February 2019

don’t send chocolate or lottery tickets to hiring managers

I wrote a piece for Slate today about gimmicks in job searching — the reasons some candidates feel compelled to use them, some of the weirdest stunts people have tried, and why they really, really, really don’t work.  (And yes, I mentioned last week’s lottery ticket sender.) You can read it here.

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our weird and incompetent temp keeps getting rehired

A reader writes: I changed jobs about a year ago to escape a toxic workplace. While I feel valued at my new job by my coworkers and manager, I still have that “I’m new, I don’t want to make waves” mentality. A few weeks after I started here, they hired a temp to catch up […]

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employee goes into emotional spirals, interviewers who ask if you’re applying to other companies, and more

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My anxious employee goes into emotional spirals after even mildly negative feedback I’m a new manager and recently hired my first junior-level employee. I could tell she was sensitive during the interview, which was fine, but didn’t find out until she started working that she […]

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weekend free-for-all – February 2-3, 2019

This comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand. (This one is truly no work and no school.) Book recommendation of the week: The Darlings, by Cristina Alger. I’ve been reading obsessively about Bernie Madoff (and eyeing everyone I know with suspicion), and this is a fictionalized account […]

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open thread – February 1-2, 2019

It’s the Friday open thread! The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on anything work-related that you want to talk about. If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to talk to other readers. * If you submitted […]

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