Employment Law

Resignation Letter Examples When You're Leaving for Personal Reasons

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Susan Heathfield is an HR and management consultant with an MS degree. She has covered HR for The Balance Careers since 2000.
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Susan M. Heathfield
Updated June 24, 2019

Personal reasons drive many employee decisions to resign from employment. These employee resignations are often for private reasons and employee confidentiality is essential. The employee may or may not elect to share with management his personal reasons for tendering his employment resignation.

In some cases, the employee may opt to share with his or her manager the nature of the personal reasons, but choose not to add it to their personnel file. Under these circumstances, the manager should not add the information to the employee file either.

In fact, when employees resign for personal reasons, that is often simply what the resignation letter states. Employees do not want their personal business known and recognize that the employment resignation letter is a permanent addition to their personnel file. 

The resigning employee might also share the information with Human Resources staff but state that the only documentation of their resignation that they want is their resignation letter in their personnel file. The contents of a personnel file, and consequently the details of their personal reasons for employment termination, may be reviewed by strangers in the future. This is why "personal reasons" is sufficient information in a letter of resignation.

These are two examples of resignation letters that are proffered for personal reasons. Use these resignation letter examples to guide your own resignation from your job for personal reasons.

Resignation Letter Sample: Employee Personal Reasons

Here is an example of a resignation letter for personal reasons. Download the letter template (compatible with Google Docs and Word Online) or read below for more information.

Sample employee resignation letter for personal reasons.
The Balance.

Resignation Letter Sample (Text Version)

Date

Name of Supervisor
Company Name
Address
City, State, Zip Code

Dear Name of Immediate Supervisor:

I am resigning from my position as a customer service representative for personal reasons effective January 19. This provides you with two weeks' notice to plan for my replacement.

Working at (company name) for the past six years has given me the opportunity to meet some terrific coworkers and customers. I will miss the daily interaction when I am no longer here.

Please let me know what I can do to help ease my exit from the company. It is not my intention to leave you short-handed, but it is necessary for January 19 to be my last day. I can be available, on a limited basis, for follow-up phone calls from coworkers for an additional two weeks.

I wish you nothing but the best. I have been thankful for and happy in my job with (company name). I will miss you and think of my time here positively.

Please let me know what I can do to help during this transition.

Regards,

Employee Signature

Employee Name