How to look for a new job while you are still employed

Usually, yes. You negotiate from a stronger position when you can walk away, there is no gap to explain, and you can afford to turn down the wrong offer. The cost is time and energy: evenings of applications and a few awkward absences. Plan for a search of several months rather than weeks, and pace yourself — a slow, steady search you can sustain beats a burst that burns you out and leaves your current work slipping.

The one rule that matters most: keep doing your current job well. Your reputation there is your next reference, and a sudden drop in performance is the most common way people give themselves away.

• Never search, apply or store your CV on a work laptop, phone, email or network. Employers can monitor company equipment, and a forgotten tab or synced browser history is how many searches are discovered.
• Search on your own time, not in paid working hours.
• Tell nobody at work, including close colleagues. Word travels faster than you expect.
• Give recruiters your personal email and mobile number and ask them to contact you only there.
• Update your LinkedIn profile gradually and with notifications off; a sudden headline change, new photo and ten new skills in one evening is noticeable.
• Be careful at public events, on recruitment-agency databases and when a recruiter asks for permission to send your CV to a company — make them name the company first, in case it is a client or partner of your employer.

LinkedIn’s Open to Work feature offers two visibility options. “All LinkedIn members” is visible to everyone, including people at your current company, and adds the #OpenToWork frame to your photo. “Recruiters only” shows your status only to people using LinkedIn Recruiter. LinkedIn says it takes steps to stop Recruiter users at your current company from seeing it, but that it cannot guarantee complete privacy, so treat it as low-risk rather than invisible.

Before editing your profile, go to Settings & Privacy, then Visibility, and switch off “Share profile updates”, so your network is not notified about job changes and edits. Then write a headline and About section that describe what you do, not what you want — “Payroll specialist, UK and Ireland, 6 years” attracts recruiters without announcing a search. Your profile is also a search result; a free LinkedIn profile review shows what recruiters see.

Ask for the first interview early in the morning, at lunchtime or at the end of the day; employers who hire experienced people expect this and many will adjust. Ask whether early rounds can be by video, and try to cluster later rounds into the same week so you need fewer absences.

For a long final round, take a day or half-day of annual leave. You do not owe your employer the reason for a holiday or a “personal appointment”, and a vague true statement is safer than an invented dentist visit you then have to keep up. If you usually dress casually, bring interview clothes and change afterwards. Prepare properly for each round — a rushed interview squeezed into a lunch break wastes the opportunity. You can practise the interview the evening before.

Tell every prospective employer that your current employer must not be contacted until you have an offer and have agreed to it. This is a normal request, and hiring managers expect it. Offer former managers, a senior colleague who has left the company, or a client instead.

Some employers will make the offer conditional on a reference from your current employer. That is standard; just make sure the offer letter says conditional, and resign only once the condition is met or you are comfortable with the risk. In the UK, GOV.UK says an employer does not usually have to give a work reference, but if they do, it must be fair and accurate. Many employers give only your dates and job title, so a former manager who will talk about your work is worth more.

Check your contract before you accept an offer, because your notice period sets the earliest start date you can promise. It depends on your country, your contract and sometimes a collective agreement, and it often grows with seniority.

• UK: GOV.UK says you must give at least a week’s notice if you have been in your job for more than a month; your contract can require more, and many do.
• US: in at-will employment either side can end the job at any time — the Illinois Department of Labor, for example, says notice is not required by either party. Two weeks is the professional convention, and some contracts or company policies ask for more.
• EU: under the EU directive on transparent and predictable working conditions, your employer must tell you in writing about the procedure and notice periods for ending your employment. The actual length is set by national law and your contract — Germany’s basic statutory notice, for example, is four weeks to the 15th or the end of a calendar month.

Tell the new employer your real notice period early. Promising a start date you cannot legally meet is a bad first impression; most employers will wait for a good hire.

Senior and client-facing contracts often contain garden leave (you stay employed and paid during notice but must not work) and restrictive covenants: limits on joining a competitor, approaching clients or hiring former colleagues for a period after you leave. Their enforceability varies a great deal by country and by how they are written. Read yours before you accept an offer, disclose them to the new employer, and have an employment lawyer check anything that could delay your start or stop you doing the new job.

If your right to live and work in a country depends on your current employer, the order of events matters more than the timing. In many systems the new employer must obtain a new permit or sponsorship before you can start, and resigning first can leave you without status. Check your immigration authority’s rules for changing employer before you resign, and do not stop working until the new permit or approval is confirmed. Country-specific rules are in the working abroad guide and each country guide.

Tell your manager first, in person or on a video call, then confirm in a short letter or email: your resignation, your role, your last working day. You do not need to explain why, and this is not the moment for criticism; save honest feedback for a calm exit interview, if at all. Offer a handover plan, finish what you can, and leave documentation behind. People you leave on good terms become future references, colleagues and hiring managers.

Your employer may then offer more money to keep you. Before deciding, go back to why you started looking. If the only problem was pay and the counter-offer fixes it for good, staying can be the right call. If you were looking because of the work, your manager, your growth or the culture, money rarely fixes that — and your employer now knows you were ready to leave.

Never accept a new offer just to trigger a counter-offer. You burn the new employer, who may have turned down other candidates for you, and you rarely get a second chance there. If you want a raise, ask for one directly; the salary negotiation guide has the scripts.