, and you will have spent your leverage. If the answer is a genuine change in the role, that is a different thing and can work.