high school career counseling is using ChatGPT, giving 360 feedback to a clueless coworker, and more

by Alison Green on March 3, 2025

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. How do I give 360 feedback to my clueless coworker?

I have been asked to complete a 360 review for the junior staffer on my team. In general, I would like to only be positive in these, as that’s what I want in return! And I have never expressed these feelings to this coworker.

But he is like a little baby in the outfit of a 26-year-old man. He doesn’t have the general sense at work you’d like someone four years into their career to have — as an example, he scheduled our boss to meet with board members, assigning them a meeting time without asking them for input on their schedules. The problem is just basically that all the time — he is not supposed to be so entry-level but his work problem-solving skills are like me at 20, in my first internship. He’ll also do things like answer questions in a group setting that were clearly directed to someone with authority/experience,

What is a nice way to put this? I’d love to just say “Bob is eager and kind, but could really benefit from more training in X” but I don’t know what X is, because it’s not project management or tone or anything, it’s just having a clue.

The complicating factor here is that I am only one year older than him and not a supervisor, though my role is more senior, and my tenure with the organization is longer. But I am worried about overstepping by correcting his behavior in the moment. And I’m worried I may have bitch-eating-crackers syndrome with him, because I’m annoyed that he constantly says “Thank you” instead of “sorry” as we’re all taught to do — but sometimes, his incompetence has resulted in hours of extra work for me and he thanks me “for my leadership”! It probably doesn’t help that when I held his role, I was paid two-thirds of what he earns now.

What should I say in the review? Is there a succinct, kind way to describe the problem?

“Bob is eager to lean and kind, but could benefit from more coaching in problem-solving and political awareness (for example, checking board members’ schedules rather than simply assigning them a meeting time, or recognizing when questions in a group are being directed to someone with more authority or experience).”

That said, is there more to it than just problem-solving and political awareness? If his incompetence is causing hours of extra work for you, that sounds like there might be an issue with basic skills as well — so whatever that issue is, make sure you name it and provide a couple of examples to illustrate it too.

If you’re uncomfortable putting this in writing, another option is to talk to Bob’s boss and say, “Here are the things I’d like to give feedback on. I’m not sure how to put this in writing without being more blunt than I’m comfortable with since I don’t have any supervisory authority over him, so I hoped to get your advice on how to frame it / wondered whether I could share the feedback with you informally as areas for you to watch / wondered whether you could synthesize this into the overall feedback you share with him.”

2. High school career counseling is using ChatGPT

My high school student received an email from an employee of the school district advertising “ChatGPT Interview Prep” and “NLP for Interview Confidence,” supposedly teaching them how to craft strong interview answers from ChatGPT.

I’m surprised by this. I do think kids should learn interview prep, but maybe not this way. When I interview people, we can tell if they are only good at giving pre-planned answers that don’t go in depth; typically when we debrief, we’ve all noted they had the right answers but lacked depth/examples, didn’t get deeper on a line of questioning…

My high school kid also had to create a LinkedIn profile (not sure what why) and it is clear she used ChatGPT. I feel like it’s a lot of the same buzz words on LinkedIn, but using the words “reinforcing client relationship” in a job description for babysitter is funny.

What are your thoughts on a high school “career office” offering an interview prep workshop that teaches kids how to use ChatGPT to craft answers? Would you ask the school about this or weigh in with your professional opinion as a person who interviews job candidates? Should I be concerned about my district’s standards?

I assumed ChatGPT would be crap at interview prep, but to test that out I asked it to generate likely interview questions for a couple of jobs, and it actually did a decent job both of suggesting questions you might receive for those positions and of describing the sorts of things you should build your answers around. It would be terrible at suggesting actual answers (since those need to be based on your own experiences and expertise) but it was pretty good at explaining the types of things your answers should cover. So, depending on how the school is using it, it’s not the worst idea in the world, as long as they’re stressing that sometimes it ends up being wildly off-base.

However, the LinkedIn thing — no. I’m skeptical that most high school kids need LinkedIn profiles at all, and anything that results in describing babysitting as “reinforcing client relationships” is teaching them the absolute wrong lessons. And that’s of course part of the problem with ChatGPT; the person using it needs to have enough expertise to know if what it’s suggesting is good or not. A high school student won’t know what a good LInkedIn profile looks like, so might not spot it when ChatGPT suggests something insane.

Frankly, I’m not a huge fan of high schools teaching “interview prep” at all; they’re often bad at it, or the lessons center around the types of interviews kids aren’t likely to have until years down the road. But you’d need to know more about exactly what they’re doing to know if there’s something complaint-worthy here or not.

3. My boss keeps giving me conflicting instructions

My job involves compiling information into a short, standardized document. My manager reviews every document I turn in and frequently gives me feedback that contradicts previous feedback he has given me. For example, today he told me “when you describe Regulation 1, always include parts A, B, C, and D,” when in the past he has said “only include the part of Regulation 1 that pertains to this document, Part A.” The circumstances are exactly the same for the two cases, and this happens constantly. My instinct is that constantly redoing things to different standards is just part of my job and I should say nothing. Am I right?

With a decent boss, the right thing would be to say, “I want to make sure I’m handling these correctly. When I turned in the X document, you’d said I should only include the relevant part of Regulation 1, which was Part A. How do I know when I should include A, B, C, and D even if only one part is relevant, and when I should only include the relevant part?” It’s possible there’s some piece to this that would make it make sense — like that the first document had a different audience than the second, or some other reason that you’re not currently spotting — and so he’ll be able to give you helpful guidance on spotting that yourself in the future. Or maybe he just changes his mind every other day, who knows. But a reasonable boss would want you to ask.

If he’s a terrible boss — if he’s a tyrant whose whims of the day determine what’s correct more than reality does, or someone who reacts poorly to having it pointed out that he’s giving you conflicting instructions — that would change things. But otherwise, start by assuming you should ask.

4. I’ve been getting all my colleague’s meeting invites … for 10 years

I’m hoping you can help me on something that has been plaguing me for years. When I started at this large company, I was an admin assistant and my duties included managing the calendar of our director, so he added me as a delegate to his calendar in Outlook. Eventually I got another job at the same company, but I continued to receive all of his meeting requests. I reached out to IT many times and to the director, who always shrugged and said he’d ask IT.

No one ever resolved this, so I made an Outlook rule and sent all the meeting invites to a folder that I would occasionally mass delete. Over the years, twice I have tried to reach out to IT (but I was in a different department at this point) saying, “Hey, this started happening again.” They’d respond to say they would look into it and I’d check back but they hadn’t spoken to the director, and eventually they just stopped responding. I’ve just lived with this, thinking the director will retire long before I do.

Now there has been some reorganization and the director is in my department! I’ve also grown in my career a bit, and my circle and his has more overlap than before. This is a regular reminder that I have a folder of his meeting invites, and I’m starting to feel weird about it. Do I try to reach out to our joint IT person about it and pester it until it’s fixed? I’m worried that I’ll get in trouble for having had access to these invites for so long, but I truly don’t pour over the details or have any context for any of it. I was just an entry-level employee and it was an annoyance that I lived with, but now I’ve been here almost a decade and it’s starting to gnaw at me that I could get in trouble for this. What should I do?

You’re not likely to get in trouble for it; you asked them to fix it many times! But yes, reach out to IT now and say, “This is still happening, I really do need it fixed, how do we make that happen?” This time, follow up every few weeks until it’s dealt with. It’s ridiculous that it’s still happening.

5. Should federal workers state the obvious when writing cover letters?

Should federal employees applying for jobs in the private sector mention that they’re applying due to the decimation of government jobs, or would that be gauche?

I’m finding myself applying to jobs at a company I worked at for years and years that I had just left recently for the stability of a fed role. Clearly that did not work out! Should I address that elephant in the room in my cover letters, or assume the hiring manager can figure it out and just write a normal letter?

Just write a normal letter. They know what’s going on, and if for some reason they don’t and are curious about why you’re leaving, they’ll ask.

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{ 138 comments }

{ 138 comments… read them below or add one }

  1. Ask a Manager* Post author

    A reminder: We’ve had a recent increase in trolling here, and you can help me by NOT RESPONDING to it. If you engage, you are ensuring that troll will reappear. Instead, please flag the comment for me (just reply with a link, which will send your comment to moderation so I’ll see it).

    A change to previous requests: please don’t reply “reported.” Enough people report these comments that you can trust it will be dealt with. Do not engage at all. Thank you.

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  2. Artemesia*

    when someone is a total screw up as this junior employee is, why would you want to soften it? 4 years in and doing the ridiculous things the OP describes? He needs to know that his performance is woefully lacking and see concrete examples.

    going to the boss to discuss how to word it is astute — but again VERY clear examples of the problems.

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    1. Polly Hedron*

      OP#1 said
      – in general, OP #1 wants to be positive in her reviews of other employees because she wants them to review her positively in return
      – she hasn’t previously criticized this coworker [so it seems unfair to start in this official document with no warning]
      I like Alison’s suggestion of talking to the boss first is best.

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      1. Escapee from Corporate Management*

        “In general, I would like to only be positive in these, as that’s what I want in return!”

        OP1, this is not how 360 degree feedback works. Please stop thinking in terms of “positive” and “negative”, as though you’re ranking friends. This is a tool that, when used well, allows managers and employees to improve their performances. Think instead of “what is done well” and “what could be improved”. A good employee (and especially, a good manager) WANTS to hear all of the feedback.

        I urge you to be honest—which you can do kindly, but directly—on this 360 review and ask others to do the same when reviewing you.

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        1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

          OP please listen to this. If you ever want to move up into a supervisory role, you have to be able to give feedback that is not what you would consider positive. Honest, professional feedback is required.

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        2. Dasein9 (he/him)*

          I agree that honest, professional feedback is what’s needed here. Besides naming areas for improvement, try to name some behaviors, however minor, that you appreciate and would like to see continue. Bob probably does have some good qualities and using this opportunity to actively look for them might help with your own BEC issue.

          Honestly, it sounds like you’re likely to advance a lot faster than Bob, so this can be a good chance to get early practice with some skills you’ll need when you’re managing a Bob of your own in the future.

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    2. Metal Gru*

      I agree, it is much too soft (even with the suggestions in the answer, imo). He isn’t “eager to learn etc BUT…” he is pretty useless (specifics) BUT it seems well-intentioned.

      You know how sometimes someone gets a bad review and that’s the first they have heard about it from their boss? This is a similar thing, but from your boss’s perspective. Since he’s causing concrete issues (extra work needed because of his screw ups etc) this is beyond just interpersonal. Ideally LW would have gone to their boss already about this, so the first time the boss hears about it wasn’t this review. However we are where we are, so I would just give the feedback that I would have given to the boss: he has a pattern of doing x, this has impact y. A couple of incidents in particular had significant client impact (or whatever). He has the lack of political awareness you’d expect from an intern rather than an established employee. etc.

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      1. A. Lab Rabbit*

        Then what is a 360 review for? Just to give useless platitudes. As someone downthread pointed out, this is how people like this employee get away with mediocre man syndrome. People just look at the good things he does and completely gloss over his egregious errors.

        You don’t have to be brutally honest, but you do need to be honest.

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      2. PayRaven*

        360 feedback is a key way for the boss to find out about the issues that they don’t see themselves. It’s not absurd to ask someone to be honest about their colleagues.

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    4. BatManDan*

      This is why so many of y’all are working with “Bobs” (and why I’m self-employed).
      “Bob isn’t good at his job, but I don’t want to tell him he’s not good at his job, but I want Bob to get better at his job. How can Bob get better at his job, without anyone having to worry that they might hurt his feelings?”
      Newsflash: Bob ain’t gonna get better on his own, without feedback (and consequences – otherwise, feedback is just noise).

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    5. Sloanicota*

      Actually (and this might be just me) but I wouldn’t put things that have much nuance into a 360 review, and I do think I’d probably talk about the boss with them instead – just because you should probably assume everything you write in a 360 will be delivered “anonymously” (?) to the coworker, who will probably immediately start triangulating who wrote what, and writing it down like this makes it seem *very* harsh, like you are actively trying to get this person fired or something. I honestly don’t care that much about my crappy coworkers, at least not enough to make all this drama. I’d just give him all 3s or whatever.

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      1. KitKat*

        I agree, there are social norms that are part of 360 reviews that some other comments here are ignoring

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    6. WillowSunstar*

      I had a Bob and my boss at the time was one who sucked and wouldn’t do anything about it for 3 years, no matter how much evidence I gave him. Wound up changing jobs in large part because of Bob and the boss who wouldn’t do anything about him. Bob left the company a year after I moved departments. Hopefully the boss for #1 is not as bad as mine was.

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  3. Cmdrshprd*

    IDK maybe I am being naive, but “reinforcing client relationship” in a job description for babysitter” I do think is applicable.

    I have never been a babysitter but have hired/used babysitters and id sag only 50 to 75% of the job is actually babysitting,
    /watching the child, the other 25/50 is client relationship management.

    I have had babysitters that were great with my kids, but not great to deal with/with me that I would not recommend and others that were good but not great with the kids, but they were great at dealing/interacting with me aka managing the client relationship that I would highly recommend.

    The ones that were superstars were great at both, and getting word of mouth recommendations, letting me know they were looking for more work.

    So client relationship management is not unreasonable. It might seem like it if you have never thought of it that way, but the skills are similar I would say, if not greater. I think people will be more picky about who they deal with to watch their child versus who they deal with to get the quarterly newsletter done.

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    1. Allonge*

      I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think of it that way, it’s more that it will look incongrouos on a high schooler’s resume. And then it’s equal odds if it helps or hurts.

      Saying ‘Five clients recommended me to their acquaintances for further babysitting jobs’ would feel more in place and tells you as much.

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      2. knitted feet*

        Right, exactly. Said highschooler can show they were successful and trusted by the families they sat for without using corporate phrasing that looks out of touch. It’s not as bad as ‘CEO of the Jones household’ for stay-at-home parents going back into employment, but it’s incongruous enough that it will likely make a hiring manager laugh and/or question the kid’s judgement.

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    2. Roland*

      “reinforcing client relationship” doesn’t mean anything. Even you called it “relationship management” in your comment, not “reinforcement”. Plus of course actual achievements are better than jargon, but even jargon should at least actually mean something and copying blindly from gpt doesn’t guarantee that.

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    3. Martin Blackwood*

      See, when its on a resume, or cover letter, if you cant explain what you did to reinforce client relationships, then it means nothing. garbage that doesnt convey skills! If you can explain what you did to have positive relationships with clients…then thats what you should write. Lots of people need a bit of prodding to realize what skills are valued/count…but babysitters dont automatically have relationship skills. ChatGPT would probably tell the babysitters you wouldnt recommend the same phrasing as OPs daughter.

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    4. alas rainy again*

      Yes, I came here to concur! describing babysitting as “reinforcing client relationships” is indeed real when you consider that the client is the one paying, i.e. the parent. There is much schmoozing in that job, in addition to kids care. That is crucial to getting more income, like any other job. Of course, that interesting suggestion needs to be fleshed out with quantification and actual examples, like any ChatGpt suggestion, and -indeed- any suggestion when we come to think of it. This excellent site has daily illustrations of out of touch humans (I want to clarify I mean some coworkers of letter-writers)

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      2. metadata minion*

        If I saw that on a resume for a high-school babysitting job, I would think at best “aw, sweetie, you can just use normal language!”. It sounds like a kid trying to make their babysitting job sound more official (and it is an official job, or at least can be!), or who has received really terrible resume-writing advice. And in either case that’s not exactly unusual, but that doesn’t mean people should keep *giving* this kind of terrible advice to high-schoolers.

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        1. Sloanicota*

          Yeah honestly even “client” is already a little weird – it’s like when teachers call their students “clients.” I would rather see “‘Five parents recommended me to their acquaintances for further babysitting jobs” than “clients.”

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    5. A. Lab Rabbit*

      If I had a high school or college student come to me with this on their resume to describe a babysitting job (and I used to hire teenagers for restaurant work, way back in the day) I would definitely give them a pass.

      Why? Because they didn’t write this. They either copied it from some other place or had tons of help (too much help, quite frankly) writing their resume. Is that how they’re going to approach their work once I hire them?

      (Also, I suspect that if I actually asked “tell me how you reinforced the client relationships when you were babysitting” in the interview, I would most likely get a blank stare.)

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      1. Sloanicota*

        That is a good point and something I hope the school/teacher follows up on – if you use ChatGPT to generate ideas for your resume, you’d better be able to talk in depth about everything you listed, including what it means! If not, this is a major fail.

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    6. HonorBox*

      If I got a resume that had “reinforcing client relationship” listed as a duty for a babysitter, I might dislocate my eyes I’d be giving it such a hard side eye. I think it is far better to name what you did to reinforce the client relationship. Because it seems like it was spit out by AI or someone dove really far into a thesaurus. And to be honest, I’m not sure what that really even means.

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      1. NigelsMinion*

        This! I can’t tell you how many times I read in a resume that somebody “facilitated” or “coordinated” something. My pet peeve is “managing.” What in the heck does that mean?!? “Manage” could mean anything!

        “Maintaining client relationships” is equally weird. Did you schedule appointments? Did you troubleshoot customer problems? Or did you just maintain eye contact while conversing with a customer?

        I coach resume writers to tell me what their jargon phrases looks like. Literally, close your eyes and describe what I would see when you “manage” something. Are you collecting data, reviewing things for compliance, answering inquiries, etc.?

        Note that I am in the public sector where it’s way more important on your resume to describe what you do than what you’ve accomplished (at least for non-executive roles). Accomplishments can get subjective and squishy, and it’s best to keep it objective and verifiable. However, this is also why government resumes are chapter books, so YMMV.

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  4. mango chiffon*

    If they are all using generative AI for interview answers, then none of them are going to really stand out. Somehow I misread this initially as a college prep for interviews and I thought wow that’s a sure fire way to not come across as unique.

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    1. bamcheeks*

      This really depends on how you view the job market. If you view it as a purely competitive process, then everyone’s job is simply to be better than everyone else and there’s no point in any kind of careers teaching. If you think it’s a sorting and matching process, then anything that helps people better articulate their skills and abilities is going to improve the efficacy of the process. And there’s a reasonable argument that Gen-AI can do that— though that doesn’t address the environmental and ethical problems.

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      1. whatever*

        I’m confused by your point here – a job search IS a competitive process, just maybe not in a traditional way. I’m competing with others to get something (a job).

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    2. LaminarFlow*

      This totally depends on how ChatGPT is framed to use. Yes, it can be a great resource to provide inspo/jumping off points for what types of questions might be asked (ex: behavioral style questions that require responses to be answered in the STAR format). However, while ChatGPT can be a great resource for this, I would heavily stress that this isn’t the only resource, and the responses typically benefit from being tweaked to sound authentic to the person saying them/writing them on a resume. Using ChatGPT or any other generative AI tool for this type of thing isn’t bad, but it is a new way to work. People who don’t know what Behavioral Interviews are like will get to see a variety of responses that are probably pretty good, depending on the prompt given. But, the fine print of tweaking the responses to sound authentic is key.

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      1. Sloanicota*

        Yeah, look, I dislike AI generated writing but there are actually a bunch of jobs who are not looking for employees who ‘stand out’ and who don’t actually depend on strong writing skills, so it’s probably pretty appropriate for those situations, which would include many teen jobs. However, note that common sense is a requirement for most jobs, and leaving AI generated garble on your resume if you don’t know what it means would fail that bar.

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  5. Mackenna*

    No 4, can you talk to your colleague in person, and then ask them to look into their outlook settings with you there? (I am assuming you are using the office version here.) I am in a role where the people in my group rotate regularly and I need to then be added on/taken off as a calendar delegate for several people after each rotation. I can log tickets with IT, but often it is quicker to walk over to the person in question and talk them through doing it themselves. Get your colleague to go into his calendar, then go to to File, Account settings, Delegate options and look around. I don’t know what settings your organisation will have but there is often a field where the delegates are listed, and you can delete yourself out of it. Another thing you can try is looking for the check box saying delegates will receive copies of all invitations. If that is checked, uncheck it. Given IT hasn’t done anything for 10 years (!!) this may be worth a try. Good luck.

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    1. Mockingbird*

      And if he was clueless about such things when you were his assistant, he still will be. But his current assistant will know how to get it done for you. They might even be wondering why you’re still on there and be glad to get it fixed.

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    2. Jen*

      Speaking of calendar settings, that may be what LW 1’s colleague is using.

      He’s assigning people a meeting time without asking them for input on their schedules, but Outlook’s scheduling assistant shows which times people already have blocked off as unavailable on their calendars. Maybe he thinks using that counts as asking them for input, and needs the fact that it doesn’t fully count actually explained to him?

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      1. Insert Clever Name Here*

        If these are board members they won’t be employees of the company, though, and Outlook can’t show you availability for people outside your organization (as I understand it).

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        1. Sloanicota*

          Yeah and in my experience Board Members, being often retired people, may not keep a calendar at all.

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    3. Ginger Baker*

      Yes I came here to say this! Just walk into his office and say “hey do you have two minutes so I can fix this calendar issue? Can I have the mouse for one minute?” Obvs aim for a time when he isn’t already on a call but yeah. Just go handle it in person and be done with it!

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  6. Daria grace*

    #2 while ChatGPT may regurgitate plausible enough answers for this task, I’d be concerned by the role modelling to students starting careers that it’s acceptable to use unreliable and ethically problematic shortcuts in business contexts rather than seeking out ethical sources of quality information. ChatGPT is based on stolen material and uses environmentally damaging amounts of water and power to do its calculations.

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    1. Testing*

      I’m afraid that, while you may be right, you are wildly out of step with much of the working world. Most people starting their careers now are definitely required to at least familiarize themselves with using AI, and probably also use it in their work already.

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      1. A Girl Named Fred*

        I think wildly out of step is a bit overblown – I’m sure there are places out there requiring it, but there are also places banning it and everything else in between. Personally, my boss (who coincidentally is just as incompetent as the coworker a different OP today mentioned) was telling me the other day about how he used ChatGPT to write emails and told my coworkers about how they could use it. I explained why I don’t want to use it (all the reasons Daria grace mentioned) and he dropped it.

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        1. Caramel & Cheddar*

          This. Acting like it’s some foregone conclusion that we couldn’t possibly stop just because tech companies keep forcing it into their software is not it. We are still at the very nascent stage of this stuff and can absolutely push back on its use instead of giving up and saying “Well, everyone’s going to need to use it” without actually giving any thought to why they think people need to use it or in what jobs.

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          1. Tea Monk*

            Yes, especially with young people who need actual skills. Using the plagiarism machine is not something that’s going to get jobs, because they won’t build skills. If they really need to cut corners they can learn on the fly.

            The idea that teenagers don’t know how to cheat on homework and need to learn to rip off other’s work is wild.

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    2. Evvy*

      I agree with this! If anything, students should be supported in learning to push back against something that may be presented to them as a regular tool in future work environments without any discussion of its ethical weight (as so many things are—not just gen AI!) — what is described in the letter just seems misleading on the part of the career center, and I feel like it may get kids into trouble with prospective employers who don’t support + can clearly spot the use of gen AI.

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      1. bleh*

        Most people who ever make a difference in the world have been “wildly out of step with much of the working world.” Going along with bad ideas is not wisdom, it’s capitulation. It’s like buying from Amazon because it’s easy and everyone does it. Still environmentally and labor relationally unethical.

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    3. a bright young reporter with a point of view*

      Also, if you’re a student, isn’t the point to actually learn something? If you just tell the statistical phrasemaker to do something, then you’re not learning how to do it yourself.

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      1. LaminarFlow*

        Learning how to craft a great prompt for a Gen AI tool is 10000% a skill that today’s students need to cultivate. Students in previous generations used an abacus to do math, but now we have calculators that depend on how the question is asked to give answers, which shows that the student is engaged in learning. The same rules apply with Gen AI. The fine print to stress: Using critical thinking to revise the responses to sound authentic/applicable/factual, is required for quality work.

        I work in GenAI, and I interview for tech roles at one of the big tech companies. Of course I can spot a non-revised GenAI response that has been copied & pasted, which is really not the way to use it. Using ChatGPT to respond to emails seems far more time consuming than simply responding, but using it to get a beat on how to respond to behavioral interview questions is great. I hope they cross reference this with YouTube videos from content creators who have experience with giving behavioral style interviews to stress the point that the responses need to be authentic to the person saying them.

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    4. Student-Student Nurse*

      I second, third and fourth this!

      and as we see companies like Microsoft walk away from this technology, we should be putting even less stock in the ‘necessity’ of it

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    5. Caramel & Cheddar*

      Thank you. I keep imagining guidance counsellors saying “Use ChatGPT!” to students who want to get into lines of work where ChatGPT is absolutely going to harvest their work without permission or compensation, or is going to set their sector’s work back by decades because of the environmental impact. It’s not some neutral force in the universe that we just have to accept!

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    6. AttemptsAreMade*

      Came here to say exactly this! I refuse to use it at work as an adult, and I would absolutely never suggest it to students. There is no need to be unethical in one’s actions just because other people are.

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  7. LoPerry*

    Re: letter 2: There is absolutely NO way I’d have my child setup a LinkedIn profile/account while she’s 1. still a minor; 2. still in high school; 3. is going off to community college in the fall; and 4. already has a job that she’ll be able to keep.
    99% of high school and early college students don’t need LinkedIn.

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    1. Daria grace*

      Unless there’s some really good reason for it (like they already run their own business) I wouldn’t encourage minors to join LinkedIn either. It’s not going to be that useful and despite LinkedIn being meant to be for professional purposes I’ve heard a bunch of stories of people encountering creeps there. That feels like especially a risk for teens if their LinkedIn profile includes info that makes them locatable offline (school, workplace ect)

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    2. PurpleCattledog*

      Learning employment norms for job hunting at school was standard when I was a kid. We’d read up about careers, prepare CVs etc. It was about normalising work stuff, and educating kids on options. And then we’d apply for jobs in reach of where we were (supermarket, maccas etc).

      Job hunting has gone online, it’s no surprise that schools have followed.

      It’s all well and good to say if they can’t do it perfectly schools shouldn’t be involved – but that pre-supposes that these kids have another avenue to get introduced to employment options while they’re still at school and making decisions with long lasting impacts. Fine for the rich kids with their old boy/girl networks. Not so good for the kids with functionally illiterate parents who don’t have a network to fall back on.

      I’m a big supporter of improving career education in schools – but that’s a long way from giving up because it’ll be contrived or imperfect.

      Reply ↓
      1. TeachingJobSeeking*

        The norms of job hunting vary a lot by type of job and, to a lesser extent, industry and the skills/expectations for the types of jobs teenagers tend to get are vastly different from many other environments. Teaching the wrong things is actively harmful. If they talk about a range of options and how it’s constantly changing maybe that would be helpful. Straightforward “thus is how to do it” almost certainly would not be.

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      2. metadata minion*

        I think it’s a good idea to teach kids *about* LinkedIn and similar online job sites, but that doesn’t necessarily mean having them create their own real LinkedIn account.

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    3. Alumni interviewer*

      I am an alumni interviewer for undergrad applicants to my alma matter. The strongest applicants almost always have LinkedIn pages, so I am extremely skeptical of this advice that “high school students shouldn’t have LinkedIn pages.” Granted, this is an Ivy League institution, so the strongest applicants are the crème de la crème of their high school classes and have real accomplishments to brag about. Still, this pattern suggests that learning how to market yourself is a beneficial skill.

      Reply ↓
      1. Expectations*

        What do they put on it? It’s supposed to be about employment history. The strongest students I knew/know devote the majority of their time to school activities. Personally, I wasn’t allowed to work because my job was school (we were not wealthy but my parents were both teachers and school was prioritized; FWIW I went to a top10 school undergrad and an Ivy for grad school). I had real accomplishments, but they were tied to school and school-related activities. They would not be things I’d ever put on LinkedIn, in part because LinkedIn isn’t designed/organized to highlight them.

        Reply ↓
        1. No LinkedIn Profile*

          I agree – when I was a student, my accomplishments also focused on school activities, clubs, volunteer work, and skills development related to a part time job around school stuff. I thought LinkedIn was more about strictly professional accomplishments so only my part time job would’ve gone on there.

          IDK I regularly get the impression LinkedIn is mostly focused on the IT sector anyway so if you’re in a different field it’s not going to be as helpful for you.

          Reply ↓
        2. Apex Mountain*

          LinkedIn is functionally pretty similar to a resume, so imo you could put those same accomplishments in an LI profile.

          Reply ↓
        3. Alumni interviewer*

          Extracurricular activities (with an emphasis on accomplishments), academic coursework and relevant AP scores, research/senior projects, internships, volunteer work, language/coding skills, etc.

          If anything, the resumes are too long. They’re not wanting for content. I have noticed that some of the better ones are functional, unlike conventional resumes (eg, sections entitled “science,” “journalism,” “debate”).

          One particularly memorable resume noted that the high school student held a private pilot’s license and was a flight instructor.

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    5. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

      One of the benefits of being on LinkedIn is making the connections. A college student’s profile can stay fairly basic, but a LinkedIn account allows them to 1) connect to others they come in contact with during class, internships, outside activities in ways that aren’t “follow me on Insta” which can then help build a base of a professional network, and 2) establish a platform on which they can do exploration of career paths that could lead to better early decision making.

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  8. MaskedMarvel*

    chatgpt is surprisingly good at interview prepared for behavioral questions.

    my wife hadn’t interviewed in many years and behavioral questions were a decided weakness of hers. that certain questions might come up wouldn’t occur to her, or that certain answers might be problematic.

    I created an assistant to act as an interviewer. I would feed it the job description, the company website, her resume, and ask it to give her behavioral questions.

    it really helped her prepare better.

    Reply ↓
  9. Greyhound*

    I want to reiterate something Alison said about ChatGPT (or similar services), because I think a lot of people aren’t familiar with it. In the context here, do not use it to give you the content of answers – eg what should I say if I’m asked about a time I messed up. Do use it to ask, what sort of questions might I get in an interview at a teapot factory. It’s lousy at the first and even if it’s not the answer risks being very generic. It’s very good at the latter – it won’t pick up everything but it will give you a very good steer. You might ask for hints on ways to structure your answer and see what comes up. In other words, it’s much better at the how to do things that the what to do. just my experience, but it can be a ver useful tool.

    Reply ↓
    1. KJC*

      I would also ask it to pretend it is interviewing you and then give you feedback on how you could improve the answers you provided. I would suspect it’s pretty good.

      Reply ↓
      1. KJC*

        To clarify – what I mean is, a student can prompt it, “Can you please give me 3 interview questions, which I will answer, and then can you give me feedback about my responses?” The Chat GPT can say “Tell me a little about yourself,” “Tell me about one of your biggest accomplishments,” and “Tell me about a time you made a mistake and how you responded.” And the kid can type their answers and then remind it they would like feedback. I would bet the ChatGPT wills say things like, “Such and such is a good answer about a mistake you made. However, it would be stronger if you also described how you made a plan to not repeat the mistake again.”

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        2. Your Former Password Resetter*

          TBH this is interviewing 101, and I’m not sure why ChatGPT is even used here? Isn’t it much more straightforward to just… teach the kids that stuff directly, instead of trying to poke a generative algorithm into giving basic and generic advice?

          Like it’s not going to be useful as a source of in-depth feedback (or probably any feedback), and most of this information could be skimmed from an article about popular interview questions. That’s where the algorithm got the info from after all.

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          1. Ginger Baker*

            It’s about time spent practicing! Most people are not going to have someone available to coach them through interview question practice more than once for say an hour (if they even have that). ChatGPT – while terrible at supplying answers since they should come of course from your own unique experience – is a chance to get a lot more TIME in practicing replies to (relatively applicable to your job search) behavioral questions you expect to come across.

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  10. Pumpkin cat*

    For #1, will it be anonymous to him? And will his boss see these comments? If so, I’d give him a justifyingly bad review. Talk about his ineptitude, speaking when he shouldn’t, pandering thank yous instead of apologizing for his mistakes, causing you more work than necessary.

    Dude is experiencing mediocre man syndrome and has a good shot at eclipsing you someday – shut this down. He’s already making more money than he should as you point out. Bet he wouldn’t hesitate to do it to you in a heartbeat.

    Reply ↓
    1. Ellis Bell*

      I don’t think there’s any reason to approach this competitively or with hostility. If OP is really concerned about disparate pay, they need to raise that with HR or as a group, or decide that the company is systemically sexist and nope out; it’s not the fault of one individual. I agree that the concerns with this employees’ performance should be flagged, but it should be constructive and objective, not a personal takedown.

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      1. KateM*

        Disparate pay depends a lot on how long ago did OP hold this same position and if there have been some general pay increases in the company perhaps.

        Reply ↓
        1. linger*

          OP1 only has a few years’ seniority on Bob, so we should trust OP1 that the 1/3 difference in wage is not entirely explained by increases over that time.
          True, Bob is a few years older than OP1 was at the time she was performing the same entry-level role (hence, as stated, OP1 is only one year older than Bob now), so the discrepancy may be as much age- as gender- related. Or maybe Bob completed some extra educational qualification in that extra few years before starting, which could have boosted his initial salary level. But regardless, it’s still a discrepancy not reflecting any meaningful difference in the role itself, and especially not reflecting the standard of performance of that role.

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          1. KateM*

            I just seem to remember that the company I worked for a couple years ago had a big overhaul of wages (as in increase of base salary across the board) in 2023, to adjust to inflation. I have no doubt whatsoever that people who are in the same position as I was in 2022 have clearly bigger salaries in 2025.

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          2. Jen*

            As for gender, you’re right that it could be gender-related and at the same time for all we know LW 1 is male too.

            Reply ↓
            1. linger*

              My assumption was based on the fact that Bob thanks OP1 for their “leadership” after being corrected, rather than owning & apologising for his mistakes. That’s consistent with a certain type of patronising sexism, and OP1’s reaction suggests that’s how it’s landing. But sure, that’s not any kind of proof. Bob might well be equally inconsiderate of all his coworkers (as seen in his approach to scheduling).

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      2. Ellis Bell*

        Reflecting, especially on the use of your word, justifyingly, I think I got the tone of your comment wrong. You don’t tell OP to take him down before he eclipses them, more ‘how would you feel if you say nothing at all, and then he eclipses you’, I think?

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    2. Die Bart Die*

      I certainly hope that someone who resents men as much as you clearly do isn’t in a supervisory role.

      Reply ↓
        1. Die Bart Die*

          I assume you’re referring to Pumpkin cat’s attempt to diagnose a junior employee with a fictitious, and blatantly sexist, ailment?

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    3. BatManDan*

      I’m with you. Lots of people in here not understanding how utterly disrespectful it is to Bob, to not tell him where he’s coming up short. Clear is kind. Hoping people figure it out on their own (weak feedback will get you worse results than NO feedback, but it gives room for it to be read as POSITIVE feedback) is like wishing you could fly, or be invisible. Nice thought experiment, but it will never happen.

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      1. Sloanicota*

        I think I disagree. Totally sinking somebody’s 360 review when you’ve never even mentioned any of these issues to them is really going scorched earth. It’s just not necessary. To me it’s like, this is the first time you’ve ever felt any power over this coworker and you’re waaaay overboard. You can just damn with faint praise and point out some areas for growth without going in guns blazing. If you truly want to help your coworker grow (which … why would you, it sounds like you don’t like him and don’t want to spend more of your valuable time coaching an adult who is making more than you did) you can try to bring up more stuff one on one as you notice it.

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  11. nnn*

    The thing about #2 is, in a world where ChatGPT exists, you need to be better than ChatGPT. And this career office is getting in the way of learning that.

    Reply ↓
    1. Earlk*

      I agree, as much as I find a lot of ways places are currently using AI annoying and unnecessary (Google AI results are a complete joke) learning how to use it is an important skill and the lesson is on building good prompts so even if they didn’t use it in an interview setting it could help in other ways.

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    2. Waiting on the bus*

      Without knowing what the class is teaching exactly, you don’t really know that. The class could teach how to use ChatGPT as the base and then how to adjust the results to make them usable for themselves. If the class teaches how to use ChatGPT properly, it’s uses and limitations, I’d say that’s a very pragmatic course by the school. GenAI is here and will be used, one way or another. We’re not putting that genie back in the bottle.

      It’s really popular on here to dunk on ChatGPT or GenAI in general, but it can be very useful in a lot of cases. (The ethical and environmental issues are a different beast.)

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      1. Alumni interviewer*

        +1. This criticism of generative AI is wildly out of touch and strikes me as akin to employees of buggy manufacturers grousing about the internal combustion engine.

        Reply ↓
        1. Caramel & Cheddar*

          If we want to use your analogy, then it would be the same as people knowing at the time that the internal combustion engine was going to significantly impact our planet and our sustained ability to live on it, and maybe we should make different choices about how we transport ourselves instead of just saying “Ah, what’s done is done, stop living in the past.” We know it’s bad now and we have the option to make different choices.

          Reply ↓
      2. Your Former Password Resetter*

        Ignoring the ethical and environmental issues is a pretty big ask though.

        And frankly, just because you can use it doesn’t mean you should, or that you should encourage people to use it. That’s how you help to normalize and ingrain these kinds of harmful practices, along with whatever the next overhyped tech scheme to appeal to venture capitalists will be.

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    3. bamcheeks*

      You do for anything with intellectual substance, like writing a report which says something worth reading, but I’m not convinced you do for applying to jobs. Succeeding at applications and interviews means capturing unique information (who you are and what you’ve done) in a very standard and relatively rigid format (cover letters, resumes, competency-based answers.) Gen-AI is no good at identifying the former, of course, unless you give it great prompts, but it is very, very good at the latter. And that’s a huge advantage for a lot of people who have the skills and experience, and may even know what it is, but not the facility to put it into what is basically a marketing document.

      “Talk about your skills and experience in a very specific standard formula” is not actually the skill employers want to hire for in many sectors, but it often is because we don’t have better processes for identifying what people’s skills, experience and potential are. If Gen-AI can do that effectively, then it has the potential to significantly improve hiring practices with less burden on the applicant.

      (caveats about ethics and the environment, but IMO that’s a separate question from what Gen-AI is actually good at.)

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      1. Emmy Noether*

        I agree that “sounding like corporate speak with all the right keywords” is one of the things AI can actually do. You probably have to craft the prompt really well to get your actual skills reflected, and proofread well to make sure it doesn’t hallucinate an additional degree, but maybe it can at least break that fear of the blank page?

        Of course, you risk sounding literally exactly like everyone else (since that is how AI works – it analyses how often words go together and then spits out the most frequent combo – which makes it sound normal, but also unoriginal), but maybe that’s better than standing out in a bad way.

        [insert motal and environmental caveats]

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  12. KJC*

    I actually disagree that high schools shouldn’t be providing interview prep. My husband interviews high school students for college for our (selective) alma mater, and he reports there is a HUGE difference in students that have obviously received coaching about what kinds of questions they will be asked and know how to frame an answer and provide relevant examples. He says that while he tries to remember that not everyone’s parents are giving them that level of coaching, and not hold it against someone, it’s also just the reality that every student has so many accomplishments that you have to find some way to delineate them. If he has one 5 to give out that year, it’s realistically going to be for someone who can give insightful and reflective answers with good examples over someone whose answers are just….average. I know 20 years ago my parents didn’t prep me at all – they literally said, “just be yourself,” and even as a top-performing, well-spoken, passionate, super involved student, I was a TERRRRRIBLE interviewer at that age! I interview students for graduate school now, as well, and also find a major difference in student preparedness. We both wonder how in the world we got into college at all given the pressures and preparedness of kids these days, but it’s just the college landscape. This probably only applies to highly selective colleges, but I think there’s also a lot of competition for paid internships and the like, and every little bit helps. As for the Chat GPT thing, my personal opinion is that Chat GPT thinks and writes like a moderately sophisticated high schooler, so it’s about at the right level of writing for something they would say. But I do think whatever it teaches should subsequently be discussed with an actual person to confirm and practice!

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    1. PurpleCattledog*

      I’m interviewing people that are junior (in an area where 30 year olds are junior) – and I see huge discrepancies in how good people are at interviewing. I couch my really junior staff in his to apply for jobs and interview (in my field). I’m no expert – but I’ve seen people loose jobs because they can’t interview.

      I completely agree with you – someone has to train them!

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    2. TeachingJobSeeking*

      I agree in theory, but…

      Norms change too quickly for the average teacher or even guidance counselor to keep up and develop reasonable curricula when they have other stuff to do. And expectations/norms vary a fair bit by type of job and (sometimes) industry. And teaching is very, very different from almost any other type of job so their personal experience is not applicable and could be harmful if applied. There’s a reason why college career counselors are often disparaged here; they’re wildly out of date and out of step with most expectations in the real world.

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  13. Irish Teacher.*

    LW2, my concern here would be how much understanding the guidance counsellor has of chatGPT. My experience as a teacher is that teachers, like most people, vary greatly in their understanding of it. There could be excellent advice or it could be based on assumption that chatGPT will do all the work for you.

    And I would also be concerned about how students will hear it even if it is good advice. The reality is teens (and a certain number of adults too, as we’ve seen from letters here) will take the message that “chatGPT will do all the work for me” even if they are taught how to use it as a tool. We spent a lot of time teaching students how to research online, how to cite the information, summarise, etc and invariably, when it comes to time to do a project, a large proportion will either print out sections of a Wikipedia article and stick it on or will copy out what it says, maybechanging a few words, like changing “Michael Collins was killed in Beal na Blath in 1922” to “Michael Collins was murdered in Beal na Blath in 1922” (not a great example but doing that with the entire account).

    It takes a lot of work to teach kids how to use these tools appropriately and I’m skeptical they will get enough input to ensue they understand properly.

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    1. Varthema*

      Agreed, but as you say, even with training, kids have been copying paragraphs out of Wikipedia and before that regular encyclopedias since time immemorial. My concern is that if they don’t get at least SOME training in using Gen AI in school (which also signals that their teachers have at least some level of cop-on), then they’ll get ALL of their training out of school/from peers/siblings as “this cool illicit tool for scamming your teachers”, and that’ll be worse.

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      1. Media Monkey*

        i think that’s what some of them hear anyway! i had a conversation with my daughters school in the UK when she came home saying they’d be told to learn english exam question answers from chat GPT. School confirmed (and clarified with the kids) that it was about getting chat GPT to pull out the key points they should cover in their answers, not to copy it word for word.

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  14. Catherine*

    I have recently learned about how much power and water goes into even a single question to chatGPT and was shocked, I think we shouldn’t be using it at all to be honest.

    Reply ↓
    2. Michigander*

      Yes, I’m slightly surprised that there was no mention of the environmental effects of using AI in the response.

      Reply ↓
    3. BatManDan*

      I boycott AI for ethical reasons (mostly related to power consumption), not for practical reasons. No way to put the genie back in the bottle, I don’t think.

      Reply ↓
  15. Nebula*

    I used ChatGPT last year to help with my application and interview prep for my current job. I wouldn’t use it now for anything, as I’m more aware of the impacts of it – particularly climate impact – but it was helpful for making some tweaks to my cover letter, reorganising my CV to highlight relevance to the job, and suggesting interview questions. The whole process of applying for a job is generally pretty formulaic, after all, and that’s what ChatGPT is good at. On the flipside, I had to do a presentation as part of my interview, and its suggestions for how I could structure that were very bland and boring, and I was able to create something much stronger by ignoring everything it said.

    So yes, it can be useful, and I think showing kids how to use it well is not a bad idea, since they’re all using it anyway, but the question is whether the person offering this course is going into the nuances of it or just saying like ‘Look, it’ll write your answers for you’. You’d hope it’s the former, but I’ve seen enough ‘training’ or advice on gen AI which is just the latter so who knows.

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  16. Cabbagepants*

    chatGPT and LLMs aren’t going anywhere. Take this opportunity to teach your kid how to use it properly. Yep, it has flaws and downsides. So does just about all tech. Don’t be that buggy-whip maker pooh-poohing your kid wanting to learn to drive.

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  17. Beth**

    I was really struck by this sentence from OP1: ” In general, I would like to only be positive in these, as that’s what I want in return!”

    1. Why is the OP assuming that everybody wants to receive feedback the same way that you do? This seems like an odd assumption.

    2. What is the value of 360 feedback if everyone just says nice stuff to one another? How does that help anyone grow and develop? Maybe this is context-dependent, but in my company we’ve had a big push in the past couple of years on giving and receiving feedback — giving developmental feedback respectfully and helpfully and receiving feedback in the spirit in which it is given. Soft soaping everything doesn’t help.

    3. It seems like the OP has identified things that are specific and actionable. Why wouldn’t the colleague want to know this since it sounds like the errors he’s making could have an impact on his career. One of the ways we’ve been framing this at work is, “if your sister/brother/son/daughter/best friend was making this kind of mistake at work, wouldn’t you want someone to tell them? Framing feedback as a kind act rather than a dig helps you see why it’s important and valuable.

    4. I hat getting 360 feedback that’s full of platitudes and doesn’t give me a chance to improve. That said, I have received feedback in 360 reviews that I don’t recognise/doesn’t resonate. If so, I have discussed it with my manager to see whether it’s likely to a blind spot and something I do need to work on, or more reflective of the person giving the feedback than me.

    So, for example, I once got some feedback that I don’t celebrate people’s achievements enough, which I didn’t agree with. I had a sense that the feedback had come from a member of my team who was struggling a lot. So no, I wasn’t celebrating their achievements because they weren’t having any. I was instead spending a lot of time re-doing their work to meet deadlines. My boss agreed with my interpretation. I have tried to become more conscious of not taking good work for granted and letting my team members know when they have done a good job — and praising them in front of peers where they have done something out of the ordinary. So in that case, even I thought the feedback was off target, I still managed to do something useful with it. (And in retrospect, I should probably have realised how far the team member’s perception of their performance was from my perception and ensured they were getting more regular big picture feedback so they were aware of the pattern I was seeing.

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    1. bamcheeks*

      in my company we’ve had a big push in the past couple of years on giving and receiving feedback — giving developmental feedback respectfully and helpfully and receiving feedback in the spirit in which it is given

      I think this is SO key, and should be the baseline for any kind of 360 feedback. With the exception of client feedback, you shouldn’t be asking anyone for open-ended feedback: it should be structured, specific about the kind / scope of feedback which specific people can provide based on their relationship to the feedbackee, and everyone should have received training on how to give constructive and useful developmental feedback. But lots of places implement 360 feedback without that framework, and that’s when it becomes the popularity contest described by 360Reviews below.

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      1. Sloanicota*

        That’s well put. Above, I said I wouldn’t go scorched earth on somebody else’s 360 but a better framing and support system around the review process could help make it valuable for all. You would also need a lot of support in processing a 360 review if everyone was encouraged to be super honest – it could be really damaging if you’re going into it expecting it to be like any other work review where a ton of critical feedback is very bad. I assume that’s not what OP / this coworker are getting though, unfortunately.

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    2. Ellis Bell*

      I think praise and confirmation of what is going well is hugely powerful, but it depends on what the overall structure of the feedback to employees is going to be at this company. So, I think that very critical feedback is something that shouldn’t wait for review-time and it needs to come from someone with authority over the person, so that may be why OP doesn’t feel like this is the appropriate opportunity for negativity. But I agree with you that there should be at least some space for recommended improvement.

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    3. ZSD*

      I agree with Beth that 360 feedback should be honest. That’s the idea! When I had a 360 review, it was SO helpful to get the negative feedback I didn’t expect. For example, I learned that although I had never once felt angry with a student, something was going on with my face that made them *think* I was angry with them. I was stunned by the feedback but resolved to work on looking more pleasant as a baseline.
      If you don’t give the negative feedback people deserve, they can’t improve!

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    4. Caramel & Cheddar*

      I was genuinely surprised LW said they would only want to receive positive info in a 360 because that’s not the point of a 360. You don’t have to be needlessly critical in a 360, but you should be honest and if you have constructive feedback to give, then you should give it.

      I know it can be hard to do this, of course. Even when the responses are anonymized (which they should be for the recipient), sometimes the examples are so specific that it’s easy to figure out who gave the feedback. That can absolutely cause tension on a team. But part of receiving negative feedback (or even just neutral feedback) is learning how to deal with it professionally, which LW’s coworker won’t have the opportunity to do if LW doesn’t speak up.

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  18. 360Reviews*

    I hate 360 feedback in general, and I loathe it at my current company which requires that you only include feedback you’ve already at least mentioned to the person, preferably discussed.

    I had a coworker similar to yours and I had to blunt my feedback to the point of ineffectiveness because you just can’t tell a coworker who doesn’t report to you they’re incompetent (no matter how widely phrased) and don’t ever learn no matter how many times you try to help them do so. It took his getting a new boss who had to rely on him for stuff that mattered to her and thus experienced it for herself for any changes to take place at all (eventually a PIP and then being let go).

    In other places the ones I’ve seen were closer to popularity contests; if people were popular they got evaluated on how everyone liked them, if not they got nit picked to death. Not helpful, especially if you took them at face value.

    Down with the 360 review!

    Reply ↓
    2. Sloanicota*

      Also people who are struggling this much are unlikely to be able to absorb the 360 correctly either, IMO. So it’s just going to be an exercise in futility and possibly cruelty.

      Reply ↓
      1. A. Lab Rabbit*

        Yes, but doesn’t this feedback get back to their manager, as well? This way the manager may learn of issues or wins from an employee that they weren’t aware of. Then it’s on the manager to address these issues.

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  19. ItLies*

    The problem with AI is most people don’t understand how it works or how to use it. This is more of an issue for things like machine learning where “yes” or “no” generally means greater than/less than N% likely but is often taken as fact, but is still true for generative AI. You need to understand the topic well enough to know when it’s lying to you (the technical term is AI hallucination) and understand what is and is not applicable. AI never replies “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure” so a human has to evaluate the likelihood of those states and adjust responses accordingly. If it’s not something you know/understand well or have other other trusted sources to compare it’s incredibly difficult to reasonably make those judgements.

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  20. Apex Mountain*

    I was confused by parts of the answer to #2. What is wrong with HS students creating a LinkedIn profile? It’s usually done as part of a business class or similar, where it’s a way to introduce students to aspects of the working world. Same with interview prep – to me these are things we should want to see more of in schools.

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    1. bamcheeks*

      I think LinkedIn is amazing for careers research, but you do have to create a profile in order to be able to see much of other people’s profiles, and there are lots of reasons to be concerned about u18s creating profiles that include their names and locations, never mind photos. Whenever I have run LinkedIn sessions with college-age students, I’ve emphasised the advantages of having a profile and being able to look at other people’s profiles and possibly start conversations with people in the industries and sectors you’re aiming for, but the trade-off is that there are weirdos who mistake LinkedIn for a dating app or will approach you with scams, and that they should make their own decision about the trade-offs. That’s not necessarily a decision I’d be happy putting into the hands of a 15yo, and I don’t really think it’s ever OK to tell students they have to create a LinkedIn profile for credit or similar even if they are over 18.

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    2. DisneyChannelThis*

      Yes, the assumption that young adults don’t need to know how to interview in their teens is off to me. I had my first job at 14. I did go to college but I continued working while in college at various part time jobs around my class schedule. Fall of freshman year of college we were interviewing for internships for next summer as well.

      High school is a great time to start talking through interview/resume/linkedin. We didn’t have that sort of thing, hilariously it was the hs tennis coach who taught us the elevator pitch introduction, and how to shake hands properly, and that sort of thing. He was an older guy, and was offended by how “weak” our handshakes were after tennis matches then realized no one had ever taught us any of this and filled the gap.

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  21. WellRed*

    I would be so annoyed by hearing “I m sorry” constantly by someone effing up, thank you might be preferable. Not sure who all were taught that but OP, that bit does feel BEC.

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    1. SorryCharlie*

      This came up on the weekend threads too – some people get upset when you don’t say sorry ad nauseum, others get annoyed when you do. This is one of those areas where balance is hard because it feels somewhat arbitrary.

      I grew up being blamed for things my siblings did and learned at an early age to apologize for everything. This led to feedback as an adult that I apologize too much. I try to self-police this (it’s a process) and may overcompensate compared to some preferences. To me, it seems like a no win area.

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    2. Myrin*

      I think this point in the letter isn’t so much about how constant (or not) the “I’m sorry”s are but rather that he never apologises for screwing up but always just says “thank you for your patience until I’ve got the hang of this” or whatever when OP is not feeling patient at all and would rather just hear him acknowlede that he’s causing extra work for her.

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      1. WellRed*

        I guess I feel like either phrase acknowledges the issue but without being there, it us of course, hard to say.

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        1. Don’t know what to call myself*

          I don’t think it does.

          “Thank you for your leadership” (the specific phrase in LW’s letter) doesn’t make me feel better if I’ve just worked multiple hours fixing someone else’s mistake. I would like that person to acknowledge that they did something wrong and it inconvenienced me.

          I do think the frustration with never ending apologies and the frustration with never receiving apologies comes from the same place. The frustration isn’t being cause by the wording the offending person is using, it’s coming from the fact that this person continually does multiple things that would warrant an apology and doesn’t appear to be learning from their mistakes and stopping the behavior.

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          1. Sloanicota*

            Yeah, “thanks for your patience” acknowledges that you personally are not killing it right now and is akin to an apology (but better, because it doesn’t require the other person to say “that’s okay” in order to close the loop). “Thank you for your leadership” is condescending and puts the speaker in a higher position than they deserve if they are screwing up – like someone who is suffering from the error of another person wants their approbation and encouragement!

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            1. Not That Kind of Doctor*

              Ideally I would like to hear some kind of specific recognition of whete the error occurred, eg, “Yeah, I guess I probably should have started with the CEO’s admin to set up a time, it’s kind of their job.”

              I manage one of these currently and spend a lot of energy trying to figure out how to teach someone good judgment.

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      2. Caramel & Cheddar*

        I feel like he’s misusing advice I’ve seen elsewhere to sort of reverse the issue into making it a positive for the other person, e.g. instead of “I’m sorry it took so long to get you the info!” you say “Thank you for your patience, here are the details on the Llama Account.” But you can’t do that every time you’re slow/late/incorrect on something, it’s a strategy that must be used sparingly because it makes you sound like a customer service rep when you call your bank to ask about a weird charge.

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    3. Not That Kind of Doctor*

      TBH, when someone repeatedly screws up in the same way, without any apparent effort towards improving, anything they say about it is going to be annoying.

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      1. Emmy Noether*

        Yeah, the first time you screw up in a way your coworkers have to fix, you can just say thank you. The second, it should probably be apologetic or self deprecating, depending on vibe. Third time, it better be “this will never happen again, because I put the following safeguards in place”. Tenth time, there’s just no good thing to say.

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  22. Dr. Rebecca*

    LW4, I know it’s probably all handled with tickets and stuff, but have you actually physically *gone* to IT? They may respond more succinctly to you walking into their offices and demonstrating the problem. #gumption

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    1. EngagingIT*

      You have a physical IT department? I haven’t seen one of those in almost a decade, and they were already rare at that point.

      It is either outsourced or contracted for on an as needed basis (at smaller companies) or entirely at a centralized location (at some larger orgs) or is one person who is never at their desk because they’re off helping people.

      Plus, it doesn’t sound like they’re not engaging, it sounds like they’re not doing the follow up steps that would happen later. So even if there is a physical IT location to ambush I’m not sure how it would help in thus case.

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  23. Hybrider*

    LW4 – I’m not sure this is an IT issue. I think it’s an email setting issue. If you are ever physically in the office with the executive, I would ask him if you could change the setting on his laptop for him. That’s probably the quickest way to resolve the issue.

    It’s possible IT has set him the instructions on how to make the changes and he hasn’t done it.

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  24. Jay*

    Unfortunately, right now, a LOT of first jobs (maybe even most, at this point) have all of the initial interview questions written by AI. And AI makes all of the choices for the first few “rounds” of interviews. For job openings with a lot of candidates, a human may never even SEE their application. As such, tailoring a first resume to impressing ChatGTP, rather than an actual human, is actually a good competitive strategy. I hate it, and I hope that I never actually have to deal with it again, but I’ve seen it happen.
    Once they’ve got some experience under their belts and are applying to roles where other humans will be making hiring decisions early on, well, that’s when an actual GOOD resume comes into play.

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    1. Sloanicota*

      Good point. I hate it. But it’s possible the job skill of the future will be to tailor your resume to impress the AI vetting of your AI text.

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    2. Your Former Password Resetter*

      Is it actually though?
      People have claimed for decades that hiring got automated to where a human never sees your application, but I’ve never seen anyone who said their hiring processes actually worked that way. At worst it’s an overly rigid application process of the “must have X degree” variety.

      I’m sure some terrible hiring managers just throw all the applications into ChatGTP, but as standard practice at large organizations?

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  25. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

    #2 – I was laid off, along with several other coworkers, a few weeks ago. We’re software engineers who understand how LLMs work, and have written ChatGPT prompts and dialogs as part of the product we were developing.

    We’ve been using ChatGPT for interview prep exactly the way that you describe. We feed in public info about the company (industry, stuff from their values page, etc) and the job description, and ask it for questions that might come up in the interview.

    I think the questions might get fuzzier the farther you get from an actual company and an actual job description, so they wouldn’t necessarily be things that would come up in an interview. But even then I suspect they would still be good for teaching students to think on their feet in an interview setting.

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    1. Sloanicota*

      I just think it’s so risky for teens specifically, who have so little perspective/common sense, to teach them to use AI *without* then having an experienced person reviewing the answers and discussing them with you. I have not been very impressed with the accuracy of AI in terms of random hallucinations – what are you going to do, be like “but ChatBot said this was a good answer!!!”

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  26. Do You Hear The People Sing?*

    I looked at AI-generated interview questions to help me prepare for job interviews. The questions weren’t bad.

    What were awful were the answers AI generated. That I would be good for the job beause I’d rescue people from a burning building, etc.

    I mean, I follow AI’s logic there. Rescuing people from a burning building IS good. But unless the job is firefighter, employers don’t usually look for it.

    Reply ↓

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