A 90-day notice period changes how you look for work: you need to start earlier, explain your timeline clearly, and decide what you will do when a new employer wants you sooner. Most notice-period trouble comes from three habits: not reading your own contract, resigning before an offer is signed, and accepting offers you do not intend to keep. Here is how notice works in practice and how to plan a switch around it.
Start with what your own contract says
Notice periods of 30, 60 or 90 days are common in Indian software jobs, but the one that applies to you is whatever your appointment letter and the policies it refers to say. Some companies tie notice length to grade, so a promotion can lengthen it, and the period during probation is often different. This is general information, not legal advice; your contract governs, so read it before you plan anything. Look for answers to these questions:
- How long is the notice period at your current grade?
- Does it run from the day you submit your resignation or the day it is accepted?
- Can earned leave be adjusted against notice, is it paid out in the final settlement, or is leave restricted during notice? Policies differ on all three.
- Is buyout allowed, who approves it, and how is the amount calculated?
- Can the employer waive your notice or place you on garden leave?
When you resign, use the official route, usually an email to your manager and HR or the HR portal, and ask for your last working day to be confirmed in the reply. "Around the end of March" is not a date a new employer can plan around.
Interview while employed, or resign first?
| Question | Interviewing while employed | Resigning first |
|---|---|---|
| Joining date you can offer | Your full notice period after an offer | Whatever remains of your notice |
| Negotiating position | Strong, because you can walk away | Weakens as your last day approaches |
| Main risk | Losing out to candidates who can join sooner | Reaching your last day without an offer |
| Practical difficulty | Fitting interviews around work | Explaining why you resigned without an offer |
Interview while employed by default. Resigning first makes sense only when three things are true: employers keep turning you down because of your notice period, you have savings to cover a few months without salary, and your skills are in demand for roles that hire quickly. Even then, start interviewing a few weeks before you resign so you are not starting from zero.
If you do resign first, describe your availability precisely, as in "serving notice, last working day [date]", and have a one-line answer ready for the obvious question: "My notice period is ninety days, and the teams I was speaking to could not wait that long, so I resigned to make myself available."
How hiring teams read a long notice period
From the hiring side, a long notice period means two things: the seat stays empty for a quarter, and the candidate has three months in which a better offer can arrive. Teams have learnt that some candidates accept, keep interviewing, and decline shortly before the joining date. So long-notice candidates get more questions, and postings that ask for immediate joiners or short notice usually mean it, especially when the team needs someone quickly. What helps:
- State your notice period and what is negotiable in the first conversation: "Ninety days; my policy allows buyout, and I would ask for early release after handover."
- Ask early whether the role can wait, before you invest in five rounds.
- Once you accept, give signals that are real: withdraw from other processes, share your resignation acknowledgement if asked, and stay in touch with your future manager during notice.
Buyout, early release and garden leave
Notice buyout
A buyout means paying your employer for the part of the notice you do not serve. Some contracts allow either side to end employment with pay in lieu of notice; others make buyout subject to the employer's approval, so check which kind you have. The policy also sets how the amount is worked out, commonly from basic or gross pay for the days not served.
You pay your current employer, directly or through a deduction from your final settlement. A new employer that wants you sooner may reimburse it, typically as a joining bonus with a clawback, once you show proof of payment. Agree that before you resign and get it into the offer letter, not a chat message.
Early release
Early release is your employer agreeing to relieve you before the notice period ends, sometimes without any buyout. It depends mostly on your manager's confidence in the handover, so make that easy before you ask:
I have accepted an offer, and the new team would like me to join on [date], which is [number] weeks before my notice ends. I have drafted a handover plan for the billing service: runbooks updated by [date], two paired sessions with [colleague], and my open tickets reassigned. If the handover is complete, could you support an early release from [date]? I am open to a buyout for the remaining days if the policy requires one.
Ask in the first week or two of your notice, not the final fortnight, and accept that a critical release or audit may keep you until the end.
Garden leave
Garden leave means you remain employed and paid for the notice period but are asked not to work, often with system access removed. Employers whose contracts allow it tend to use it when you handle sensitive information or are joining a competitor. You cannot start the new job during garden leave, because you are still on your current employer's rolls; joining anyway is dual employment, and it can surface during background verification.
Relieving letters, experience letters and the exit paperwork
The relieving letter confirms that you resigned and were relieved of your duties on a stated date. The experience letter, sometimes called a service certificate, states your tenure and designation. Some companies issue one combined letter. New employers and verification agencies commonly ask for the relieving letter from your last employer, and a missing one can hold up joining or verification. Leaving without serving or settling your notice usually means no relieving letter, and that gap follows you into future background checks. In your last two weeks:
- Get the handover acknowledged by your manager in writing.
- Return your laptop, ID card and other assets, and keep the acknowledgement.
- Complete the clearance or no-dues process.
- Ask what the full and final settlement will include (salary for days worked, leave encashment if the policy provides it, any notice shortfall) and when it will be paid; it can take weeks.
- Download your payslips and tax documents before your access ends.
- Check the relieving and experience letters for the correct last working day, designation and spelling of your name. Corrections after you leave are slow.
- Note who will send your Form 16, which comes after the financial year ends.
- Check that your exit date appears against your UAN on the EPFO member portal, and plan to transfer the old balance once your new employer's account is linked.
The guide to background verification explains why these documents matter for your next switch as well as this one.
When your employer makes a counter-offer
Once you resign, your manager may come back with more money, a promotion, a different project or a retention bonus. Before you resign, write down why you are leaving, then test any counter-offer against that list rather than against the new offer.
A counter-offer usually fixes pay. It rarely fixes the other reasons people leave: the manager, the work, the lack of growth, the direction of the company. If money was not near the top of your list, the counter-offer is answering a question you did not ask. Weigh these too:
- Retention bonuses usually come with a commitment to stay and a clawback if you do not.
- Your manager now knows you were ready to leave. That does not always hurt you, but it changes the conversation at the next appraisal or reorganisation.
- If you have signed an offer elsewhere, you owe that employer a quick, honest answer either way.
Declining can be short: "Thank you, I appreciate it. I have thought it through and I am going ahead with the move. I will make sure the handover is complete."
Accepting and then declining an offer
Long notice periods have produced a habit of collecting offers during notice and choosing one near the joining date. Sometimes declining an accepted offer is the right call, but it has costs for other people: the hiring team closed its search for you, turned other candidates away, and may have to start again. It is also part of why you were asked about your notice period in the very first call.
- Accept an offer only when you intend to join.
- If you are choosing between two, ask one of them for a few days rather than accepting both.
- If something changes after you accept, tell the employer as soon as you know, by phone and then email, with a short, honest reason. Do not let the joining date pass in silence.
- Return any joining bonus or reimbursement you have already received.
Recruiters and hiring managers move between companies, and they remember who disappeared a week before joining.
A switch plan around your notice period
- Before you apply: read your notice, buyout and leave terms, and work out your earliest realistic joining date.
- In first conversations: state your notice period and what is negotiable.
- At the offer stage: agree the joining date and any buyout reimbursement in writing, and check the offer against the guide to CTC and offer letters.
- Resign only after the offer is signed, through the official route, and get your last working day confirmed.
- In the first week of notice: share your handover plan, and ask for early release if you need it.
- During notice: withdraw from other processes, stay in touch with the new team, and collect your documents.
- In the last week: return assets, finish clearance, and check your letters.
- After joining: link your provident fund account, transfer the old balance, and tell payroll about salary already earned this financial year.