Someone looking for a new job who needs one right now applies to many, many positions. Some are great, some are not-so-wonderful, and a few are inadequate but lumped in with other, decent jobs. (Applying to a large store hoping for a management position when cashiering is a possibility, for example.)
So there are many requests for interviews. A less-than-ideal job starting tomorrow is offered. Is it unethical to accept the ick job (cashiering) without telling them that you might not be there for more than a week,and that you have interviewed in many other places? Management knows the job candidate’s qualifications are good enough that someone else might want to hire them but they offer the job for right now.
When you’ve got bills to pay and you will do the best job you can at the ick job, I don’t think there’s anything unethical about leaving if something better comes along. And I don’t think you need to tell them up front unless they ask directly. It starts to get into a gray area if the company that hires you invests a lot of time and money training you or getting you licenses/certificates/whatever.
You owe your best effort while employed, but you also owe it to yourself to follow the best path you can. Goodness knows, the company won’t feel bad if they have to fire you after a couple of weeks because business tanks.
Ethical or not, I wouldn’t hesitate to accept a less desirable job, knowing that I might drop it like a hot rock next week.
If I was troubled by this, when the second, better offer comes in, I might try to push the start date for that job 14-21 days into the future. I then explain the situation to my boss at my current, less desirable job. I’m leaving, does he want me to give notice, does he want to renegotiate the terms of my employment to try to get me to stay or is it just better for him if I bail now and let the chips fall where they may? If I can’t push back the start date of my newly offered employment, current boss gets screwed and I will not lose sleep over it.
Nope. There’s an inherent power differential between a worker and an employer and considering the employer doesn’t even hesitate to fuck over the worker at their own whim it’s just stupid to worry about the employer’s well being over your own.
I mean, I try to be ethical about it. The people who interviewed/hired me have some personal stake in the matter (i.e. “wow you made an expensively bad hiring decision”). So I try my best to consider that.
But when it comes to a bare contest between my interest an theirs, I know they’d throw me under the bus twice if necessary, so I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over doing the same.
The very fact that we even entertain the notion that as individuals we should treat a corporation “fairly” speaks rather eloquently to the pervasiveness of their propaganda in our society. Corporations, SCOTUS notwithstanding, are NOT people.
I wouldn’t call it unethical to accept a job knowing you could quit very soon if you’re offered a better job. However, I would call it unethical to accept a job knowing you’ll only be working a week because that’s when your new job starts.
There’s no point in jeopardizing a paycheck because of something that might happen at some point in the future. But if you’ve already got something lined up, then yeah, let them know. They probably won’t hire you, but who knows, maybe they’ll give you something to do for a week that won’t require training.
And don’t forget, your new employer certainly isn’t going to say ‘by the way, we have someone more qualified lined up for this same spot. If we end up hiring her next week, you’re out’. And they wouldn’t tell applicants for the same reason, most people won’t take the job knowing they’ll likely be let go in a few days.
For minor jobs like being a cashier, I would have no problem accepting the job and then leaving soon after. Menial jobs will have lots of job churn and the company should be prepared to handle it. An ethical company will understand a minimum wage employee leaving for a better paying job. But the higher up and better compensated the job, the less likely I am to quickly leave. It’s one thing if you’re an easily replaceable cashier, but if you’re a manager with specific skills, the company will have a harder time replacing you.
Typically when you get a reasonably-paying job offer, there is some time period before you have to make a decision. The ethical thing to do would be to use that time to contact the other companies to see what your chances are with those other jobs. If you haven’t heard back by the time the offering company needs an answer, make a decision and stick to it. Either tell the first company no and take your chances with the other offers, or take the job and stay a reasonable amount of time. If you get a much, much better offer soon after you might consider jumping, but don’t leave if it’s just a small bump. There’s no telling if the other job will work out and there’s no sense in harming your reputation if there’s not a significant benefit.
Also remember that there are many paths to success. Many executives rose through the ranks at their company from menial positions. They may have started as a stocker, cashier, janitor, etc, but then became manager, regional manager, purchaser, and on to executive. Before you jump to another company, consider if the potential upside is greater in your current company. It may be better long-term to be a cashier in $100M company instead of a manger in a $10M company.
No. Your employer will fire you the day you aren’t useful to them, you own them zero loyalty.
Yeah they will spend the money training you, but if they aren’t offering competitive wages, benefits and treatment at work people aren’t going to stick around.
But on the other hand, the employer has some leverage. If you walk out on them, you can’t use them as a reference. I know, I know, you can’t say anything bad about an ex-employee when a future employer calls, but it happens, I promise, and it happens in ways that the applicant isn’t going to find out about.
On the other hand, the person hiring you can (and should) know it is a bad job and might be happy to get anyone. If enough people leave, and they don’t try to make the job better, they deserve what they get.
If you walk out on them quickly enough, you wouldn’t use them as a reference anyhow. If they are bad employers, you shouldn’t expect an honest reference.
It is why it is so important to leave good employers on good terms, and have some independent references in your network.
When I started working for the Bell System, there was some expectation of lifetime employment. Within a few years were told explicitly that we were responsible for our own careers. Ethical companies expect people to leave who aren’t getting a fair shake for whatever reason, like not enough money for raises. Companies that screw you over and then think that leaving is unethical don’t deserve your respect.
I’ve worked for both types.
That’s not true. Companies often have policies that restrict what can be said about an ex-employee, and I’m not going to say that there is no state or city that legally restricts what a company can say - but in general, if a company is called for a reference, they are perfectly free to say you just stopped showing up after a week, that you quit after a month to take another job, that you were fired for excessive absences etc, etc, - just as long as they are telling the truth.
I agree, I also wouldn’t even mention a job I walked off of after a week. But, for example, I’ve had employees that have worked for me for years and then one day either did something spectacularly stupid (one got caught stealing and smoking weed, on the same day, another was here for about 20+ years and just stopped showing up) and now have to either explain a giant gap in the work experience or spin what happened to make sure we don’t get calls for references.
I’m not even sure what is supposed to be unethical here, especially since 49 states in the US are entirely at-will employment. This seems to treat the employee as worse than a serf; once you’re in, the company can fire you with no notice and no particular reason but you get the label ‘unethical’ if you dare to leave for a better job. If you think there’s some sort of commitment to stay in a job a day longer than it’s profitable for the employee, what is the similar obligation that the company has to the employee? The idea that employees owe one-sided loyalty to their employer is pretty unpleasant, and doesn’t work in practice.
This seems especially absurd for part-time work, where the employer keeps hours short to save money and the employee is likely getting the life-or death benefit of good health insurance at the better job, and any jobs with a non-fixed schedule (like cashiering) where the employer doesn’t commit to the person even working a set of hours until the week begins. The idea that someone working a job where they don’t even know if or when they’ll be working that week until they check the schedule on Sunday owes some sort of long-term loyalty to the employer who won’t even give them a week’s notice of working hours is darkly hilarious to me.
Grab the job offered as you only “may” get the better job. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Hopefully the second employer doesn’t have a “no poaching” policy. In my late teens I got turned down for a good job because I was delivering fricken pizzas and the new employer didn’t “hire people away” from other employers for entry level positions.
IMO, that’s misinterpreting what the OP is asking. Taking a job knowing you’re going to leave in a week is like an employer hiring you knowing they’re going to fire you in a week. Sure, an employer can fire you for any reason, and they might do it in a few days if someone better comes along, but you can quit for any reason, including if you get a better offer.
Comparing “I’m going to quit a week after I start” to “I may fire this person a week after I hire them” doesn’t seem fair, at least to me.
ISTM, you have to compare either “I going to quit after a week” with “I’m going to fire them after one week” OR “I may quit…” with “I may fire…”.
Does that make sense? It’s may fire/quit vs will fire/quit.
That’s not what the OP states. The OP quite clearly lays out a situation where you’ve applied for multiple jobs, you get an offer of a bad job that you will leave as soon as you get a better offer, but you don’t tell them “I’m out of here if I get a better offer”. There’s no mention that you have a better offer and are planning to leave within a week, and there’s specifically mention of “do you have to tell them that you’ve been interviewing”.