The hours are winding down, and President Bush will soon officially step down from the presidency. This week he's been giving interview and press conferences, summing up his experience and saying goodbye.

What should you do if you're leaving your job, either by choice or due to lay offs? We spoke with career expert Bruce Tulgan, author of It's Okay to Be the Boss: The Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming the Manager Your Employees Need (2007) and the forthcoming Not Everyone Gets A Trophy: How to Manage Generation Y (March 2009). Here's what he had to say about protocol for handling your job departure with grace.

FiLife: Should you send a mass email with your contact information? Could that help or hurt you?

Bruce Tulgan: The best practice here is to communicate your departure and contact information to people with whom you have worked directly or indirectly and include some personalized message to each of those people. But make sure it is all business even if personalized and don't criticize or complain about the company or any individual explicitly or implicitly.

Having said this, make sure you first know what the company policy is, if there is one. You don't want to violate company policy, even on your way out the door.

Beyond those with whom you have had a working relationship, you should consider communicating your departure and contact information with as many additional people as you can, but sometimes it is better to be selective. There are not too many downsides of spamming everyone, except that you should exclude from any general spam email those you want to pay attention to your more personalized email.

Should you try to get a recommendation written up at that time?

It is a good practice to collect letters of commendation (about a particular success) and letters of recommendation (about your good qualities more broadly) every step of the way from people in positions of supervisory responsibility and leadership with whom you are working. However, you do have to be careful not to convey the impression you are job-hopping. That's why it's also a good practice to keep copies of your work product as proof of your ability to add value. Keep your own documentation of your successes as they occur. Keep any congratulatory emails or letters or even handwritten notes on the corner of a document.

If you haven't been collecting all this stuff every step of the way, then by the time you are on your way out the door you'll be in a hurry trying to collect all this stuff before you leave. If so, make sure you are asking every decision maker who considers you valuable to put in the most effusive terms just what has made you valuable to him/her. It's not a bad idea to have a document prepared in advance that you can share with your recommenders highlighting the concrete results you have accomplished with dates and other details.

What other opportunities should they take advantage of as they leave or right after?

If you are leaving on very good terms, there may be a lot of resources available. Are there outplacement services? Training classes? An alumni association? Are there regular gatherings to which you might still be welcome?

Of course, if you are going to work for an organization that might be a good vendor or a good customer of your prior employer, keep that in mind. Are you going to be coming back trying to sell something? Are you going to be coming back in a position to buy something?

If you are going to a competitor, you have to be very careful.

Remember, if you are leaving voluntarily or involuntarily, this is very important context that will make it more (involuntarily but on good terms) or less (voluntarily but not going to a competitor) appropriate to try to utilize the organization's resources on your way out the door or after you leave.

What else should people know?

First and foremost, you should be thinking about the relationships you would want to have with people in this organization in the future. Behave in such a way that you will be strengthening these relationships on your way out the door and making it possible to continue these relationships after you leave.

Thanks, Bruce!