Kinda depends on how urgent and dire your current family situation is. Resigning without a job might make it difficult for you to find your next job. Somehow it is always easier to go from one job to the next than from no job to a job. Also makes it easier to negotiate your new offer with the next company if you are still at a job versus if you have none.

You don't have to worry too much about the gap in resume so long as you have a valid and honest family reason and so long as the gap isn't more than 6 months. Anything more and it's a red flag.

Seems to me the best paying roles in O&G are commercial positions on the EPCC side or highly technical and niche engineering positions with oilfield operators/subcontractors. If you are still planning to be in O&G definitely try to be on the commercial side. I lost count of the number of 15-20k candidates we saw a few years ago who worked themselves into a tight corner unfortunately, highly technical and skilled, earning tons of money, but with little relevance to other industries. Unless if you are selling then it's easier to make the transition into equipment/chemical sales.

My brother has a similar background at a Norwegian O&G company but was retrenched due the plunge in oil prices a few years ago (he now runs his own business), I'm curious if you did manage to find something after resigning at your current company?

You can quit just fine and not suffer a fine from this recruitment company unless they're withholding your salary or they have your money somehow somewhere.

Also recruitment firms that impose such charges are probably small companies with limited networks and a small client list so don't worry at all about burning bridges.

I came from one of the largest recruitment companies in town and we only charge clients the fee (20-25% of candidate's annual fixed income), never the candidate. The candidate also doesn't owe us or the company loyalty of any kind.

Granted, we do have to provide some kind of a free replacement or a credit note in case the candidate resigns within guarantee period (I assume your recruitment company's guarantee period here is 6 months hence the rule to make you stay and fear leaving). But that's a risk that we absorb, not the candidate.

You ask very relevant and valid questions - I'm always surprise that candidates in Malaysia, even senior ones, don't necessarily understand the way so many things can go wrong during an offer process.

1. I've seen offers retracted enough times due to medical test results that had red flags in them about a candidate, to know that your offer is never 100% secure until you've passed ALL mandatory pre-hiring processes and checks, AND you have gotten the offer letter in black and white (even an email does not suffice as that's not a legal document the way a letter of employment is).

So forget about backdating your letter. What you actually need to do is just politely inform HR that you'd like to wait for medical results to be out and for you to sign your offer letter before tendering your resignation. This is after all, what cautious, reasonable, and smart candidates with good judgment and understanding of risks do.

We are talking about just a few days difference, which isn't going to move the needle on how well you perform at the next company. If HR isn't on your side, try reasoning with the hiring manager. What will he do if he were in your shoes? Will he dare resign without passing a medical check - what happens if he discovers cancer in that process? Is the job offer still valid?

2. Yes you can. Once again, pay attention to the fact that there's always a tiny disclaimer in every offer letter in Malaysia stating something along the lines of 'employment or offer is valid subject to satisfactory passing of all pre-employment checks, etc.'

Another advice for when you finally resign: your current boss may freak out, refuse to meet you, try to stall for time to get a counter offer approved, whatever. Assuming you are dead set on leaving, remember to date your letter of resignation and keep HR cc-ed throughout. Your resignation is effective the day you sent that email/letter in, not the day HR or your boss accepts your resignation.

That's fine, always tough to strike a fine balance between not pissing off your ex-employer (from whom you probably would need to contact again sometime in the future for references) and wanting to demonstrate your enthusiasm about the new role to your new employer.

What you are doing - informing your boss before an official letter - is fair and smart.

In response to his text about keeping HR out of it, you can gently affirm again that you are 100% committed to ensuring that a smooth and responsible handover, but that you will be emailing him your official letter of resignation shortly (keeping HR out for now). And in exchange for keeping HR out of things (for now at least), your resignation takes effect from the date indicated in this letter and email. What matters here is that the letter of resignation has the correct date in it (which better be soon now that you've committed to a start date and you have your letter of offer already).

Why a scanned letter of resignation embedded in an email is your perfect solution is that no one can tear it up in dramatic fashion, and it is already dated for when you need to ultimately forward it to HR for them to issue an acceptance of resignation and start calculating your leave balance / final pay.

Bosses freaking out and feeling betrayed or wanting to guilt you into staying is all part of the fun of resigning I guess. Again, never worth it to piss anyone off. Reassure him of your handover plan and that you are open to be contacted after leaving in case anyone has any questions so he can start making the necessary arrangements. You never want to burn that bridge, but you won't be intimidated or bullied either into thinking you can't leave if he doesn't acknowledge reality.

1. Yes you absolutely can.

2. You might need to dig deeper into the new employer's motivations for seeing this release letter as that's not exactly standard industry practice (where usually employers give candidates the benefit of the doubt). Who is asking for it exactly - your future boss or HR? and why might that be?

And yes a resignation acceptance / release letter is something issued by HR, not your direct boss. Given your HR won't do it (presumably with instructions coming from the GM), is there anyone you can escalate this request to, eg. a HRD or another Senior Director or Assistant GM?

And I wouldn't push that hard if I were you honestly. You already have a final working day confirmed through internal communication - if it's an email, forward this email instead to the new employer to reassure them of your genuine intentions to leave this current company. If it helps, explain to your future boss the situation and the effort you have gone through to obtain the release letter, and the whole reluctant HR / missing GM game they are playing. Not in a bitter or negative tone of course, just state the facts. Often times, the new employer just needs to hear a story that makes sense to them, and they should be good to go. Again, remind your new boss about how excited you are to join, and what you can do in the meantime to prepare yourself better for the new role, etc.

No such thing as a company retracting an offer on the basis of a missing release letter. In a talent-scarce market like ours, that's plain stupid. But of course they can always retract on offer based on 'unsatisfactory passing of pre-hiring processes' - I assume here you cleared that before resigning.