How bad an idea would it be to just let my employer know what’s going on?
Extremely bad. People have been fired or denied promotion because of this. Don’t even tell any of your colleagues.
I am not discussing the legal aspects of this, but you will probably be perceived as not worth investing in the long term. Imagine that your interview fails and you decide to stay. Your current employer is not going to trust you with anything important anymore, because they will be expecting you to leave soon anyway.
Okay, this may sound irrational, because you are not your employer’s slave, and technically you are (any anyone else is) free to leave sooner or later. But people still make estimates. It is in your best interest to pretend to be a loyal and motivated employee, until the day you are 100% ready to leave.
It feels deceitful
This is part of the human nature; what we have evolved to do. Even your dislike for deceit is part of the deceit mechanism. If you unilaterally decide to stop playing the game, it most likely means you lose.
There is probably an article by Robin Hanson about how LinkedIn helps us to get in contact with new job offers while maintaining plausible deniability, which is what makes it so popular, but I can’t find the link now.
I founded it by searching site:overcomingbias.com social network. The key was generalizing from the specific linkedin to “social network,” though I can’t say why I thought to do that.
It is only deceitful if you haven’t made a honest effort to improve your situation in your current company. It is as deceitful to stay silent and don’t give your employer a chance to increase your salary of your position.
It depends on the type of company of course. There are those that see you as an exchangable human resource where it may be appropriate to see the company as a slave owner who has to be hidden tghe truth of your escape from.
But there are companies where honesty about work situations is seen as interest in the company and critique used as feedback to improve the environment.
Salary negotiatons will be always tough though. Strictly comparing offers is the only reliable way to sell yourself. Everything else is falling prey to the salary negotiation tricks of the business world.
EDIT: I’m from Germany so my view my be country specific.
In this case, I don’t want to leave, just there are things that I want more than I want to stay. Not that it couldn’t be improved, but they probably can’t offer anything to change my mind.
But there are companies where honesty about work situations is seen as interest in the company and critique used as feedback to improve the environment.
If you are in such company, that’s great! Try to improve things; provide the feedback.
But don’t mention the fact that you are doing interviews with another company.
There is probably an article by Robin Hanson about how LinkedIn helps us to get in contact with new job offers while maintaining plausible deniability, which is what makes it so popular, but I can’t find the link now.
I can’t find it either. Nothing on OB, nothing in Google for ‘Linkedin “Robin Hanson”’ or sharpened to add ‘hypocrisy’. Sure it was Linkedin he was talking about?
Even your dislike for deceit is part of the deceit mechanism. If you unilaterally decide to stop playing the game, it most likely means you lose.
I think I ADBOC. It’s not like the “disliking to be deceitful” gene evolved to make its bearers lose the game.
Certainly there are risks to being honest, but there are also benefits. Admittedly, the most salient one to me right now is “I don’t want to treat my current employer poorly”, and I’m not sure that lying about going to interviews is actually significantly worse than merely not telling them about interviews.
It’s not like the “disliking to be deceitful” gene evolved to make its bearers lose the game.
For people who properly compartmentalize, it helps to win the game. By signalling dislike to deceit, they gain other people’s trust… and then at the right moment they do something deceitful and (if they are well-calibrated) most likely profit from it..
It’s the people in the valley of bad rationality who may lose the game when they realize all the consequences and connections, and try to tune their honesty up to eleven. (For example by telling their boss that they would be willing to quit the company if they had a better offer from somewhere else, and that they actually look at the available information about other companies.)
Extremely bad. People have been fired or denied promotion because of this. Don’t even tell any of your colleagues.
I am not discussing the legal aspects of this, but you will probably be perceived as not worth investing in the long term. Imagine that your interview fails and you decide to stay. Your current employer is not going to trust you with anything important anymore, because they will be expecting you to leave soon anyway.
Okay, this may sound irrational, because you are not your employer’s slave, and technically you are (any anyone else is) free to leave sooner or later. But people still make estimates. It is in your best interest to pretend to be a loyal and motivated employee, until the day you are 100% ready to leave.
This is part of the human nature; what we have evolved to do. Even your dislike for deceit is part of the deceit mechanism. If you unilaterally decide to stop playing the game, it most likely means you lose.
There is probably an article by Robin Hanson about how LinkedIn helps us to get in contact with new job offers while maintaining plausible deniability, which is what makes it so popular, but I can’t find the link now.
Here is the post by Robin Hanson.
I founded it by searching site:overcomingbias.com social network. The key was generalizing from the specific linkedin to “social network,” though I can’t say why I thought to do that.
Thank you! This was probably the one I remembered.
It is only deceitful if you haven’t made a honest effort to improve your situation in your current company. It is as deceitful to stay silent and don’t give your employer a chance to increase your salary of your position.
It depends on the type of company of course. There are those that see you as an exchangable human resource where it may be appropriate to see the company as a slave owner who has to be hidden tghe truth of your escape from.
But there are companies where honesty about work situations is seen as interest in the company and critique used as feedback to improve the environment.
Salary negotiatons will be always tough though. Strictly comparing offers is the only reliable way to sell yourself. Everything else is falling prey to the salary negotiation tricks of the business world.
EDIT: I’m from Germany so my view my be country specific.
In this case, I don’t want to leave, just there are things that I want more than I want to stay. Not that it couldn’t be improved, but they probably can’t offer anything to change my mind.
If you are in such company, that’s great! Try to improve things; provide the feedback.
But don’t mention the fact that you are doing interviews with another company.
I can’t find it either. Nothing on OB, nothing in Google for ‘Linkedin “Robin Hanson”’ or sharpened to add ‘hypocrisy’. Sure it was Linkedin he was talking about?
I think I ADBOC. It’s not like the “disliking to be deceitful” gene evolved to make its bearers lose the game.
Certainly there are risks to being honest, but there are also benefits. Admittedly, the most salient one to me right now is “I don’t want to treat my current employer poorly”, and I’m not sure that lying about going to interviews is actually significantly worse than merely not telling them about interviews.
For people who properly compartmentalize, it helps to win the game. By signalling dislike to deceit, they gain other people’s trust… and then at the right moment they do something deceitful and (if they are well-calibrated) most likely profit from it..
It’s the people in the valley of bad rationality who may lose the game when they realize all the consequences and connections, and try to tune their honesty up to eleven. (For example by telling their boss that they would be willing to quit the company if they had a better offer from somewhere else, and that they actually look at the available information about other companies.)
Disliking deception also makes people more cautious and frugal about it, which is probably beneficial too.