Mark Daniel

09/13/2026

Job Hunting While Employed? Keep Your Mouth Shut.

There’s nothing wrong with looking but there’s plenty wrong with announcing it.

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I recently read an RNZ/ABC article about the dos and don’ts of looking for another job while you are still employed, and one piece of advice stood out because it managed to dispense with several thousand words of career coaching in two beautifully simple words.

Workplace lawyer Roxanne Hart's number one recommendation was: tell nobody.

That may be the best two-word piece of career advice I've read for quite some time.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with looking for another job while you are employed. People change jobs because careers stall, managers change, businesses restructure, cultures deteriorate, salaries fall behind the market, families relocate and, occasionally, because the exciting opportunity they accepted three years ago has gradually become something they no longer particularly enjoy.

That's employment. It isn't a marriage, a blood oath or an undertaking to remain there until somebody presents you with a carriage clock.

The problem isn't looking for another job. The problem is how some people go about it.

I've spent a long time sitting on the employer and HR side of this equation and now spend plenty of time on the recruitment and candidate side as well. Having occupied both chairs, one thing becomes painfully obvious, discretion is enormously underrated.

A job search is a private career decision, at least initially. It doesn't need an internal communications strategy. You don't need six colleagues helping you decide whether to apply, you don't need to announce that you've “started exploring the market”, and you certainly don't need to suddenly transform your LinkedIn profile from something you haven't touched since 2021 into a flashing neon advertisement for your immediate availability.

And you definitely shouldn't conduct your escape using the laptop, telephone and email account supplied by the organisation you're thinking about escaping from.

If you're going to look, look properly.

Key Takeaways

Keep your job search private until there is genuinely something worth discussing.
Use your own device, email, telephone and personal time when searching and interviewing.
Read your employment contract before entering the market, particularly notice, confidentiality and restraint provisions.
Control when referees are contacted, particularly if your current employer doesn't know you're looking.
Don't resign because somebody says an offer is coming. Make sure the next job actually exists on terms you're prepared to accept.

Your Trusted Colleague Has a Trusted Colleague

This is probably where more confidential job searches go wrong than anywhere else.

You find an interesting role on Monday morning and mention it to the one person at work you completely trust. They wouldn't say anything, obviously. Unfortunately, they also have one person they completely trust, who has another person they completely trust, and by Wednesday somebody in HR is wondering why three unrelated people have independently asked whether you're leaving.

Workplaces are remarkably efficient information-distribution networks, particularly when the information being distributed is none of anyone else's bloody business.

That doesn't mean your colleagues are malicious or conspiring against you. People simply talk, and once you've shared information you no longer control where it goes, how it is repeated or what gets added to it along the way. “Mark saw an interesting job” can become “Mark's interviewing” surprisingly quickly, and by Friday you've apparently accepted a position in Perth and are moving there with the family.

There is another very good reason for keeping quiet, you might not actually leave.

You may apply and hear nothing. You could interview and discover that the supposedly brilliant employer has all the cultural appeal of a hostage situation. The salary might be wrong, the commute ridiculous or the “flexible working arrangements” might turn out to mean the company is very flexible about which twelve hours of the day it expects you to work.

You might go through the entire process and conclude that your current job is actually pretty good.

If nobody knew you were considering leaving, nothing has changed. If half the office knew, something has changed whether you intended it to or not.

Once you've announced that you're mentally standing near the exit, you don't get to decide how everybody else interprets it.

If the Company Bought the Laptop, Perhaps Don’t Use It to Escape the Company

This shouldn't require much explanation, although experience suggests that it does.

Your work laptop is for work. Your company email address is not your personal recruitment portal. Your company mobile probably shouldn't contain a six-month WhatsApp relationship with three recruiters, and the office printer is not the ideal location to produce twelve beautifully formatted copies of the CV explaining why you're perfect for somebody else's organisation.

Apart from being obvious, conducting your job search through company systems creates risk. Employers have policies covering the use of IT systems and company equipment, and you may also create questions about whether you were conducting personal business during paid working time.

There is an extremely sophisticated solution to this problem, use your own stuff !

Use a professional personal email address, your own phone and your own computer. Store your CV and applications privately and conduct the search in your own time.

Nobody is suggesting you need a burner phone, a false moustache and meetings with recruiters in underground car parks. You simply need enough common sense to separate the job you currently have from the job you might want next.

Your Experience Belongs to You. The Client Database Doesn’t.

There's an important difference between taking your experience to another employer and taking your employer's information with you.

Your knowledge, judgement, capability, experience and professional reputation form part of what you've built throughout your career. They don't disappear because you change employers.

Confidential company information is different.

Don't start forwarding documents to your Gmail account because they “might be useful”.

Don't download client databases, tender information, pricing schedules, employee records, commercial strategies, proprietary documents or anything else you think might give you a useful head start somewhere else.

Quite apart from contractual confidentiality obligations, Corporate law can restrict the improper use of information obtained through a person's position where it is used to gain an advantage or cause detriment to the corporation.

There is also a fairly obvious reputational test here. If your prospective employer seems unusually interested in you bringing confidential information from your current employer, you might want to think carefully about what that tells you about the prospective employer.

Because one day the confidential information walking out of the building could be theirs.

LinkedIn Is a Tool, Not a Flare Gun

LinkedIn has made confidential job hunting both easier and considerably more dangerous.

It is easier because recruiters can find you, vacancies are visible and professional networking can happen discreetly. It is more dangerous because some people behave so differently online the moment they decide they want another job that they might as well change their profile photograph to one of themselves standing outside the office holding a cardboard sign saying PLEASE GET ME OUT OF HERE.

Suddenly they follow fourteen recruitment agencies, connect with every recruiter between Cairns and Perth, completely rewrite a profile that hasn't changed since 2019, add thirty-seven skills and develop an extraordinary interest in posts entitled Seven Signs Your Workplace Doesn't Value You.

Then they're astonished when somebody at work notices.

Use LinkedIn, absolutely, but use it intelligently. Better still, maintain your professional profile and network throughout your career rather than desperately trying to manufacture a network three days after deciding you hate your boss.

And remember that LinkedIn is only one recruitment channel. It isn't the entire employment market. Job boards, recruiters, former colleagues, direct approaches, industry contacts, professional associations and personal networks all matter.

A good job search is targeted and deliberate. Applying indiscriminately for anything containing approximately three words from your current job title isn't a strategy. It's panic with a CV attached.

There is another trap worth knowing about because I've seen it firsthand. Some job portals allow candidates to upload a CV to a searchable database that subscribing recruiters and employers can access. That's useful because you can be found without applying for a particular vacancy, but there is a fairly obvious problem hiding in the background: your current employer might subscribe to exactly the same database.

Some platforms also identify candidates who have recently updated their CV or profile. Suddenly, the HR or recruitment team at your current employer isn't simply looking at a database of potential candidates; they're looking at you, and the system is helpfully telling them that you updated your CV last Tuesday.

Does that prove you're looking for another job? No. Is somebody likely to wonder why you suddenly polished a CV that hasn't moved for three years? Quite possibly.

So be aware of what the platform actually displays before you update anything, and be prepared for the question if somebody notices. The simplest explanation might be that this is where you keep your current CV and you recently updated it. That may be perfectly true. It may also be a convenient explanation you've prepared because announcing that you're interviewing with three competitors probably isn't your preferred alternative.

I'm not suggesting you lie to your employer. I am suggesting you understand the visibility you've created before clicking Save. A confidential job search becomes considerably less confidential when the software sends up a flare on your behalf.

References Should Help You Get the Job, Not Help Your Boss Discover You Want One

Your current manager may be an excellent referee. Eventually.

If they don't know you're considering leaving, however, allowing an enthusiastic recruiter to telephone them at 10.15 on Tuesday morning and ask whether you're any good is probably not the ideal way for them to discover your career plans.

Always speak to referees before nominating them. Explain what you're applying for, why the opportunity interests you and what aspects of your experience the prospective employer is likely to explore. Apart from being courteous, this gives the referee enough context to provide a useful reference rather than being unexpectedly telephoned and asked to remember what you actually achieved three years ago.

If confidentiality matters, tell the recruiter or prospective employer explicitly. You can simply explain that your current employer isn't aware you're exploring opportunities and that you don't want them contacted unless you're the preferred candidate and you've discussed it first.

That is entirely reasonable.

Any competent recruiter should understand it immediately. If they don't, you've learned something useful about the recruiter before they've had the opportunity to learn too much about you.

The Sudden Epidemic of Dentist Appointments

Eventually, the confidential job search collides with the practical problem of interviews.

It is remarkable how many people apparently develop urgent dental problems at exactly 2.30pm shortly after applying for another job.

There is no great mystery to managing this properly. Where possible, arrange interviews before work, after work, during an appropriate break or at another mutually convenient time. If you need time away from work, take appropriate leave or make another legitimate arrangement.

You don't necessarily have to march into your manager's office and announce that you require Thursday afternoon off because you're meeting their largest competitor. Employees are allowed to have private lives and private appointments.

But privacy and dishonesty aren't the same thing.

What you shouldn't do is spend two hours being paid by your current employer while sitting in a Teams interview telling another employer how committed, trustworthy and ethical you are.

And if you absolutely insist on conducting a video interview from your current workplace, perhaps don't sit in a meeting room with your employer's enormous logo directly behind your head.

Yes, people do this.

An Interview Is Not Therapy

Eventually, somebody will ask why you're thinking about leaving.

This is where otherwise excellent candidates occasionally lose control of the aircraft.

Sometimes the real reason genuinely is your manager. Sometimes it's the culture, the CEO, the workload, lack of progression, internal politics or the fact that you've been quietly doing three people's jobs since somebody decided “operating lean” sounded impressive in an executive presentation.

You don't need to pretend everything is wonderful, but an interview isn't therapy.

If I ask why you're considering leaving and then spend ten minutes listening to you explain that your manager is an incompetent narcissist, HR is useless, the executive team couldn't organise a barbecue and everybody you've ever worked with is an idiot, I don't know any of those people.

The only person in that story sitting in front of me is you.

And I'm now wondering what you'll be saying about us in eighteen months.

A much better approach is to explain what you're moving towards rather than devoting the interview to everything you're running from. Perhaps you're looking for greater responsibility, stronger progression, larger projects, different industry exposure, better alignment with your experience or an opportunity to use capabilities your current position no longer requires.

You can be truthful about frustration without conducting a public execution of your current employer.

“They Absolutely Love You” Is Lovely. It Still Isn’t an Employment Contract.

This is probably the part of the process where a little restraint matters most.

A recruiter telling you the client absolutely loves you is excellent news. A hiring manager saying you're their preferred candidate is encouraging. An email saying they intend to make an offer is wonderful.

None of those things will pay your mortgage if the position subsequently disappears.

Organisations change their minds. Budgets change, projects are delayed, approvals are withdrawn, restructures happen, internal candidates emerge and sometimes somebody three levels above the hiring manager decides the organisation isn't recruiting the role after all.

Don't blow up the employment relationship you already have because somebody says the paperwork is coming.

When the proposed employment arrangements arrive, read them properly. Check the salary, superannuation, probation, location, travel requirements, flexibility, bonuses, vehicle arrangements, restraints, notice provisions and proposed commencement date. If something was important enough to influence your decision during recruitment, make sure the written arrangements actually reflect what you believe was agreed.

Only when you're satisfied that the next job genuinely exists on terms you're prepared to accept should you start dismantling the one you already have.

There is a technical HR expression for resigning before any of this is sorted out.

Bloody risky.

Resign Like Someone Who Might Need These People Again

Once everything is properly agreed and it is time to resign, don't destroy years of professional credibility because you've mentally left the organisation three weeks before your body does.

Where practical, speak to your manager before your resignation starts circulating around the organisation. Then confirm it properly in writing, comply with your applicable notice requirements and work through the notice period professionally.

Do the handover properly, document what somebody else needs to know, finish whatever can reasonably be finished and return company property. Don't spend your final month wandering around the workplace explaining to everyone how much better your new company is going to be and providing unsolicited exit interviews beside the coffee machine.

Industries are considerably smaller than people imagine. Civil construction is small, mining is small, HR is small and recruitment is small. Once you've worked in an industry for long enough, the same people have an irritating habit of reappearing.

Today's former employer can become tomorrow's client, referee, contractor, recruiter, hiring manager, joint-venture partner or even your employer again.

Leave accordingly.

Where People Get It Wrong: They’re Escaping, Not Managing Their Career

The biggest mistake I see is people treating a job search as an emotional reaction rather than a considered career decision.

They have a terrible meeting on Tuesday, rewrite their CV on Wednesday and by Thursday have applied for twenty-seven positions ranging from reasonably appropriate to something involving offshore drilling despite never having seen an oil rig.

They tell colleagues they're leaving before they have anywhere to go, complain publicly about the company, take recruiter calls from the office and become so desperate to escape that the first employer offering another $15,000 suddenly looks like the greatest organisation on earth.

That isn't career management. It's an escape plan.

There is nothing wrong with deciding to leave a job. Sometimes leaving is absolutely the correct decision, and staying somewhere because you're frightened of change can do considerably more damage to a career than moving.

But once you've decided to explore the market, slow the process down enough to make a good decision.

Understand what you actually want next and, equally importantly, what you don't want again. Know roughly what your experience is worth. Research employers properly and ask questions that go beyond salary and job title. Find out why the vacancy exists, what happened to the previous incumbent, what the manager is like, how the team operates, what success looks like after six and twelve months and whether the flexibility enthusiastically advertised in the job ad survives contact with reality.

Look beyond the salary as well. Another $20,000 can become remarkably unattractive when attached to a two-hour commute, permanent availability and a manager who regards boundaries as evidence of poor commitment.

The objective isn't simply to get out of somewhere.

It's to end up somewhere better.

FAQ

1. Can I look for a job while I’m still employed?

Generally, yes. Looking for other employment is a normal part of managing a career. What matters is how you conduct the search and whether you continue complying with your employment obligations, including confidentiality requirements and any relevant contractual provisions.

2. Should I tell my manager that I’m looking?

Usually there is little reason to announce an exploratory job search. There are exceptions where people have particularly open relationships with their manager, but once you disclose that you're considering leaving, you cannot control how that information affects future decisions about you.

3. Can a prospective employer contact my current employer?

Make your expectations clear. If your current employer doesn't know you're searching, tell the recruiter or prospective employer that they shouldn't contact them without your prior approval. There is nothing unusual or unreasonable about this.

4. Should I take annual leave for an interview?

If an interview occurs during normal working hours and you cannot legitimately arrange the time another way, requesting appropriate leave may be the cleanest approach. Follow your employer's normal process and manage the absence professionally.

5. Should I accept a counteroffer?

Possibly, but start by remembering why you wanted to leave. If the issue was genuinely and exclusively remuneration and the employer corrects it, a counteroffer may deserve consideration. If the problem was leadership, culture, career progression, workload or the role itself, another $15,000 may simply make the same problem slightly better paid.

Conclusion

You’re Allowed to Leave. Just Try Not to Set Fire to the Building on the Way Out. There is a strange attitude in some workplaces that an employee considering another opportunity is somehow committing an act of disloyalty.

I've never particularly understood it. Employment is a commercial relationship with a very significant human component. Good employers should want good people to stay, and they should create the leadership, culture, opportunity, remuneration and working environment that give them reasons to do so. But employees don't surrender control of their careers simply because somebody currently pays their salary.

You are entitled to look at the market, talk to recruiters, attend interviews, compare your remuneration, consider other employers and ultimately decide that your career would be better served somewhere else. None of that requires an apology.

What it does require is a bit of judgement.

A confidential job search doesn't need an audience. It doesn't need to become workplace gossip, a sudden explosion of LinkedIn activity or a daily commentary about how much you hate your current employer. It certainly doesn't require you to resign because somebody you've spoken to twice says the new company “absolutely loves you”.

Do the search quietly and do the homework properly. Understand your obligations, protect your current employer's information, control your references, investigate the next employer just as carefully as they're investigating you and make sure the opportunity you're moving towards is actually better than the situation you're trying to leave.

Then, if you decide to go, leave properly.

Careers can last forty years or more, industries are much smaller than they look and reputations have an annoying habit of arriving somewhere before you do.

Which brings us neatly back to those two words.

If you're thinking about looking for another job while you're still employed, by all means look.

Just tell nobody until you've actually got something worth telling them.

Written by Mark Daniel

I tell people what they need to hear, not what makes them feel better. Based on the Sunshine Coast, I’m a co-founder of URHIRED. I’ve spent years in Human Resources, recruitment, and career coaching, working with candidates across 63 countries, making things simple, fixing what’s not working, and sharpening how people present themselves. I share straight-talking career insight with over 53,000 LinkedIn followers and seem to have a reputation for calling things out as they are, not how people wish they were. A minority shareholder in Manchester United, not enough to influence anything, but just enough to mention it when it suits.

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