Ask a Manager

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

1. What to say to parents who call in sick for their kid (or want to know why their kid was fired)

I have frequently had young employee’s parents contacting me to call in sick for their child or to ask me why their child has been terminated/ask me to re-hire their child. I am absolutely frustrated with this. Do you have any advice or best practices for this?

I sure do. Similar to the advice I gave recently about being contacted by parents job-searching on their kids’ behalf, you should refuse to engage. That means saying:
* “I can’t discuss personnel information with someone other than the employee.” (when they want to know why their kid was fired)
* “We’d need her to contact us directly if that’s something she’s interested in.” (when they want you to hire their kid)
* “Oh my goodness, is she hospitalized? …. No? Then I really need her to contact me herself.” (when they call in sick on their kid’s behalf — you can also relay this one to the employee directly the next time you talk)

2. Why do interviewers ask me about jobs that are already described in detail on my resume?

For prescreening calls and at interviews, whoever I’m talking to always mentions they’ve read my resume and they then ask me to briefly tell them about what I did at the jobs listed on my resume. I’ve done a bunch of similar internships, and I feel like my resume conveys what I’ve done straightforwardly and in detail, so I’m not sure what else they’re expecting to hear about, and I always feel stupid answering because I mostly just rush through repeating a few things from my resume. Any tips on how to answer this question? Would it be okay to just ask, “Is there something specific you saw on my resume that you’d be interested in hearing more about?”

No. That will come across as … not difficult, exactly, but not particularly easy either. They just want you to answer their question. It’s fine if you repeat information listed on your resume; they’re probably assuming that you will. They just want to hear about those jobs in your own words, not in the carefully selected language that you crafted for your resume.

3. Mentioning family’s line of work in a cover letter

I’m in the throes of my post-grad school job search and have read pretty much everything on your site about cover letters, and have taken it to heart. I’m about to apply for a job at a multi-national PR firm, and have a question about the appropriateness of including a mention of my family’s business in the cover letter (that sounds so foreboding and mafia-esque). My academic/work background is in public policy, not marketing or PR. However, my father and mother own a marketing and PR firm, my aunt owns her own PR firm, and my grandfather was in advertising. Is making some pithy reference to this a good way to engage the reader and maybe bolster a resume lacking direct experience, or is it just totally inappropriate? I feel like I’ve written so many cover letters over that last month that I don’t trust my judgment any longer.

Inappropriate/irrelevant, unless you’ve worked for those businesses.

4. When to mention adoption-related maternity leave

My husband and I are pursuing an adoption of our daughter’s half sibling, due to be born in three months. I’m currently interviewing for jobs, but I’m unsure how — or if — I should tell potential employers about our situation and the possibility of needing a 6-week maternity leave sometime in the fall. (I say possibility because nothing is certain when it comes to adoption.) When do you think I should share the news?

Once you have an offer. At that point, you can explain the situation and try to negotiate the leave (since you won’t be covered by FMLA before having worked there a year).

5. New coworker’s title sounds more senior than mine, but she’s not

I was hired three weeks ago in a position that was created specifically for my skills. I had applied for a “coordinator” role, but it turned out that the actual position was much more administration than strategic, so the role was redefined. As a result, the title was changed to “specialist” and I am working directly under the head of department implementing strategy.

However, this left a gap in the team for an entry-level employee to handle department administration and to support my role and the team generally. The job description was written, the parameters were set (extremely entry-level, low salary), and yet the original title was kept: “coordinator.”

Which brings me to my concern! I’m worried that in the hierarchy of this company, the entry-level employee will be perceived as senior to me simply by inheritance of the title. All other departments are headed by a “coordinator” mid-career, and they are my equivalent across departments. The new employee is a graduate with incredibly limited admin experience, and their role is purely as an assistant. I guess what I’m asking is whether or not this is something I should bring up, especially as I’m only three weeks in. I don’t want to appear title-obsessed, but I am worried that this junior will (on paper and to the outside world) look like my superior. What do you think?

Eh, I’d let it go. I can see why you’re thinking about this, but I do think it would come across as overly status focused. Ultimately, unless it’s getting in the way of you being able to do your job and get what you need from others, or if it’s truly causing confusion, you’re not in a strong position to argue this, especially as someone new to the company. Moreover, they hired this other person with the promise of a particular title; switching it on her now to make her sound more junior would be kind of crappy.

And I wouldn’t worry about the outside world. I don’t think anyone really sees a major difference between “specialist” and “coordinator.”

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

1. I accepted a job without finding out the salary

After three years of temporary and part-time jobs, I have finally been offered my first professional full-time job since graduating college. They gave me a salary range before the interview, and I said the range was fine. On Friday, the head of the department I’d be working in called to offer me the job and said that discussion of salary/benefits would be with his boss. I asked for a little bit of time to think it over, and quickly decided to take it. I wasn’t able to reach them by phone, so I emailed them both and said I’d be happy to take the position. (I was a little paranoid that they’d change their mind, so I didn’t play it as cool as I should have.) The boss replied and said they were happy to have me on board and that the department head would be in touch. However, they still haven’t offered me a specific salary or benefits package.

Since I already said I would love to take the job, am I still in a position to negotiate? I know them well and trust them to be fair, but I’m not sure which end of the range they’ll offer me. (They know I’m a quick learner with a pretty unique range of skills, but there are aspects of the job that I will be learning as I go.) It’s a grant-funded position, if that makes any difference.

I don’t know what’s up with companies doing this — there’s no job offer unless there’s a salary attached to it. They put you in a weird position by offering you a job without being ready to discuss salary — but you also shouldn’t have accepted without having that nailed down. (But I understand why you did, given your situation!)

You don’t really have much negotiating power at this point since they already know you’re accepting regardless, but you can certainly try. Reach out right now and say, “I’m excited about coming on board, but also a little uneasy finalizing things when we haven’t discussed salary. Can we nail that down this week?” Then, if the salary comes back low, you could try saying, “I was hoping for something closer the mid-part of your range — do you have any flexibility?” (I wouldn’t try for the high part of the range in this situation, especially since it’s your first professional job since college, which means that the lower or mid point is probably reasonable.)

Read an update to this letter here.

2. My colleague works around the clock and I’m concerned it will impact management’s idea of realistic workload

Upfront I want to say I realize it’s going to look like I’m just jealous of my colleague, and honestly I haven’t entirely worked out all my feelings, so there is probably some of that at play. I genuinely like the person, but at times I find they can come off as a bit of a martyr. The scenario is this: My colleague has taken it upon themselves to continually take on a larger and larger volume of work than I or anyone else in my role. I recently found out, through conversation with them, that they accomplish this by working hours and hours of unpaid (also not approved) overtime — apparently by staying late, bringing work home to work until 1 in the morning, and also often on weekends. I have no way to know for sure how many hours they are working, as this is just based on what they told me. I work my hours and often extra, like many, but nothing to this extent. Apparently this person doesn’t have any management aspirations; they just like the work and don’t have any familial responsibilities. There is no financial compensation for unapproved overtime. We’re both full-time, federal government for what it’s worth.

My concern is management may come to believe this is an acceptable volume of work to be managed by one person. I previously always exceeded expectations for my position, and I believe still do, but don’t compared to this colleague. I do have management aspirations, eventually. Should management be made aware of what it’s taking to produce these results? My instinct tells me it is important for planning purposes for management to know what’s a realistic workload for a normal number of hours for any position, but at the same time it would feel like gossiping to bring it up, and comes across as self-serving (which, admittedly it is to an extent).

This comes down to the relationship you have with your boss and how good you are at relaying information that isn’t strictly your business (on the surface, at least). Some people can do that really well and it comes across as collegial, helpful, information-sharing, and other people suck at it and it comes across as involving themselves where they don’t belong. But as someone who’s generally good at it, I’d say, “It’s occurred to me to wonder if the fact that Jane works so much overtime on nights and weekends will eventually impact our team’s norms around what’s considered realistic productivity. Do you think that’s anything worth worrying about?” (Also, you have to be someone who has high productivity yourself to say this; if you’re not, this will never fly.)

Read an update to this letter here.

3. Salary and promotion clusterf*ck

A position opened up in a supervisory/leadership role with my organization, where I’ve been employed for about 12 years. I let my bosses know that I was interested. Shortly after talking with me about it, it came out that other employees were interested in the job, so as an act of “fairness,” I was asked to apply for the position. I was assured that this was not an attempt to find a better candidate, and all of the other leadership personel told me they wanted me for the job.

I went through the interview process, and over the weekend I was asked over the phone by my immediate supervisor (who is not my future boss) if I was interested in accepting the position. I told her that I was, but that I would need to sign a salary agreement before I could officially accept. This is due to the fact that the initial offer is significantly below what I currently make. I arrived at work today to learn that an interoffice memo announced that I have accepted the position! Worse still, I’m receiving congratulations from team-members and coworkers agency wide, and HR says that they cannot negotiate my salary. I believe this was an honest mistake; (my [future?] boss is new), but she isn’t available for comment until several days from now.

What do I tell me coworkers (if anything) over the ensuing days? Should I proceed with salary negotiation as usual? Is there any way to save face here if I have to turn down an inadequate offer?

Well, this is a mess. If you said that you just wanted to “sign a salary agreement” before “officially accepting,” I can see where the misunderstanding came from. That sounds like you just wanted to confirm everything in writing; that’s a very different thing that asking for a different salary. No wonder they thought you accepted — I might have too!

I’d contact HR and the prospective manager for the new position ASAP and say, “I’m so sorry, I think there’s been a miscommunication. While I’m very interested in the position, I wanted to talk about the salary before accepting it. The proposed salary is less than I currently make now. I can’t accept it if it’s a pay cut, and I’m hoping for something closer to $___. I’m not sure what happened, but I told Jane when we talked this weekend that I wanted to nail down salary before accepting.”

4. Do employers have to provide job descriptions?

Do employers need to have job descriptions for their employees? My company doesn’t have them…at least not for my role and it makes it very difficult for me to understand what is expected of me.

Need, as in legally required? No. But it’s a good idea to do it, because you want people to be aligned with their employer about what their role is, what’s important, and what isn’t.

Why don’t you write up your understanding of your role and what your big priorities are for this year and ask your boss if it looks right to her? Use that as a jumping off point to get aligned on what she wants your role to look like and to spot any areas where you’re operating with different assumptions.

5. Email subject lines when reaching out for a reference

I have a question regarding what you would put in the email’s subject line when you’re reaching out to a former employer, instructor, etc. I’m wary of putting too much information into the subject, overcrowding it – but I also don’t want to oversimplify things and just put something like “Hello” in there. I kind of felt something like “reference request” would be a little too strong, too (especially in emails just letting them know I’m applying with their organization, and I leave the decision to endorse me or not up to them). What do you think would be the best approach? Am I overthinking this?

You are indeed overthinking this. Anything that sums up the topic of your email in a few words is fine (and yes, “hello” is not ideal). For instance, you could write “applying to teapot maker job with Teapots Inc.” when you’re not directly requesting a reference and “request for a reference” when you are (it’s not too strong at all; it’s totally normal — and useful for them to see that).

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

1. My new job is moving and my commute is changing — can I ask for a salary bump?

On Monday, my first day of work, my new boss told me that the office is moving 10 miles north next month. With traffic, that will add 20-25 minutes or maybe even more to what was a 15-minute commute. If the job listing had originally included the area we are moving to, I probably never would have applied in the first place. No mention of a move was made during the interview process or when I was offered the job.

I don’t want to just pointlessly gripe about it and seem ungrateful, but I also don’t want to wait til my 90-day review to use it as an extra reason for a salary bump. If it matters their original offer came in at the low end of what they advertised, and what I asked for. Any suggestion on how to handle this?

This is tricky, because it’s not a huge change, like adding an hour (and you’re still well within what’s considered a pretty reasonable commute in many metropolitan areas). But you could try saying something like, “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. To be honest, the short commute was a major factor why I accepted a salary at the lower end of the range I was looking for and the range you advertised. I saw it as a perk worth forgoing some money for. So it was a surprise to find out on my first day that will be changing so soon. Is it possible to take another look at the salary for this role, and move a bit higher in the ranges we’d both talked about earlier?”

This is going to be tough to pull off, because trying to renegotiate salary after you’ve already started generally comes across as bad faith, but if you stress that the commute was a major factor in your not negotiating earlier, it’s possible that it could work. It’s risky though, and will probably depend on your particular manager.

2. Asking HR for employees’ birthdays

I have some direct reports and, as a morale thing, I’d like to acknowledge their birthdays when they come around. I’m sure they would tell me themselves if asked directly, but I was wondering whether it would also be kosher to ask HR for the dates? No years necessary, if that matters.

Eh, it wouldn’t be a terrible thing if you did, but why not ask people directly and explain you like to acknowledge birthdays? Some people are weird about birthdays and don’t like celebrating them at work, and that would give them the opportunity to opt out.

3. I feel left out that I wasn’t asked to attend a colleague’s going-away celebration

I am a lower level manager within public sector. I sit with the senior management team. I have a good relationship with them but they just organised a work night out mainly to say farewell to the boss who I also provide PA support. They have discussed in front of me but haven’t invited me. I am quite upset and would like your advice on how to deal with situation. I am the only person in room not invited.

Well, you have three choices — stew and feel terribly, decide it’s not that big of a deal, or say you’d love to come along. I vote for options two or three. If you do the third, just say something like, “I’d love to come with you to send Jane off. Would I be in the way?” You will either hear that you’re welcome or you’ll hear that they were making it senior management only. (Who knows why they’d do that, but if they want to, who cares? It’s not personal.)

4. Explaining to a former boss that a medical condition was causing me to make errors

I was an intern for a small but highly influential company in my field. The person with whom I apprenticed is extremely important in particular. I also worked closely with another key member of the team on a number of more detail-oriented and logistical tasks. There were several instances when I couldn’t remember something properly, or couldn’t remain alert and focused after long hours of work, or misplaced something, etc. This caused a rift between she and I, and possibly diminished my favour and competence in my boss’ eyes.

Since leaving, I have been diagnosed with a medical condition that explains a lot of the trouble I was having that year. It took almost a year and a lot of tests, but I am on medication and have regular meetings with a specialist. Is this worth disclosing to my old boss, as I still rely on him for a reference? If so, what would be the best approach? I feel as though some of the errors I made were absolutely a direct or indirect result of the condition, and I respect him so much that I’d be horrified to think that he might otherwise be chalking it up to incompetence, laziness or a lack of caring/respect on my part.

Sure. I’d reach out by email and say that you’ve long been mortified by some of trouble you had staying focused while working for him, and that you’ve since found out that you have a medical condition that was causing that, and it’s now under control. Explain that it’s bothered you that those problems occurred at all, and that they might have impacted his impression of you, and that you want him to know that you did take it seriously at the time and you’re happy to be able to say you’ve resolved it.

5. My interviewer might know that I just started a job somewhere else

Two years ago, I did a 6-month internship at Nonprofit Teapots through an agency, let’s call it CTV. I have kept in touch with my manager at Nonprofit Teapots and she has been a reference for me multiple times. Nonprofit Teapots is expanding their programming and creating a new permanent position, and I have an interview for this position in 2 weeks. (Yay!)

However, I am currently doing another 6-month internship through CTV at State Teapots. My manager at Nonprofit Teapots was a reference for me for this position. I don’t know if she is aware I accepted and started this position, but since she has worked with CTV agency before there is a good chance she knows I have this internship.

My question is, do I mention the work I am doing at State Teapots in my interview at Nonprofit Teapots, which is with my old manager? I have only been at State Teapots for 1 month, and if I were to take the job at Nonprofit Teapots I would have to abandon my 6-month commitment at State Teapots after just 1.5 months. I know you generally advise against mentioning jobs you have not been at for very long, but due to the nature of thus internship program I have learned a bunch of new skills in the last month that would make me a better candidate for the job at Nonprofit Teapots, including certifications I have received. So should I mention my new position and skills, therefore also acknowledging that I would be abandoning the 6 month commitment I made, or not?

I’m not convinced that there’s much that can happen in a month and a half that would strengthen you as a candidate, especially not enough for it to be a deciding factor in whether you get hired or not, so I don’t think there’s a lot of value in mentioning it. Plus, there’s something distasteful about using that experience to try to get a different job, when it means you’ll be breaking your commitment there. Of course, if she asks you about it, then you have to be honest (and most people won’t fault you terribly for leaving an internship for a full-time job), but I wouldn’t proactively bring it up.