My firm is offering everyone not hired in the last 1.5 years the option to leave, with an OK-ish pay out. I am just over that threshold, hence my option is in the money.
I wouldn’t normally consider leaving a job without securing the next one, but I am so tempted: I am sitting for level III in June, so taking the option would offer the luxury to study full time while still getting paid.
Would leaving a job for this reason and under these (mitigating?) circumstances… be viewed as acceptable or weak? I hear that sabbaticals are gaining acceptance in the marketplace (rather than academia only). Do you see that? Or am I setting myself up for career suicide?
Point of clarification: A sabbatical is a benefit offered by a company whereby an employee, generally after a certain number of years, gets a large amount of time off to totally disconnect from work and reset…but they come back to work. What you’re talking about is a severance package. You’ll be “let go” while retaining pay and benefits for a while but still unemployed.
Not sure why you would volunteer to take a severance package just to study. Keeping a job is way more important than passing the test. Unless your job sucks, I suppose.
My first employer was acquired and I got some non-trivial severance benefits. I used the time and money to travel a bit and get the last couple of exams I needed for my actuarial initials. It worked out in that I lined up a new job just after, but the sabbatical part kinda sucked while watching my bank account shrink and having to study.
When I left my previous career (pre-finance), I had 3 months of severance + 5 weeks of unused PTO + 9 months of deferred comp (company was trying to save money to IPO and I allowed them to defer my comp the prior year) + a performance bonus that was due… Lets just say my last paycheck was in the 6 figures.
Oh but the sad thing is, I blew through most of that money trying to launch my new (present day) career
