Four Signs that Your Job May be on the Chopping Block

Here's a list from CareerJournal that gives four signs that your job may be on the chopping block:

• Your workload becomes much lighter.
• You're getting the cold shoulder from management.
• Your professional memberships and subscriptions have lapsed.
• You're asked to train a new employee with duties similar to yours.

Yep, unfortunately, these are true. Some may seem like they are a clear signal that the end is near, but believe me, most people don't catch on until they are shown the door. People don't want to believe they could be losing their job, and they'll rationalize away almost anything.

Here are a few more I'll add to the list:

• You're assigned only trivial projects.
• You receive a low pay increase when most of the company gets much more.
• You get placed on official "probation" for no reason in particular (or a trumped up reason.)

I'm sure many of you have your own tips to add, so have at it in the comments below.

If you get the sense that your job may be eliminated, I suggest you take action immediately and look for other work alternatives. After all, your career is your most important financial asset and you do not want to jeopardize it in any way by being out of work for any amount of time.

Comments

[Kimberly]

You get asked to write a "manual" for your job duties.

[Anitra]

"You're asked to train a new employee with duties similar to yours." In my opinion, this is especially insidious, because the other reason this can happen is really good for you - your company is growing and your boss thinks you are the best person to train new hires in an expanded department. (It happened to me at my old job.)

But it could also be the only warning sign you get before being fired (which happened to my husband).

[kitty]

In my company it is very simple: two years in a row with "needs improvement" evaluation, and you are on probation. No immediate improvement, you have two months to find another job with the company or you are out (and of course try finding another department with two low evaluations in a row...). "Needs improvement" evaluation is automatically no raise, so the second rule above is met.

This is different from layoffs though. In case of layoffs it is - failed to meet Wall Street expections, company hints on cuts, if your last evaluation was "needs improvement" or if your group doesn't have a well funded project either you (former case) or your whole group (latter) may be cut. Or there could be no warning - everyone is busy but the project is transferred to China. Still, they always give a month or two to look for another job within the company, and if your previous evaluations were OK, there may be a small chance to find one.

You spend most of your work day reading Free Money Finance!

[Chris]

Your boss asks you to give back the key to the executive bathroom

[William Tanksley]

1. Your job seems easy.

Don't stay bored. Write a manual, train someone to replace you, and leave.

Actually, the first thing I did in my current job was write a manual; I've maintained it ever since. I haven't started training my replacement (I'm still finding it challenging), but I've made it clear that as soon as there's more than one person on the team I'm going to train everyone else to be able to replace me.

So far everyone seems happy with me. I have no plans to leave.