Quit Score Explained: What Your Result Really Means

You’ve completed the analysis and you have a verdict in front of you.

Maybe it confirmed something you already suspected. Maybe it surprised you. Either way, a one-word result doesn’t tell the whole story - the confidence score and the breakdown behind it tell you just as much about what to actually do next.

Here’s how to read it.

The Three Verdicts

Leap

Your data points toward leaving. The financial conditions are workable, your burnout level is high enough that the cost of staying is real, and your next move is defined enough to act on.

Leap doesn’t mean quit this afternoon. It means the conditions are in place. The risk of going is lower than the ongoing cost of staying. The practical case for moving supports the instinct you probably already have.

What Leap is not: a guarantee that everything will go smoothly, or a sign that you should skip the preparation. A Leap result with a clear action plan behind it is very different from a Leap result that leads to an impulsive exit.

Wait

Something important isn’t ready yet.

The most common reason for a Wait verdict is financial runway. Your burnout may be high and your career alignment may be poor - but if the savings aren’t there, leaving now creates a different kind of stress. The analysis is telling you to fix that first.

Sometimes Wait comes from an unclear next step. You know you want to leave, but you’re not yet sure what you’re moving toward. A Leap into total uncertainty isn’t the same as a Leap with a rough destination.

Occasionally Wait appears when burnout is very high but quitting into nothing is likely to make things worse, not better. In those cases the verdict is: address the burnout, build some support, clarify the direction - then reassess.

The key thing about Wait: it’s not “no.” It’s “not yet, and here’s specifically what needs to change.” The action plan in your result tells you what to work on over the next 60 to 90 days.

Stay

The current data doesn’t support leaving.

Either the problem is specific and potentially fixable from inside. Or the financial position makes leaving genuinely risky right now. Or what you’d be moving toward isn’t clear enough to justify the jump.

Stay doesn’t mean stay forever. It means the numbers and the signals are currently pointing toward fixing something rather than leaving. Often a Stay result comes with a clear single factor that’s holding back the case for leaving - address that factor and the verdict may change.

The Confidence Score

Every result comes with a score from 0 to 100. Here’s how to read it.

70 and above. The data clearly points in one direction. The factors are aligned and the verdict is reliable. You can act on this with a reasonable degree of confidence.

40 to 70. There’s a clear lean, but some signals are mixed. The verdict is probably right, but there’s more uncertainty in your situation than usual. The breakdown will show you where the mixed signals are - focus on those first.

Below 40. The signals are genuinely conflicting. This doesn’t mean the analysis failed - it means your situation is genuinely complex and the data is pointing in multiple directions. This score is telling you that more clarity is needed before acting. The verdict gives you a direction to lean, but this is a case for careful thinking rather than immediate action.

Why Two People With the Same Verdict Can Have Different Situations

A Leap result for someone with high burnout, six months of savings, and a job offer already in hand is a very different Leap from someone with moderate burnout, four months of savings, and a rough sense of wanting to freelance.

Both are Leap - because in both cases the case for going outweighs the case for staying. But the first person is ready to move quickly. The second person has some preparation still to do.

This is why the confidence score and the breakdown matter as much as the verdict itself. Two people can share a verdict and have meaningfully different action plans.

The Four Factors Behind Your Score

The analysis builds your verdict from four areas.

Financial readiness. Do you have the runway to leave safely? This is the most binary factor - either the savings are there or they’re not. A financial readiness score below 40 is almost always what produces a Wait verdict.

Burnout level. Measured across the three Maslach dimensions - exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced efficacy. High burnout increases the urgency of the decision. Very high burnout can be a reason to move even when other factors aren’t ideal.

Career alignment. Is your current role building toward something? Is your next move a step forward or sideways? Poor alignment raises the long-term cost of staying.

Personal risk tolerance and situation. Supporting a family, industry stability, whether you have any side income, health factors. Context that changes what the same financial and burnout numbers actually mean in practice.

”My Verdict Doesn’t Feel Right”

This comes up, and it’s worth addressing directly.

If you got Stay but feel strongly like you should go: look at the financial readiness score first. In most cases where Stay doesn’t feel right, the finances are what’s triggering it. The feeling is probably accurate - the timing isn’t ready yet.

If you got Leap but feel scared: that’s normal, not a signal the verdict is wrong. Leap means the conditions are in place, not that the decision is easy.

If you got Wait and feel stuck: the action plan is the most important part of your result. It’s telling you specifically what to work on. A 90-day focused effort on those things changes the picture.

The Result Is a Starting Point

No analysis of 13 questions can fully capture the complexity of a career decision. What it can do - and what this tool tries to do well - is bring clarity to the factors that actually determine whether leaving is safe, timely, and likely to go well.

Use your verdict as a starting point for a more honest conversation with yourself about what’s actually holding you back and what needs to happen next. That conversation is more useful than any verdict on its own.