Ask HN: Did you ever resign from a company on your first day?

if your going to do it tell them as soon as possible. It will probably burn bridges, but don't get stuck at job your not going to like.

Be honest. Tell HR the truth. Tell them the other company has offered you a much bigger salary. Tell them that salary is very important to you at this stage of your life.

The big question.....have you signed a contract? If not then get the second contract signed before you diss the first. You never know what might happen. Even if it entails traveling there to sign the contract...do it. And while you are there go in person to the first company that offered you. I believe that until you sign the contract you still have room to make changes. The contract is the key. If you have already signed a contract with the first company it could mean trouble. That changes everything.

As an employee I almost resigned the first week at a startup but convinced myself the bad vibe I was getting was an overreaction. It wasn't. I ended up resigning within six months.

As an occasional hiring manager I would prefer a candidate reject my job offer as early as possible. First, so I can revisit the other candidates and hopefully not have to repeat the entire process. Second, if the new employee quits, it's more expensive to restart the process six months.

I don't know German employment law, but in the US you would have no obligation to the employer unless you've accepted reimbursement already or signed a contract of some sort, and even then you can usually work out not takng the job.

In the US, in tech, it is relatively common for people to sign an offer and then change their mind and choose to not join. It happened a few times in different companies where I worked. It wasn't really a big deal, it is considered part of the game.

Note that the opposite can happen too and it is much more frequent. It can happen especially to students. They get an offer starting in 6 months after they graduate and by then the company has problems, like layoffs or hiring freeze, so they cancel the offer.

If company A is paying you much less than company B, that means they are paying you below your market value. So it is up to them to either match the other offer or lose you.

  Note that the opposite can happen too...It can 
  happen especially to students. They get an offer
  starting in 6 months after they graduate and by 
  then the company has problems, like layoffs or 
  hiring freeze, so they cancel the offer.

Do what you want to do and don't consider the effect on the company. Your priority should be to make the best decision for yourself and your own interests.

Definitely let them know immediately. You not being happy in your job (because of a better offer), or you quitting within first 3 months, is much worse than saying even a day in advance that you had other offer and this is how things are. Really tell them your position, there is nothing wrong with this.

Take the better offer, tell the losing company ASAP.

Yes. I accepted a job some years ago at a company that was working a contract for a General Dynamics subsidiary in Georgia (some of you will know exactly which one). They had incredible difficulty giving me a start date and strung me along after signing for about a month.

I was extremely eager to get out of my then-current employer, so the situation became extremely stressful to me. I didn't want to burn a bridge with my then-employer and wanted to give them a full two-week's notice.

Eventually I'd had enough of waiting and gave them my resignation before I worked a single day, even though I was supposedly an employee (went through full handbook, tax stuff, etc). This was on a Friday morning. The full rest of my day was them calling me over and over convincing me that they could start me the following Monday.

I still walked -- not worth that kind of disorganization and hassle. I'm convinced that the whole time I wasn't working they were billing the client for me to be there. ...They paid a lot of money for my background check too... whoops!

Signed the employment contract with the first company? Then notice period during the trial period applies. Didn’t sign? Ghost them, send an email, whatever. Don’t feel obliged in any way if the employment contract hasn’t been signed by both parties. I see no problem with resigning on the first day (if they want cheap, they’ll pay twice) although I’ve never done it myself. Personal advice? IT companies in Berlin are awful cheapskates, make everyone a favor and increase the average.

I once worked for a company that did some intensive training sessions for the first week. When I finally got around to working on their codebase it was entirely written in VB. This was something they chose to leave out in terms of their technical stack. I had better opportunities working with a consulting gig that later got me relocated and that led me to even better opportunities later down the road. It's better to just pursue what you want than get bogged down, just be professional and straightforward about it.

Wrong in what sense? You owe them the courtesy of explaining your decision, but that's about it. It's your life, it's just business for them.

I resigned on my second day. On the second day, it came out that the founder wanted to review my code every 30 minutes. What!? Apparently, he was traumatized by some prima-donna self-proclaimed genius who went off by himself for two months and built entirely the wrong thing. I suggested that he at least give me a day or the afternoon or something. Nope. So I became the Sofa King and I was Sofa King outta there!

Another thing about that founder: He wanted me to write everything by scratch, ground up, nothing outside of Apple APIs, out of fear of patents and copyrights. I'm sorry, but that's just technical ignorance. In that case, go ahead and use 3rd party libraries, but do it mediated through a facade or some kind of adapter library, so you can rapidly switch to another one. This gives the best of both worlds -- more rapidly put together a functioning App, but still be immune to people changing licensing terms.

You don’t owe anything to anyone, but be fair with them and just tell them you got a better offer and you won’t be starting at all, don’t wait for the first day to start and resign...

Take the better offer (politely and professionally). It's just business not a play date.

I'm confused, "first day"? Wont you start in only a month?

Pretend everything is ok and announce you are quitting just on the first day, that would be unprofessional.

Confirm and sign with the other company and inform that you will refuse the offer of the first one as soon as you have this confirmation. That's professional.

https://medium.com/@batdongsandn/nhung-du-doan-ve-bat-dong-s... Mac du thi truong bat dong san quan Hai Chau van duoc danh gia la vo cung tiem nang. Nhung quy dat lai qua han che va dat do. Dieu nay khien cho chi nhung khach hang nao thuc su co tien moi co the dau tu vao day. Tuy nhien khong phai vi tri nao cung mang lai loi nhuan nhu y. Do do cac nha dau tu can can nhac ky luong cac xu huong phat trien cua thanh pho va su tap trung dan cu de dua ra nhung quyet dinh tot nhat cho minh.

> Did you ever resign from a company on your first day?

More or less.

I once received an offer from a great company doing avionics. In a bizarre turn of events I then received an offer out of the blue with a company I'd applied to about 18 months previously and had forgotten about.

The result was I rang the first company and told them I wouldn't be starting the following Monday after all. I felt bad, but the truth is I'm pretty sure they were able to fill that slot quickly enough.

I would follow your heart - that first company really doesn't want to have an employee that doesn't really want to be there...

Yes. Took a job with a defense contractor in the UK. On day 1 they told me that it would take 6 months to get security clearance. The bummer was that the men's bathroom was in a secure area and I would have to be escorted every time. On day 1 I quit.

Sign with the other company then resign from the first. This is not uncommon. How ever do it now before starting and taking any relocation assistance from the first company.

That an employee quits the first day or does not show up sucks big time. It is better to say that another process that you thought had failed resurrected and had much better salary and relocation benefits. Tell them it was a difficult decision (it was, you even asked it in HN) but that you felt you had to decline it because you felt than joining the company with strong feelings of regret could seriously jeopardize your performance. Tell them that since you found the job offer interesting (indeed you accepted it) if you ever become available again, you would let them know in case there is a matching opportunity.

I have been in the exact same situation 6 years ago. I found a good job that I accepted but my girlfriend found a job abroad the week after. I decided to let go of the offer I had already signed to relocate with her.

It sucks big time to call someone and let them down (especially since I called on Christmas :s). But it's much more desirable than joining anyways with after thoughts. Worse thing you can live with is regrets. They'll find someone else in a couple weeks.

End of the first week, from the first place I worked out of college. A web design/dev shop in Connecticut that built out sites for schools and hospitals, mostly. This was back in 2008.

I had joined and was learning the ropes of their dev process. There was still some paperwork that needed to be signed. Someone brought me the contract to sign, and I read it through, and it had a non-compete clause that said that I could not work for rival company, or "any other software engineering company" in "connecticut, new england, the eastern United States, or anywhere else in the United States" for "a minimum of 2 years." No joke.

I asked them what that was all about, and they said it was a company policy. I did some research, learned all about non-competes, and told them that the clause was so broad that it would never be upheld, but they said everyone just signs it. I told them no, grabbed my stuff and drove home. Was probably one of the best decisions I made, since the path I went down led me to a company that was acquired by Fb, etc etc

Yes, it happened once a long time ago. The job interview was held at a beautiful office but when I arrived at my workplace (my fault that I did not ask where exactly my seat would be) I saw a different building a squalid conditions, dirty and without heating. I resigned at the end of my first day