Should You Resign From Your Current Job Without A Job Offer In Hand ?

Every software developer faces this frustration of not feeling fulfilled in their current role. It could be due to lower pay, not enough learning at work, toxic management and so on. All this leaves us physically and emotionally drained leaving very less time for interview preparation to switch to a better job. We often feel stuck as there is not enough time to prepare and not enough motivation to stay in the current job. In such cases, we get the temptation to resign even without a job offer in hand. The thought process is that we will get more time to improve our resume, build projects, get some certifications, learn DSA and grind leetcode. I am sure you might have thought of this at least once in your career. In this post, I will discuss if you should go ahead on this path where you put in your resignation without a solid job offer in hand.

There are both pros and cons for this decision. A major pros being you will get all the time in the world to build a solid profile. You can learn a new tech stack and build some projects to write in your resume in a matter of 1-2 months. You can even spend time getting formal certifications which gives more credibility to your resume. You get more than enough time to master Data Structures, Algorithms and System design. All this happens without any nagging from your manager to complete some boring tasks on a tight deadline. Basically what takes 6 months to do with a job, can be accomplished within 2 months if you are spending your full time in your interview preparation. In a matter of a few months, you will be ready to apply for job postings, and if you get a job offer, you would not have to answer those annoying questions about long notice periods. You will be an immediate joiner which will put you above other candidates in the hiring pipeline.

It would only be fair to discuss the downsides of this decision. While there is no doubt that you will get more than enough time to prepare resulting in much accelerated learning, you will also start another battle for you. Till now, when you were in a job, your battle was internal where you were unable to cope up with the job related pressure. After resignation, you will start an external battle of answering your relatives and peers on what you are doing these days and why you are unemployed when you had an absolutely fine job. While this may sound stupid that we should not care about what others are saying, the struggle is real. Often what others say impacts our mental health too much. Getting rejections in interviews is pretty common. There will be cases where you are not getting replies from the recruiters, or are getting rejected from the interviews even after applying to many job listings. At this stage, you might feel a lot of demotivation especially when your peers are working, and you get asked questions from your relatives & friends. Even if you are financially stable, you will start feeling the heat, and this can significantly impact your mental health as well as interview preparation.

While it may seem tempting to resign and give 100% to job preparation, you should consider how strong you are in terms of mindset. If you feel that it would be tough to handle rejections while our peers are working and growing in the job, resignation is not the right path for you. In this case, try finding 1 hour on every weekday for job preparation. On weekends you can commit to more hours for the preparation. Your learning will be slow, you might take 6-9 months to get an interview ready, but you will be under no pressure due to rejections, as you will always have your current job to fall back upon. Do not be in a hurry to resign, think thoroughly about the pressures you will face, and then take a decision.