Life's biggest transitions, I've found, are usually conducted with an air of secrecy.
Take moving house, for example. You've got to find your next place to live, wait to go through the approval process, then give notice and line up the dates. Last time was relatively easy as we were crashing at my parents' and could move immediately; the time before that we had to give notice, and balance this with getting a reference from the current landlord, who obviously didn't know we were looking to leave. (I'm always paranoid that things can fall through at the last minute, and being homeless is my biggest fear. Like this, but without the happy ending.)
It's a similarly delicate dance with changing jobs. Again, you never know how long it will take to find a job, and for all the processing to be done at the hiring end. Plus, that balancing of references is even more crucial here.
When I came across a blog post discussing whether you should inform your boss that you're looking for a new job, I did a double take.
I've always had great bosses - but I have never had that kind of open relationship with them. Perhaps general chat in broad terms about career paths, ambitions, next steps ... but I would never come right out and say I was actively looking elsewhere.
And yet, people do. I was recently chatting to someone who's been in the same company for nearly 7 years. There were a few times, she said, when she was proactively interviewing elsewhere. Feeling stuck with nowhere to go, she'd voiced her frustrations to her boss - only nothing was happening. He was willing to act as a reference for external jobs, even. (In the end, she had leverage enough to get what she wanted, and accepted a counter offer to stay.)
