Ask a Manager

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

1. I’m afraid my temporary replacement will make major changes to my job

I am leaving soon on a year-long maternity leave (I’m in Canada) and currently have my replacement shadowing me and working on projects to familiarize herself with my role. She’s talented in the main part of my role, but is also very interested in a lot of other areas that are extraneous to my position. For example, we gave her a project where she was responsible for A, but then she also came back with suggestions and tweaks to B, C, D, and E.

I made a casual comment to my manager about how she might need to rein her in during the next year because I don’t want to come back and find that my position now includes B, C D, E, and whatever else she’s interested in. (And it’s not just that I don’t want to do these extras, but they would honestly take time away from my main function in this role, which in the past has been my manager and her superiors’ main focus.)

Should I bring this up as a more serious topic during my performance review in 2 weeks? I don’t want to tell my manager how to do her job, but she has the tendency to get really excited about the latest and greatest – so I’m worried that she’ll be enthusiastic about all these other areas my replacement can bring to the role and my position would morph into something I’m not all that thrilled about once I’m back in a year.

Ooooh, this is tricky. You don’t want to come across as standing in the way of your company benefiting from someone else’s talents or enthusiasm or as protecting your own interest at the expense of your team’s. And if it’s true that focusing on other areas would distract your replacement from the main work that she’s there to do, presumably that’s a call that your manager should be making. You also don’t want to appear to be worried about her showing that she can cover what you covered and take on lots of other things.

So you need to proceed with caution here, but I think you could say something like this: “I think Jane will do a great job, but I’m worried that she’s primarily interested in taking on new areas, which will make it hard for her to give Main Area X the time needed to do it well. Can we talk about the different ways this might play out and how to ensure that I don’t return to a role that’s morphed into one that’s quite different from the one I’m going on leave from?”

2. Is it okay to write a resume in first-person?

I’m hiring for a student-worker position at my academic institution. It’s a position heavy on writing and editing, so I expect very close attention to detail on cover letters, resumes, writing samples, etc. I got a resume today using first-person pronouns, as in, “I was responsible for editing and formatting my college newsletter. I also wrote articles myself, and took photographs.” I’ve never used pronouns at all in a resume. I’ve never gotten a resume that used pronouns. Is this a new trend that I need to expect, or just this person’s style? Should it raise any red flags?

For whatever reason, the convention is for resumes not to be written in the first person. However, this is an arbitrary convention; there’s nothing inherently right or wrong about it. Moreover, I’m starting to see first-person used on resumes a bit more than I used to, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the convention changes in the next 10 years.

Regardless, I wouldn’t hold it against an applicant, unless the resume overall appears to be more broadly out of touch with business conventions (and then in that case, it wouldn’t be about the use of first person and more about the overall presentation anyway).

3. How can I tell what level a job is when job descriptions are so confusing?

I’ve started looking for a new job because it’s time to move on from my current job. As I read through job listings, it is not always easy to determine whether a position is considered entry level, mid-career, or higher. Some job descriptions seem to have a lot of responsibility but the required years of experience is short, and others want many years of experience, but when I compare the duties to what I do now, it seems entry level. Even the titles don’t seem to offer many clues. I expect a coordinator to be entry level and a director to be senior, but based on the descriptions I’m not always sure. And, then there are specialists, and I have no idea where that one falls in the hierarchy. I’m trying to make sure I don’t waste my time, or theirs, by applying for a job that would not be a good match for my desired career level and salary requirements. Any suggestions on how to navigate this?

Yeah, there can be wide variation from one company to another with titles. I’d put the most weight on the descriptions of responsibilities, but let your impressions there be informed by the amount of experience they’re asking for. The reality, though, is that you can’t always be sure of the level of a role if the job description isn’t clear and well-written (and most are not). All you can really do is take your best guess, write a cover letter that makes it clear what type of work you’re enthusiastic about doing, hope they’ll screen you out if it’s not the right match, and ask questions if you’re invited to interview.

4. My former employer told a reference-checker that they’d never heard of me

A few years ago, I was employed at a small nonprofit. Six months into this job, all employees were told they were unable to pay us and weren’t sure when they would, but that when they did we’d get back pay. I told my manager that I obviously couldn’t afford to work full-time (40-50 hours/week) for free and that I would be happy to “volunteer” my time part-time, but I had to have a paying job. My manager said that wasn’t a possibility and that I should just wait it out, and that when I interviewed with them, I implied I’d be there for a while. I responded that I was also under the impression that I’d be getting paid and that I had to have a paycheck coming in. As you may have guessed, we couldn’t come to an agreement (basically I worked full-time for no pay or I didn’t work there at all) and I ended up leaving.

Fast forward to now and I’m interviewing for a new position. I included this job on my resume because it reflects some necessary skills and experiences for my field and I made quite a few contributions to them. A prospective employer called the organization to confirm I did work there on the dates I said I did, but my former manager told them “no” and that he had “never heard of me.” Luckily, I kept pay stubs and the offer letter from there and showed this to the prospective employer and they ended up hiring me. How do I handle this? I’m most likely going to just take it off my resume because this new job is in my field and the duties are extremely relevant to the industry I’m going into. But if I don’t or if I was forced to keep looking for a job, how would you have handled this situation?

Call them up and make sure it wasn’t an honest mistake. If they claim that it was, then have a professional-sounding friend call to check the reference to be sure that they’re not BS’ing you. But if they continue to refuse to acknowledge that you worked there, I’d turn to a lawyer, who can help you explain to them that giving out false information that’s standing in the way of your employment comes with all sorts of legal risks.

5. Should you send a thank-you note if you weren’t interviewed?

I’m a recent graduate and a firm believer in post-interview thank you notes. I’m also on board with post-rejection thank yous, both because I think it’s important to conduct oneself generally politely, and because I truly appreciate the courtesy of letting applicants know they’re not being considered anymore. It seems pretty obvious that if you have an interview with someone and they then take the time to let you know you’ve been rejected, you should thank them for their time and for getting in touch.

I was wondering, though, if this still applies when the rejection comes very early in the application process. Like many recent grads, I apply for a lot of jobs, including some stretches, and so I get a fair number of seemingly automated and impersonal rejection emails after just sending in a CV and cover letter. If I haven’t interviewed with the organization and the rejection contains no personalized content or feedback, is it still considered polite to send a thank you, or will this come across as too much?

It certainly won’t reflect poorly on you to thank them for their consideration, but it’s really unnecessary — and typically when people talk about thank-you notes, they’re talking about post-interview notes, not anything before that stage.

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

1. Should job-seekers draw conclusions when a company has a horrible website?

I recently applied to a job based solely on the job description. The company was not listed (it was on a local job search site). They got back to me today, and we’re doing a quick phone chat, which is fine. But I got to see their company website for the first time, and it’s a little sad (looks dated, not tech-savvy, sort of embarrassingly 2001). I tend to judge companies on their websites. Is this a legitimate way to gauge companies, or is it feasible that great companies can have disappointing websites?

It depends on their business. There are a lot of small organizations that don’t rely heavily on the web or don’t do much PR at all and which have crappy websites — but which are great places to work. Of course, there are also companies where the lame state of their website reflects what it’s like to work there. And of course, if their business is web-based or heavily intensively on online outreach, the quality of what they’ve got online is pretty telling. But in most cases, you won’t know until you interview with them and learn more.

2. Same-sex marriage and sharing hotel rooms on business trips

I am a female member of a 10-person sales team, 6 men and 4 women. Our team is attending an out of town convention in October, and to save money and because of a shortage of hotel rooms at the venue, we will be sharing hotel rooms, two men or two women to a room. Each room has two double beds. One of the women on our team, Pam, is a lesbian who is married to her long-time partner. My company and coworkers are very liberal and progressive, and no one has any issue with this. Pam and I are work friends and frequently have coffee or lunch together, but we don’t have a relationship outside of work.

I was slotted in to share a room with Pam at the convention. Pam has spoken to our manager and said that because she is married to a woman, she doesn’t feel it is appropriate to be sharing a room with another woman, and since she of course can’t share with a man, the only solution is for her to have her own room. She says it is no different than asking a married man to share a room with a female colleague. The manager has agreed with this, and has informed the other three women on the team that we will need to share a room so Pam can have her own. This means that either there will be three of us to a room with two beds, so we either have to share a bed, or one of us will have to sleep on the couch or foldout bed while Pam has a room with two double beds to herself.

This seems like a ridiculous accommodation to make for Pam. I am happily married to my husband, and I have no interest in Pam outside of a work friendship. All three of us other women on the team are on the same page with this , and it is starting to affect our relationship with Pam and with our manager. Can you tell me if Pam’s request is out of line, or are we three other women on the team being unreasonable?

If Pam feels uncomfortable, she feels uncomfortable, and your workplace shouldn’t force her into sleeping arrangements that she objects to. However, the solution they’ve come up with (three of you in a room) sucks. They should find some other option — either paying for an additional room or, if the hotel doesn’t have more available, putting someone at at a different hotel nearby. (And really, I’d argue that they should let anyone who wants to opt out of sharing a room if they’re willing to pay the difference to get themselves a single room.)

3. My manager quoted me the wrong number for my new salary

I was recently promoted at work to a new position I’m excited about. When I was first told about the accompanying raise, I was told that I would still be non-exempt and eligible for overtime, and that I’d also get a new yearly bonus (I used to receive occasional small spot bonuses). A few weeks later, I was informed that I’d actually be exempt with the same base salary I was initially quoted. However, since the business hours for my office are 45 hours a week, this means that my salary will be significantly less than what I was first told, since I now won’t be eligible for that automatic overtime.

My manager acted like he had misunderstood how my current pay worked, and said that the bonus was intended to make up for the lost overtime. I had assumed that the bonus would be on top of salary + overtime, since that’s how my pay structure has worked so far.

I’m obviously not happy to learn that the raise is far lower than what I thought it was. It makes about a $5-6k annual difference. I made it clear that based on the information I was originally given, I’d assumed a much higher number, and that, while I’m happy to move to being exempt, I’m disappointed to learn that the raise is less than I was first told. If this is the amount they’d told me originally, I wouldn’t have felt it was fair; it’s a relatively small raise (when factoring in the overtime I was making before) for a significant increase in responsibilities.

I don’t know if there’s anything more that I can do without being annoying, but would appreciate any advice you have! This is the second time comp issues have been miscommunicated to me by this company, and while I’m not ready to start looking yet, it’s definitely making me feel less loyal and happy about working here.

I’d reopen negotiations. They essentially told you one salary and now are saying “oops, it’s a different one.” That makes it reasonable for you to say something like: “In light of this, I’d like to revisit the salary for the position. What I’d agreed to earlier was X. This new information means I would actually be earning Y, which isn’t a number I would have accepted had it been offered initially. This role is a significant increase in responsibilities. Can you do $Z instead?”

4. Managers who make employees talk to complaining customers

I recently had a team member discuss an interesting practice that his former manager did, and I wanted to ask your opinion on its effectiveness. When a customer would call the manager to complain about something his employee did, he would say, “Let’s get him on the phone right now and discuss it.” He would then get both parties on the phone and try to talk through the problem.

I have mixed feelings about this. I can see how it would alleviate any potential confusion and finger pointing, but I also think it could put both the employee and the person with the grievance in a very uncomfortable situation. Please give me your thoughts on if and when this technique would ever be appropriate.

The only time I could see doing this is if there appeared to be a genuine miscommunication and both parties were needed to sort it out so that the problem could be solved. But that’s only if there were no other way to solve it. That doesn’t sound like what you’re describing. Customers aren’t generally interested in “talking through the problem.” They don’t typically care who did what or why or where the miscommunication happened; they just want it fixed.

What this manager is doing seems to miss the point of what the customer cares about, puts both the customer and the employee in an awkward position, and probably adds to the customer’s frustration. If I were the customer in that situation, I’d be thinking — and saying — “This isn’t necessary. I just need the problem solved.” Or if it was truly just a complaint, not a problem that required fixing, I’d be annoyed that they weren’t simply dealing with my feedback on their own, but rather expecting me to spend time participating in their internal operations.

5. Can raises be given retroactively?

My wife and I have both work at the same place, both of us were given raises at different times, and both of us did not receive the raise until months later because the manager “forgot” to submit the paperwork. Can we request retroactive pay raise money?

It’s absolutely reasonable to ask for. Some places will do this and some won’t, but the request is reasonable and you won’t know until you ask. Say this: “Since this raise was supposed to go through in May but didn’t because of a paperwork error, can we arrange for me to receive the difference for those four months retroactively?”

You should be handle this separately though, not as a unit.

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

1. A coworker accidentally sent me a snarky email about me that I wasn’t intended to see

How should I respond when a coworker intends to forward to a third party an email that was originally from me, where she has added snarky comments about my original note, but instead of “forward” hits “reply”? Her email was along the lines of “Can you believe Jane said this? {eyeroll}” (I had explained why we had fixed problem A but hadn’t yet taken the time to fix related problem B, which admittedly is bigger.)

I would like to be gracious, but do I even say “you didn’t mean to send this to me, did you?” or do I just ignore it and keep her unaware that I saw what she did not intend me to read.

We generally have a good working relationship, although we work in separate locations and rarely talk face to face. Our managers are in completely different silos, and I’m not going to go to her manager and say, “Look what your employee did!”

I think you have two options for a gracious response. One would be to simply ignore it. The other, which is likely more satisfying, would be respond with something like, “Lucinda, I don’t think you intended this for me! I know it’s frustrating that B is still unfixed; if it would helpful to talk about it further, I’d be glad to.” Or even just, “I don’t think you intended this for me.” Both of those are more generous responses than she deserves, but that’s the point: It pretty much guarantees that she’ll be mortified and ashamed, while you look magnanimous.

2. Did I err in the way I turned down this job?

A couple of months ago, I turned down a position that would have been the perfect fit for me and a great career move, in my opinion. They were really excited for me to accept, and they were aggressive with their counteroffers. I turned it down because I found out that I was pregnant the very night that I was trying to decide if I should stay at my current spot or go to this new company. Yeah, what a night! (My husband and I have dealt with infertility for years, so this was a happy surprise.) I didn’t think it would be fair to them or a good idea in general for me to start a new challenging job while pregnant and then have to go on maternity leave 7 months into the job.

I told the hiring manager flat out that I found out I was pregnant. I was hesitant to be that honest, but at the same time, I would really like to keep the door open for when I’m ready to get back to work after my pregnancy. So, my question is….did I do the right thing by being so open with them? Should I have just turned the offer down and left it at that? I almost think they didn’t believe me that I found out I was pregnant the night I was trying to decide or that they may have thought it was awkward that I was telling them this personal information. What would you have thought?

I actually think you left the door more open this way than if you’d turned it down with no explanation! You gave them a perfectly understandable response, and one that’s considerate of them to boot. I wouldn’t worry about it at all. (And congratulations!)

3. How can I get my coworker to stop hovering over my computer?

My coworker hovers over my computer to see what I am doing. She blatantly watches me type or reads my screen/emails. It’s annoying. I usually pause or start doing something else and then she finally leaves. I do like her and we do get along. What’s the best approach to stop her hovering?

Tell her directly that you don’t like it. For instance: “Hey, Jane, it makes me nervous when you’re standing over my screen like that. Do you need something?” And if it continues after that: “Hey, stop hovering!”

4. After missing an employer’s call, can I reapply there in the future?

I’m wondering if I can reapply at this organization. On Monday afternoon, I received a message from the manager at this organization about scheduling an interview for Wednesday afternoon. I missed the call and only got the message around 5 pm Monday evening. I called back after I got the message and there was no answer. I called again Tuesday morning and there was no answer, but I left a message letting them know I was still interested in interviewing there.

I haven’t heard back from the manager yet, but I’m not really expecting her to call back. In the future, can I reapply at this organization? I feel like a really big idiot for a) missing the initial call and b) not being able to reach the manager. If I can reapply, do I need to address this in the cover letter somewhere?

You feel like an idiot for not being available at the precise moment an employer happened to call and for calling back a few hours later? You haven’t done anything remotely wrong here. You have a life outside of job searching, and you’re not expected to sit by your phone 24/7 in case an employer happens to call. You called back within a few hours, which is more than reasonable. You’ve done everything right here.

If it ends up not working out, though, that’s just bad timing, and you can absolutely reapply in the future.

5. When your references are out of the country

I recently reached the final round of application for a job I really want. All that’s left to do is a reference check. I was asked for three professional references with emails and phone numbers. However, as a recent graduate of regional studies, two of my references are professors who are out of the country and unreachable by phone for another two weeks. All references have been notified and are eager and willing to do so over email while traveling.

Should I expect the hiring manager to simply write them emails upon hearing their out-of-office outgoing voice messages? Will this work against me? Should I write an additional follow-up email notifying HR of this unfortunate timing? I know that they want to hire sooner rather than later so I’m not sure waiting two weeks until the semester starts is an option.

Yes, you should contact HR and explain the situation. Otherwise you risk them assuming that your references just aren’t returning their calls, which can be mistaken for “no one wants to vouch for this candidate.” Send them an email, explain the situation and that the references have assured you they’d be glad to respond by email, and offer to provide additional references if they need you to.