Three Things You Should Never Do When Looking For A New Job While Employed

Thinking about taking your talents to a new company? With low unemployment, it’s a job seekers’ market, so it makes sense that you may want to dip your toes into what else is out there, even if you still like your current job. It never hurts to explore and learn more about your market value. You’ve spent all these years mastering your skills, so why not see how much these skills are worth at other companies?

So how exactly do you pull off a job search on the down low without your current employer finding out? Mostly, it’s about keeping your search as separate as possible from your daily work life and making sure you don’t make some easily avoidable mistakes. Such as:

Spending Your Work Time Looking For a Job

Let’s take the fact that you are looking for a new job out of the equation for a second. Management doesn’t like when you spend your time at work doing anything unrelated to your job. Sure, some workplaces are more lax than others when it comes to what constitutes work, but they are definitely not going to be okay with you spending your time looking for a new job. No matter how good you think you are at keeping your job search to yourself (before you answer, read the next section), it’s NOT worth the risk. It’s not just that they may catch a glance at an open job board on your screen. Job searches take time and getting sucked in at work can seriously affect your productivity. The last thing you want to do is to lose your job before you have another one locked up.

Doing Your Search On Work Technology (Or Even Wi-Fi)

It’s common sense (or at least should be) that you should not use your work computer for your job search, nor should you use your work line to make calls related to it. In today’s business world, you can be fairly confident that your management is keeping track of your search history and phone records at work. So spending a slow afternoon on your favorite job board will almost certainly be noticed. Of course, it’s not just the items that stay at work that you need to be cognizant of. Take your lap top for example. Even if you are safely outside the confines of work, management may be monitoring your search history (that woke you up, right?), especially if you were issued the device solely for work purposes. Same goes for the work phone that you may be currently reading this on (keep reading, though, in for a penny, in for a pound, right?).  Oh, one more item to note: companies can track login’s and search history on their Wi-Fi, so you may want to use your own data if you need to do something search related on your breaks.

Gabbing To Your Work Friend

You shouldn’t be telling your work buddies about your work search, even if you really do consider them friends. Sorry, I know this one is going to be hard, but this is one of those “abundance of caution” things. It’s not that your work friends have malice in their hearts or anything, it’s just that even the most well-intentioned people out there can’t always keep a secret. Much like that cold that everyone in the building got, rumors can move quickly around the office, and the game of telephone will eventually reach your boss. Even if your coworkers are tight-lipped, you never know who could be in earshot. Honestly, you are better off just keeping this information to yourself.