Some people stay at their first company of employment for their whole career. Others hop around a few years before settling in. Others hop around a lot. I recently left my first place of employment for family, and have discovered that leaving is not easy and not just packing my box and going (unless the leaving is due to you getting canned, in which case you do want to vacate fast).

Unless you want to burn bridges, there’s a lot of things that you have to deal with, including writing a letter of resignation to your manager, exit interviews, and paperwork. Aside from the administrative items, there’s the matter of co-workers and friends that you are leaving. Each of these is a topic that I’ll write about later. For now, the focus is the letter of resignation.

This letter is pretty important. It gives your manager official notice of your plans, but also gives you opportunity to thanks managers and colleagues. If there is a chance you might go back to the company, such as in my case, then the letter will be a good way to state that as a possibility. You can always not write a letter and just stop showing up to work, but in my opinion that’s got no class and is a wuss’s way out. So show some class and tact, and write a letter before jumping ship.

I had no idea how to write a letter of resignation, so I had to research it a bit before I finally churned one out. A bit of advice I found that I feel is the main reason to write a letter is this:

A resignation letter can help you maintain positive relationship with your old employer, while paving the way for you to move on. You never know when you might need that previous employer to give you a reference, so it makes sense to take the time to write a polished and professional resignation letter.

There are a lot of different styles you can choose, but the main content should include

The fact that you are leaving and date when your resignation is effective
Thanks to your employer for the opportunities you have had during your employment.

If you want a minimally short letter, those are the only two things to include. Monster.com has a great article on how to leave on a positive note. There are also many sample letters you can use as reference when writing your own.

It was hard to tell people I really enjoyed working with and for that I was leaving, but the letter made it a little easier and made my leave professional and tactful.

Sample letters from Monster.com and jobsearch.about.com