these 5 resume mistakes are hurting your job search by Alison Green on June 15, 2015 As a former hiring manager who now helps clients with their own hiring, I look at a lot of resumes. Day after day, I see job candidates severely harming their own chances by submitting resumes that do a terrible job of making it easy for employers to spot why they might be the right person for the job. Frustratingly, most people are making the same small number of easily fixable mistakes. I can’t write back to these candidates to tell them to clean up their resumes if they want a better shot at a job, but I can tell you! These are the five most frequent mistakes I see and what you should be doing instead. 1. Writing a resume that reads like a series of job descriptions. This is by far the most common mistake job applicants make: The bullet points they use to describe what they did at each job just list activities and read like a job description for the role might – for example, “edit documents,” “collect data,” or “manage website.” That conveys your job description, but it doesn’t convey what kind of employee you were, which is what employers care most about. After all, someone could engage in those activities and do a mediocre job of it; instead, your resume should convey that you excelled. That means that you should be talking about your achievements – what you accomplished, what the outcomes of your work were, and what made you shine in the role. It’s the difference between “managed billing” and “completely revamped client billing system to ensure bills are now sent out on schedule” or “resolved an inherited four-month backlog of invoices in three weeks.” 2. Leading with your education even thought it’s been years since you graduated from college. Once you have some work experience, employers care most about what your work history has been and what you’ve accomplished. Your education is a distant second, so you should lead with your work history and save your education for the end. In fact, even if you’re a new grad, if you have relevant work experience, you should lead with that. (Some fields are an exception to this, but if you’re in one of them, you probably know it.) 3. Including a long list of “core competencies.” It’s fine to have a section that lists your skills, but too often people throw everything they can think of into this section, resulting in laughably long lists of skills that most hiring managers end up ignoring. If you choose to list skills on your resume, they should be hard skills that are truly distinguishing (such as software programs), not subjective self-assessments like “strong communication skills” or “works well in groups and independently.” It’s far better to demonstrate your skills not by listing them but by talking about how you’ve usedthose skills, via the bullet points describing what you’ve done at each job. That way, you can frame it in terms of what you accomplishedwith the skill, instead of just noting the skill itself. (Also: If you do decide to retain this section, please call it something other than “core competencies,” which is jargon that tends to makes hiring managers’ eyes glaze over. Calling the section Skills is fine.) 4. Including so much info before your work experience that it doesn’t start until the bottom of the page. Sometimes job seekers load their resumes up with some much extra information that their work history doesn’t start until the bottom of the page or, worse, a second page. The thing that employers care most about when reviewing your resume is your work experience. You want it to be the first thing they see; don’t bury it deep into the document. 5. Including every job you’ve ever had, no matter how long ago or irrelevant to what you do now. A resume isn’t supposed to be a comprehensive accounting of every job you’ve ever held. Rather, it’s a marketing document that you should edit to present yourself in the strongest possible light. That means that you may not need to include every job you’ve ever had or jobs from two decades ago. Focus on more recent work (the last 10-15 years) and the work that most closely relates to the job you’re applying for. I originally published this at U.S. News & World Report. You may also like:should I point out job applicants' mistakes to them?can you leave dates of employment off your resume?companies that ask people to answer mini-essays before submitting resumes { 61 comments }
should I tell a new employee that her facial piercings are limiting the work we’ll give her? by Alison Green on June 15, 2015 A reader writes: We have a new employee at our small office with multiple facial piercings. It’s not a problem in our daily office environment and we hired this employee with the facial piercings in place. The issue is that prior to this employee being hired, our boss required us to remove some of the client-facing duties from this job description.This person was the clear favorite for the job and had great experience, hence why were willing to redo the description a bit. The employee had applied to the job with the original description and multiple times during the interview process inquired why the client-facing part was removed. For better or worse, the answer was that another employee took it on and we reorganized the office. We also made some other changes to the description/duties too that other employees took on. While that was all true that we did reorganize, the real reason the client-facing work was removed from this particular person’s job description was because our boss is very traditional and did not want someone with facial piercings representing the office with older and more formal clients. This employee is doing a great job, but now about six months in, keeps inquiring/offering to take on more of the client-facing work. The entire staff knows why the answer is no, so it is awkward when help on these client visits is offered in staff meetings. I am this person’s direct supervisor but not the one in charge of these decisions. I do plan on pushing for this person doing client work in the future, mostly because I feel like the employee would do a great job and we frankly need the help. I like to be honest and wanted to be honest initially, but was outvoted. I feel like I should stop the asking for now by speaking to the employee, in private of course, about the reasoning behind the decision. Is there anything I am overlooking that makes this a bad idea? There is nothing else holding this employee back from doing this work and I feel like it’s a disservice not to explain that facial piercings can hold someone back in the professional world, like it or not. You need to be frank with the person. It’s crappy that the whole office knows the real reason except for the person who’s actually asking the question and who’s affected by the answer. And there’s no reason that this needs to be some dark secret that she can’t be told. Presumably, your boss think the ruling is a reasonable one and therefore should be willing to share it. When you say that you were “outvoted” when you wanted to be honest, what does that mean exactly? You’re this person’s boss; there’s no reason that this question should be up for a vote. If I were you, I’d sit down with your boss and say, “Look, I’m increasingly uncomfortable that we haven’t been up-front with Jane that her facial piercings will limit what she can do here. She’s asked repeatedly about taking on client-facing work, and I need to be honest with her about the piercings being the issue. I plan to talk with her about it this week.” Then be honest with the employee. It’s really unfair that there’s an obstacle limiting her work that she doesn’t even know about. Frankly, it was unfair to hire her without telling her that it was the reason you reconfigured the job. Had she known that, she might have chosen not to take the position. By hiding it from her, y’all basically denied her the ability to make her own fully informed choice about whether she wanted the position. Similarly, you owe her all the facts now. She might choose to take out her piercings during the workday in order to get the types of projects she wants there. Or she might choose to go somewhere else where her piercings won’t be a limiting factor in what work she can take on. Or she might change nothing — who knows. But she’s entitled to know the full picture while she’s working there, and to make her own decisions accordingly. As for your boss’s stance on piercings in general … In many industries and geographic areas, facial piercings aren’t a big deal. In others, they are often widely considered an issue for client-facing work. It really depends on your field and where you live; there’s still a ton of variation on this. But one thing that doesn’t vary is that you should be transparent with employees about things that affect their careers with you. Tell her. You may also like:how can we convince our employer to allow nose rings at work?my boss blames me for getting sick, will piercings harm my career, and morean unreasonable tattoo policy, I went to a college run by a religion I no longer follow, and more { 247 comments }
dealing with a work crush, our boss lied about a family emergency to skip a meeting, and more by Alison Green on June 15, 2015 It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Our boss skipped a meeting for a family emergency — but we saw on Facebook that it was a party I work part-time at a pool (I do have a professional IT job) and each month there are required staff meetings. Last month, our boss stated in a letter that she would not be there because of a “family emergency.” During the meeting, those of us who are friends with her on Facebook observed her updating her status about a birthday party and posting pictures having fun at an uncle’s birthday party. In my opinion, that is not an emergency. This infuriated the staff, most of whom are high school students, which led to a lot of people quitting, so now we are even more under staffed and stressed because she also has been pawning tasks (weekend scheduling) to a few of us more senior folks. What is the most appropriate way to handle this? Well, you could tell her that people were pissed off about that, and that’s why they quit. But while lying to get out of attending a staff meeting isn’t a great move — and it’s particularly a jerk move coming from the boss, because it’s an obvious double standard — I’m not sure it’s fury-worthy or quit-worthy. (Plus, it’s entirely possible she wasn’t lying — you don’t have all the information, and it’s possible that she had to, I don’t know, drive her terminally-ill mother to this event to see her son for the last time before he ships out for Afghanistan or something. Who knows. That sounds like a stretch, but my point is that we don’t know the circumstances.) This all sounds like a lot of drama, and your best bet might be to just unfriend your boss on Facebook so that you don’t see this kind of thing, keep your head down, and focus on your job for however long you decide to stay there. 2. My crush at work is giving me confusing signals after turning me down Recently a new person joined our team. We got along well so I went ahead and asked her out. She said that she doesn’t mix dating with work. Now, since she said no, I figured she wasn’t interested in me and I kind of instinctively started avoiding looking at her in a group setting since I didn’t want to be a creeper, but I didn’t avoid or ignore her if she was in front of me and continued to greet her as usual. We’re in different roles so, aside from maybe a common meeting per week, our interaction lasts only for about 10 minutes every day in a group setting and that too can easily pass off without us really requiring any direct conversation. I am not sure how she construed my behavior but it seemed like she didn’t like it. One day when I didn’t make any eye contact with her in a meeting, she looked upset when I said hi to her in the break room. I think she thought I was giving her the silent treatment or something, when in reality I’m a really quiet/shy person and I didn’t want to make things awkward or be labeled as a creeper. Anyway, from the next day onward, I stopped avoiding eye contact with her. For a whole week straight, she would look me in the eyes the first thing every day during our 10 minute stand up meeting. She stopped doing this abruptly one fine day. I have since tried thrice to re-initiate conversation with her, while she does respond back she doesn’t initiate any conversation herself. She looked in my eyes again this last week. Any suggestions/advice on how I should proceed? I’m completely at a loss here and I have re-kindled my feelings for her. Should I go back to instinctively avoiding her? No, please don’t. Treat her like you’d treat any other coworker. The problem here started when you started avoiding her after she told you she didn’t want to date you. While you may have been doing that to avoid making her uncomfortable, in practice it did the opposite, because it signaled to her that you were going to treat her strangely/awkwardly/rudely because she turned you down. The best thing that you can do here — and in fact the only professional option — is to treat her the way you would any other coworker. Don’t avoid looking at or talking to her, don’t track what kind of eye contact she does or doesn’t make with you, don’t over-analyze your interactions with her — just treat her like you do everyone else. And don’t ask her out again, rekindled feelings or not, since she clearly told you she’s not interested in dating, and you don’t want to create further discomfort for her at work. 3. Should I offer to split the cost of training with my employer? My manager has suggested I look for a training course on a particular topic. This topic is related to my job but not essential for it–learning the material should help me do even better at a job I’m already doing well. I found a few courses for around $1,000 each, and was told that that price range is OK and I should pick one. Now that I’m looking at these options more closely to pick one of them, I find they all have dreadful reviews, and people have even lodged Better Business Bureau complaints (a lot of complaints!) against some of these companies. There are some training options out there that have much better reviews, but these better ones are all $2,000-$2,500 for the course. Clearly I should have done more research before I suggested those options! But since I didn’t, I feel uncomfortable saying “well, those cheaper courses exist but I really want this $2,000 one instead.” I’m wondering if I should: * get over my discomfort, and ask to take one of the more expensive courses since I think the outcome will be better * offer to pay half the cost myself * try to pick the best of the cheaper courses What do you think? If it helps, I can say I have a great manager and my company is great to work for, but the company is going through some tight times financially. Don’t offer to pay for a business expense just because the price ended up being higher than what you thought. Look at it this way: If your manager asked you to find a printer, you found one and got her okay on their pricing, and then heard terrible stories about them from their customers, would you then go back and offer to pay part of the cost of a better but more expensive printer? Of course you wouldn’t. It’s really not that different here. I think you feel like it is because training will benefit you personally, as well as your employer — but this is training that your manager suggested you do, and just because the initial price has now changed is no reason to assume you can’t get a higher price approved. Go back to your manager and explain what you found out about the lower priced courses, and that the ones that get the best reviews are in a different price range, and see what happens. If she balks, then you can discuss with her whether it makes sense to take the cheaper, poorly review course or something other option. But don’t offer to pay for this yourself, unless you’re fully convinced that it will have significant benefit to you after you’ve no longer at this company (and even then I’m not sure you should). 4. Sending a follow-up after a thank-you note It is too desperate, if after a thank-you letter, I send another letter about what I can do (with the details of how to do it) for the company? I’m concerned that he might think that I have no marketability, and I really like the job. In most cases, it will come across too aggressively. The ball is in their court. Let them take whatever time they’re going to take to think through candidates and make a decision. Meanwhile, the best thing that you can do for your own peace of mind is to assume you didn’t get the job and mentally move on, and let it be a pleasant surprise if they contact you. 5. I don’t want work calls forwarded to me on the weekends I was wondering if there was some way to get out of getting calls forwarded to my cell phone over the weekend. Is that legal? Or shouldn’t my boss need to pay me ? And not by bonus? I’m a front desk receptionist at my job and I really don’t want to have to keep sticking to those duties over my weekend, aka my free time. I’m not sure if other people have had to do this besides business owners or doctors and nurses that are on-call. They can indeed require you to answer work calls over the weekend. However, assuming you’re non-exempt (and it sounds like you are), you need to be paid for that time, at your regular rate. If that puts you over 40 hours of work that week, they’d need to pay you overtime (time and a half) for all hours over 40 that week. Legalities aside, if you don’t want to do it, you could say, “I have commitments on the weekend that preclude me from being available to answer work calls. Can we handle them differently?” Those commitments could be family, hobbies, a class you’re taking, volunteer work, a tendency to spend time in the mountains outside of cell range, or whatever you want. You may also like:is it disingenuous to call a situation with a pet a "family emergency"?how should I navigate social media connections during a job search?my boss wants me to host a product party for her, I compared my interviewer to my dog, and more { 316 comments }
weekend free-for-all – June 13-14, 2015 by Alison Green on June 13, 2015 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. If you have a work question, you can email it to me or post it in the work-related open thread on Fridays.) Book Recommendation of the Week: The Pursuit of Love, by Nancy Mitford. I’m reading this right now and, eeek, it’s so good, how did I not read this earlier? It’s hilarious and beautifully written and perfect for reading under a bunch of blankets with a cup of tea. * I make a commission if you use that Amazon link. You may also like:yes, you are awkward ... and yes, it's okaycan I read erotica on work breaks?all of my 2022 book recommendations { 896 comments }
did I cross the line with our fun office survey, handling a boss’s birthday, and more by Alison Green on June 13, 2015 It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Did my fun office survey really cross the line? I work for a market research company and in lieu of a company newsletter, I design and send out a fun survey every Monday, and then distribute the answers on Friday. Each week is a different theme. For example this week is about superheroes, asking people who their favorite villain or superhero is. The chairman of the company likes to make it personal to people in the office by adding questions like, should so-and-so shave his head? A regular feature of the survey is the Ask Someone Anything section. Each week we choose a person to feature and everyone in the company can submit questions anonymously that we would like them to answer. My immediate boss has had an issue with some of the questions that were submitted. A couple of guys in the office got asked if they wear boxers or briefs. Someone got asked about their age. Are these types of questions crossing the line? I feel like they are pretty tame. Could I get in trouble for allowing these to slip through? If you continue to let them slip through, yes. Asking people at work about their underwear is inappropriate. It doesn’t matter if you feel like your particular group is fine with it and finds it funny; you still need to have work-appropriate boundaries, because eventually someone is going to come along (if they’re not already there) who finds it unwelcome. That person may be afraid to speak up because it’s clear others enjoy it, and that tends to lead to Bad Places. Same with age — you may not mind being asked your age, but someone else might. Given that age is a legally protected characteristic (if over 40), there’s just no reason to mess around with that area. You should be able to have plenty of fun questions without violating professional norms. Plus, your boss has already told you where she stands on these questions (which sounds like the same place I stand), so that’s pretty much the final word on it anyway. Updated to add: I read this question as “Could I get in trouble if I continue to allow these to slip through?” But on another reading, I wonder if the letter-writer is really asking whether she could get in trouble for the ones that were already printed. If that’s the question: I doubt you’d get in a huge amount of trouble; you’d probably just be told to handle the questions differently in the future and at worst chastised for not spotting the issue to begin with. Show that you get it now, and you should be fine! 2. It’s my boss’s birthday and we have differing opinions about what to do This morning a coworker (my BFF) mentioned that our boss’s birthday is next week. The boss has been especially kind and understanding to me after my recent hospitalization, but morale is low and I know not everyone has the warm fuzzies. There is a policy about not spending money on routine life events like birthdays and anniversaries – although among friends, we totally ignore this rule. When someone in my department has a birthday, close friends/coworkers bring a card and cupcakes, but there is no formal workplace celebration. In BFF’s department, the entire team recognizes birthdays with a group luncheon and she wants to do the same for our boss. It feels awful and contrived to throw the boss a festive birthday luncheon and ask the entire office to join the mandatory fun. What to do? This is your BFF; you should just be candid with her. (Although actually, my advice would be the same even if she weren’t.) Say this: “I know that in your department, that’s how you tend to do it, but it’s very much not our way over here. I think people would resent being asked to give money, especially for a boss, and it’s also totally against company policy anyway. Why don’t we just do a nice card, and if someone wants to bring in cupcakes, they can?” 3. How to list pseudonymous writing on a resume Long-time reader here! I recently resigned from my 10-year communications career in corporate America and am starting to build a freelance writing business. I’m in the process of updating my resume – which, thanks to your excellent advice, I feel really great about! One sticking point: I’m an avid commenter on the Gawker Media sites and have a decent following over there. I know that sounds…odd…but being a popular/followed/respected commenter is a big thing on Gawker. As a result of that, I was able to start contributing to an official Gawker/Jezebel sub-blog (this is all unpaid). There was a little bit of an “audition” process in which I provided writing samples and pitched ideas, but nothing too crazy. I am really, really proud of this, and have enjoyed the opportunity to show I can do more than corporate/financial services writing. The only problem with sharing this accomplishment (and in some cases, highly relevant experience) on my resume is that all of this writing is under a pseudonym, which is common for sub-blog authors there. I’ve currently got it listed as a bullet in “other relevant experience” as: “Contributing author on Gawker Media sub-blog, [name of blog] (under pseudonym, samples available upon request)” I don’t reference Jezebel specifically because I don’t want to immediately turn anyone off who might have negative views about the site, since it can be a little polarizing. Is this weird? I’d really appreciate your guidance if there’s a better way to handle it. Hopefully, in the future, I’ll have similar published writing under my own name, but for now this is all I’ve got! I think that’s totally fine. (The only caution I’d have is to make sure that you’re fine with prospective employers eventually seeing anything you’ve published there, since if they ask for samples, they’ll be able to find all the others too.) 4. Whose advice should I follow? On Day 1, an employer called at 8:45 PM and I missed it because I wasn’t expecting anyone to call after 5. She left a voicemail asking that I call her back to schedule an interview. She also mentioned that she would be in and out of her office for the next couple of days and would check her voicemail when she could. Because it was so late, I called her back a little after 8 AM on Day 2 and left a voicemail stating who I was, how interested I was in the position, and when it would be best to contact me. I had a commitment for the first half of the day, but I did mention that I would have my phone with me. She didn’t call back on Day 2 or Day 3. Now it’s Day 4 and my mother thinks I should call her back and leave another voicemail if she’s not in her office. My mom thinks I would be showing more interest if I called again; I think it sounds pushy and I don’t want to come off as annoying. My dad has a friend that works at this company and I’m afraid if I don’t get a call my dad will ask said friend to figure out what’s going on. I’ve done some reading on others that have had this problem and some say I should give it up and search elsewhere and others say I should call the front desk to get her email address and contact her that way. So whose advice should I follow, or are they all wrong? Is it appropriate to call again with the possibility of leaving another voicemail? Or should I continue to wait for a call back? There’s no harm in calling one more time and leaving a second message if you get her voicemail. That’s not unreasonably pushy. After that, though, you should move on and let it be a pleasant surprise if you do her from her. Email would be fine too if you had her email address, but going through the trouble of calling someone else to get it will be too much. 5. I was asked to provide a headshot for a customer service job application I have been as asked to provide a headshot by a potential employer after sending in my resume by email. The job is in customer service and it just feels odd to me that they would want to see a picture of me before even giving me a interview. Should I ask them why they need this picture or just go ahead and send it? I’d like you to ask because I’d like to know their answer, but there’s a pretty good chance that you’re not going to get an answer, or at least not a candid one. This practice is weird (assuming you’re in a country like the U.S. where this is Not Done), and now you know that something about this company is weird too. I’d look at it as data about them, decide how to weigh it, and proceed accordingly. You may also like:how much paid time off do you get?how much money do you make?how much money do you make? { 211 comments }
should you warn employees before you fire them? by Alison Green on June 12, 2015 A reader writes: I am a partner in a small business. I need to terminate one of our admins for performance problems. Do you think I should give her “notice” before I fire her? I am a bit concerned because we’ve let her slide without formally saying anything–no verbal or written warnings for things that I would have terminated her on the spot for, but we were in the middle of an unusually busy and stressful season that we are still trying to recover from. I want to know if I should tell her that she will be losing her job this week due to poor performance (there’s a laundry list of things!). Also, my partner wants to give her two weeks severance as well. But I’m concerned about saying, “We are firing you because you’ve been an awful employee who has taken advantage of your situation, but we’re going to pay you too.” You can read my answer to this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and often updating/expanding my answers to them). You may also like:a toxic duo, a bitter chat group, a firing, and a lot of dramawho is responsible for anger management therapy when an employee needs it?I own a game store with a terrible manager who I'm afraid to fire { 234 comments }
open thread – June 12, 2015 by Alison Green on June 12, 2015 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 a question to me recently, please don’t repost it here, as it may be in the to-be-answered queue :) You may also like:our new phones have fewer speed dial buttons and everyone is freaking outhow do I interrupt my boss in person when I need something?I walked in on the company owner having sex in his office { 1,208 comments }
former boss keeps trying to pull me into drama, interviewer told me that I was “misleading” him, and more by Alison Green on June 12, 2015 It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My former boss keeps trying to pull me into drama at my old job I left a job where I had a horrible micromanaging boss who created a toxic environment. I left on good terms, feeling like it was better not to say anything to upper management. I was the seventh person in four years to hold that position, and I lasted a year and a half. Over the course of the past year, my former boss has contacted me through my work email asking for my input on projects where he works. For example, if they finished a document, he would send it my way for my thoughts. I gave my opinion the first time because I felt like I wanted to stay on good terms in case I ever needed him as a reference. But after that, I ignored his emails, saying I didn’t get them or that they may have been caught by my company’s spam filter. (I know it probably wasn’t a good idea and I should have been honest and said I didn’t have time.) He recently called me at my current job about a situation involving himself and his new employee, who replaced me. Apparently, the two of them are having interpersonal issues, which is typical for my former boss and anyone who’s been in my former position. Upper management moved my old position from under him to another person to supervise. My former boss is upset over that and told me about it in detail. I told him I wasn’t the right person for him to talk to and maybe he should be talking to his boss. He then stopped talking about that and said he wanted to talk about a work issue involving a policy that blocks him from doing certain tasks associated with my old position. It’s a tentative document that hasn’t been approved. He ended up forwarding me the documents for my review and thoughts. I think he wants ammo to use to tell his boss why this policy shouldn’t be adopted. I told him I was very busy with work, hoping that he wouldn’t send me the documents but he did anyway. Also, throughout my conversation with him he put me down several times calling me a job hopper and saying that I don’t have as good of skills as the new person who replaced me but he does miss me. How can I tell him to leave me alone and that I don’t want to get caught up in his interpersonal battle with the person in my former position and the big boss at that company? I’m worried if I ignore his email or don’t give him my input on those documents, he may not give me a good reference. I have my written reviews from that job, which are all glowing, but if a future employer calls this person, I’m worried he may lie and say I was a bad worker if I don’t help him out. Several options: “I don’t feel comfortable looking at this now that I’m no longer an employee — I’m sorry and hope you understand.” “I’m sorry, I’m swamped at work right now and on a big deadline. I hope this all works out though!” “I can’t really talk. I’m not supposed to take phone calls at work — my manager doesn’t like it.” These are all far nicer than he deserves, of course. What he’s doing is outrageous, but you care about preserving the relationship, so these responses are about doing that. In fact, if you really want to go in that direction, you can add in something like, “I really liked working with you and will always appreciate everything I learned from you, but…” It’s BS, obviously, but it’s BS that may get you what you want. Also, do not take his calls. Not ever again. From this point on, they go to voicemail. If you choose to respond at all, do it in email, where it’s easier to end the conversation quickly. In your email response, you will be warm and friendly, but distinctly unhelpful. 2. My interviewer told me that I was “misleading” him with my last job title My last job was a short-term, contract position which involved general office support for the HR department — mostly HRIS data entry, filing, answering phones, etc. My employer listed the title on my paperwork and my ID badge as “HR assistant,” which is the title I use on my resume. I recently had an interview for a similar position that I thought was going pretty well–until one of the hiring managers took exception to the job title I used. He was pretty insistent that the work I did for my previous employer did not fit his definition of an HR assistant, even after I explained that it was the title my previous employer gave me. He made a comment along the lines of me “misleading” prospective employers by using this title. Should I just write this off as a bad experience, or should I change my job title to something like “office assistant”? That guy was a jerk. You’re not misleading anyone by using the actual title your employer gave you, assuming that your resume accurately described what you did in that role. It’s true that if your resume isn’t clear about what you did in that role, you should make it more clear — but you would do that by rewriting the bullet points that you have describing that job, not by changing your title to something it wasn’t. Don’t give too much credence to the comments of jerks. 3. My employer is pressuring me to donate money back to our organization Each year, my nonprofit employer runs an employee giving campaign. I was out of the office during one of the final weeks of the campaign. When I returned, my coworkers made me aware that my name was on “the list” of people who haven’t yet donated, which goes straight to the CEO. My manager also brought the issue to a department meeting, stating that my coworkers should turn the lights on in my office until I donate (I work with the lights off because of chronic migraines). Additionally, my manager asked my work buddy why I don’t donate to the campaign, and members of the campaign committee continually stopped by my office while I was gone to try to nail me down into donating. I’ve given a significant amount of money in the past, especially considering my low salary. Last year, I lowered that amount for several reasons. A close family member was laid off along with several others, there’s a horrifying amount of conflict of interest and harassment at the organization, I don’t trust leadership to do good work with my money, and I’ve been taken advantage of with my workload (generally working 60-70 hour weeks with very little pay). When my family member was laid off, that meant me struggling more than usual to help them (which I’m very happy to do but has cut down on my own budget). How can I remedy this situation without forgoing my own beliefs on it? I don’t think it’s fair to pressure employees this much, especially when they don’t know our financial situations. Am I off base? Should I suck it up and give? No, you’re in no way off-base. Employees should not be pressured to give to any cause, let alone to their own employer; it’s inappropriate, oblivious to the power dynamic that occurs when your employer is pressuring you to do something “voluntarily,” and generally gross. In any case, you have two options: (1) Say directly that you’re not going to give and don’t want to discuss it further. (“I’m not able to give this year. Please don’t ask me again.” Feel free to add, “I’m really uncomfortable with the amount of pressure I’m receiving over this. I don’t want to discuss my budget at work.”) (2) If they’re just trying to get to 100% participation, donate a dollar and be done with it (this really will satisfy most of those 100% participation campaigns). It’s annoying on principle, but sometimes the best way to go. Your manager really, really sucks re: the lights thing, and you might consider saying something to her like, “I’m guessing that when you suggested that people turn my lights on, you didn’t think about the fact that I have them off because of migraines. Please don’t do that. I don’t want my physical well-being used to pressure me to spend my money the way others think I should.” 4. Changing email font color to blue I’m considering changing the font color on my business email to blue. Would you consider this unprofessional? Yes. Anything you do to change the standard presentation of your email tends to come across badly (changing the color or font, adding in that horrible email “stationery,” etc.). 5. Can I make up a day off over the weekend and avoid using my PTO? As a salaried employee, do I have the right to make up for an absent day of work without having my PTO or pay docked? I want to take a personal day on a weekday and make up for those hours on a weekend day without having to take PTO or lose pay. What rights do I and my employer have regarding this issue? Your employer can put whatever restrictions they want on PTO, and it’s pretty common for employers to require people to use PTO if they’re taking off a full weekday. You can certainly ask to make it up over the weekend, but they’re not legally obligated to agree. But if you’re exempt, they can’t dock your pay. what the hell is all this talk of exempt and non-exempt about? You may also like:how do I tell interviewers why I'm leaving my job without badmouthing my employer?my old employer is trying to intimidate me into removing a Glassdoor reviewI don't know how to get past my toxic job { 471 comments }
company doesn’t want departing employees to send staff-wide “goodbye” emails by Alison Green on June 11, 2015 A reader writes: What do you and your readers think of good-bye “blast” emails that departing employees might send on their last day — the ones that say “it’s been great here and here’s my contact info,” etc.? Some of the executives in my company are not a fan of those emails and we often get asked to tell employees (pretty much only those departing on good terms) not to send them out. I’m simply curious to know if we are the norm and most executives don’t like to see those emails or not. And is there a particular way you would phrase it when addressing this with the departing employee? It’s not a policy of ours or stated in our handbook – it is simply the preference of some of our executives. They haven’t really explained why — simply made the request to ask people not to send them and expressed their displeasure if someone does (it happens occasionally if someone jumps the gun bit and sends one before we’ve had a chance to even process their departure). If I had to guess, I would say it has something to do with not wanting to draw attention to people departing. Maybe they feel it reflects poorly on them as a manager? I know that sounds a little nutty. We are not a large firm (under 300 employees) so departures are noticed regardless of good-bye emails. Goodbye emails are pretty normal, but unless you’re in a small office, it’s pretty common for people to send them just to their own team or people they worked with frequently rather than the whole company. If you’re around 300 employees and people are sending their goodbye emails to the entire staff, I could see that being a bit much. I mean, let’s say you have 10% annual turnover (which is pretty average) — that would be a couple of these emails a month, which will feel like a lot if each one goes to the whole company. (And I could see managers cringing a bit at it feeling like a steady stream of departures to people who don’t have a big picture understanding of the turnover, when in fact that’s a pretty reasonable rate.) I’d just suggest that people send them to their own team and anyone else they worked with closely. But if that hasn’t been the culture so far, it’s going to be a little awkward telling people to do that instead of the all-staff email they might have otherwise sent. You’d basically have to bite the bullet and tell departing employees, “Hey, we’re trying to move away from having departing people email the whole staff and instead just email their team and others they worked closely with” until the cultural norm on this changes on its own once enough people have handled it that way. If your company size has grown recently, you could frame it that way (“we’re now at the size where we feel like we should change how we do this since there are so many of us now”). But you do risk it rubbing people the wrong way, if they’re the first ones to get that request. I don’t know that there’s really any way around that. You may also like:do I really have to use formal openings and closings in every email?we gave an expensive goodbye gift and the person didn't leavemy boss has 10,000 unread emails { 87 comments }
how to adjust to a more demanding job by Alison Green on June 11, 2015 A reader writes: I start a new job at the end of the month (thanks in part to your wonderful advice). It’s going to be a lot more work than my current job and a lot more visibility. My current company has thousands of people here and the people I work for don’t really notice me much (the head of my dept didn’t realize I was out for two weeks on a vacation). The new place is small (only 25 in our office, nine people in my department) and I will be very visible. This new job is very exciting, but I’m also very nervous that I don’t have the skills or drive to do the work. I’m brushing up on the technical knowledge I will need, so I’m not too worried about that part. But I worry that it will be hard to put in an “honest 40” (or more) at this new job when I’ve so long been at a job where minimal effort got me through the day (at my current job, I have ample time to mess around on the computer during the day, take long lunch breaks, leave early, etc. and still get all of my work done at a high level). I don’t enjoy having this much down time during the day and is one of the reasons I’m switching jobs. But I worry I can’t focus for as long as I’ll need to and won’t be as organized as I should be to handle multiple projects. Do you have any tips for transferring into a higher pressure job? Or just some more general tips on to stay organized and start a new job on the right foot? You’re smart to be thinking about this ahead of time! Too often, people don’t and instead they carry old work habits with them to the new job and take a while to realize that those work habits aren’t going to fly anymore. Some advice: Accept that things are different, and that what worked for you in the past now needs to change. One of the biggest mistakes people make in this situation to assume that they can keep operating the way they used to, even as they’re feeling an increasing crunch. So they go on working the same hours, at the same pace, with the same sorts of work habits, and then feel incredibly stressed out and overextended when they’re at work. But when you move into a more demanding role, you’ve got to reassess your habits. In your last job, you might have been perfectly capable of reading the news during the day or leaving right at 5:30 and still excelling. That might not be the case anymore. (And of course, with time, you might find yourself able to skim the news from work again – but it might take you a while to become strong enough at your new job that you have room for that.) Reset your family’s expectations if needed. If your family or friends are used to texting with you during the day or regularly meeting up for early happy hour, let them know you’re not able to do that in your new job. Being very clear with people when things like this have changed for you can help you enlist them in being supports to you rather than temptations – and they’re highly likely to be temptations without realizing it if you don’t reset what they expect of you. Watch the work habits of people in similar roles who are excelling. One of the worst parts of struggling in a new role can be feeling isolated, like you’re on your own Island of Struggle. Take a look around you and see if you can identify people who are doing similar work or facing similar challenges but excelling, and watch how they operate. If you notice that they all work 12-hour days and never look up from their computers, that’s important data to have; you might need to decide if you want that lifestyle or not (and better to know that that’s what it takes so you can decide if it’s for you, than to keep struggling and not realize that). But you might notice more constructive work habits that you can adopt – such as how they organize their time, meetings or projects they say no to, and what they prioritize. Ask for advice. Asking for help isn’t a weakness; it can actually help you look stronger. There’s nothing wrong with saying to your boss or to new colleagues, “I’m working on adjusting to the workload in this role. What have you seen work well for people in the past to manage the ___ (high flow of email/quickly shifting priorities/pace of client requests/or whatever you’re struggling with most)?” I originally published this at Intuit QuickBase’s blog. You may also like:how do I give notice to my boss if they're on vacation?I can't go on vacation because no temp can meet my boss's demanding expectationshow can I take time off when my team needs it more? { 32 comments }