Ask a Manager

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

1. My boss left the company but still emails me daily

My boss left our company almost 3 weeks ago. Since then, he has been emailing me almost every day. We were on friendly terms from start to finish, though towards the end (unbeknownst to him) I found his presence extremely irritating. Our company experienced some serious problems that jeopardized everyone’s jobs, got some people laid off, and majorly set our branch of the company back. Unfortunately, everyone in our small office recognized that he had everything to do with it. Though we all liked him as a person, his failings as a leader were glaring (long story short). Happy to bid him adieu, I am now haunted by near daily communication with him — friendly letters, general questions, inquiries about how this or that played out here, pictures of his plants, hey look he got a dog, etc etc. I’m not the only one he emails, either. For example, he asked me today if another coworker went on this other interview, and sent a separate email to that coworker asking him directly.

This is my first full-time job out of school and I know that he valued me very much, so I’m anticipating having him as one of my top references in the future. Am I obligated to respond to all these emails to keep the relationship friendly? I wrote back a nice response to one of his first “what’s up” emails, and since then have been giving short but friendly responses to only some. If I start ignoring all of them, am I damaging our relationship? If I keep answering, will they never end? I know it’s only been three weeks; he could be having a hard time adjusting and the emails could eventually dry up on their own. I would like to ignore all of them starting now, but I also don’t want to spoil a reference or be flat-out rude.

I think the only person you’re obligated to respond to daily social emails from is your significant other, and even then I’m not sure it’s really obligatory. So no, you do not need to enter into an intense pen pal relationship with this guy. I’d ignore the work-related questions (not his prerogative anymore — and not in his best interest to stay emotionally involved like that anyway) and reply the rest at a rate of one response per every three he sends (or once a week, whichever you prefer), as long as his rate is this frequent. And your responses don’t have to be long, either; “cute dog!” and “glad you’re doing well — too swamped to write much!” will suffice.

It sounds like he’s having a hard time accepting things have changed, but I think these will trail off pretty soon.

2. How can I avoid candidates shopping our offer around?

My company recently made an offer to a candidate. The candidate took our offer to our major competitor and got them to match it. Fortunately for us, she decided we were a better fit for her, and a bidding war was averted. It got me thinking, though: is there any way to avoid this situation in the first place without being heavy-handed? What could we have done better up front to keep her from even thinking about shopping her offer around?

Be the better place to work, and do a good job of illustrating that — which gets into culture, benefits, and who else you have working for you. (High performers want to work with other high performers, and you can involve your great staff members in helping to woo candidates you’re really interested in.)

That said, you don’t really want a candidate who’s making a decision solely on money, when the numbers are relatively close. Money matters, obviously — but assuming that your offers aren’t wildly different, you really don’t want someone who bases their career decisions on that alone.

3. My manager got upset that I asked a mutual contact about a job candidate

My department is hiring a part-time person, preferably a student, and my supervisor has been very informal with the hiring process. We do not have a formal search committee, and we’re only doing one round of interviews so we can quickly hire someone. I must admit, I’ve never been on a hiring committee before and am fairly new to my profession, so I’m not sure how this normally works.

One of the candidates worked for a friend of mine in another department at our institution, and I emailed my friend to ask about the candidate’s skills and personality. This was before we had made a decision on who to bring in for interviews, and I thought my friend’s feedback could save us some time, in case the candidate wasn’t right for our position.

My supervisor was upset that I did this on my own and proceeded to give me a lecture about the confidentiality of applicants and how it’s not fair to contact supervisors who are not on the applicant’s reference list. My supervisor and I worked this out. It was partially a miscommunication issue because we never set a schedule for our next steps, and she never made it clear what she would be doing as the manager, such as contacting the applicants’ references. But I’m wondering — did I do something wrong? Is it unfair to a job applicant to informally contact a friend who knows the applicant, especially before interviewing them?

No. This kind of informal checking happens all the time, and it makes a lot of sense. If you know someone who worked with the candidate and trust their judgment, of course you’d want to get at least their quick take before deciding whether to move forward with the person. Not only is it fair game to contact mutual acquaintances, but it’s ludicrous to think that you’re confined to the candidate’s reference list — you’re absolutely not, and a good reference-checker will go off list as a matter of routine. (The exception to this is that you’d never contact someone at their current employer without their permission, because that could jeopardize their job.)

That said, since you’re not the person leading the search, it would have made sense to check with your manager before reaching out to your friend to see if she wanted that input at this stage. But that has nothing to do with the general propriety of doing this sort of informal reference checks; they’re fine to do.

4. My company wants to fire me for writing in some wet cement

I’ve work for a city for 30+ years in a garage. All of the other departments come to us for repairs, including the police department, and every one uses the F-bomb, managers also. They poured a little concrete in our work area and it shouldn’t have gone there. I wrote in it, “no balls f-u Tim” as a jest. He and I are good friends and he would do the same to me. But now one of the employees (who is trying to go off on stress leave and they found out it was fraud) took a picture of this and went to HR and they want to fire me for this. I’ve been a perfect employee, and this was not where it would be seen by the public and also I scratched it out and it’s gone. Shouldn’t they give me a some kind of warning first? Like I say, it goes with the culture and we don’t deal with the public.

It sounds like an overreaction to me. People sometimes do stupid stuff, even otherwise good employees, and if it’s out of character and an aberration, you don’t fire a 30-year employee for that.

You work for a city, so there are probably loads of regulations on what they can and can’t fire you for, and what does and doesn’t require a warning first. I’d take a look at that — but I’d also plead your case with your boss and HR. Be contrite, say you realize it was poor judgment, and that you’ll be on your best behavior in the future.

5. Ridiculous interview instructions

I just got offered an interview for a program manager job in a county-run library. My excitement was slightly tempered by the very brusque email (e.g., “If you are unable to keep this appointment, please notify our office at (phone #) immediately. It is unlikely that we will be able to re-schedule your appointment.”) which also included an attachment called “Interview Guidelines.” In it, they specify that my application materials will not be taken into consideration during the interview. They also instruct candidates not to take notes during the interview.

I’m a bit flummoxed. I’ve worked in government jobs before, and don’t recall anything like this. I can’t see any benefit from their perspective. And I can’t imagine being able to give enough information in a 25 minute interview to completely outline my work history, education, accomplishments, etc. Can you shed any light on this technique, and help me prepare?

Terrible interviewers, probably being directed by a terrible, terrible HR department suffering from a terrible, terrible misunderstanding of what it means to treat job candidates fairly. Brace yourself for major bureaucracy if you take a job there.

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

1. How can my temp job hire me on without my temp agency finding out and charging them?

I’m currently working a temp gig and things have been going really great. I like my boss, my boss likes me (at least I hope). It’s a small, intimate environment that up until this point has only demanded that I come in less than a few times a week. My boss trying to bring me in permanently and negotiate a deal with the agency that found me. See, I was placed through a temp agency that is charging 35 percent and they want something like 10 figures if I’m placed permanently. Naturally, this’ll be coming out of my pay, so they had asked the agency for a discount but couldn’t seem to agree on a timeline that was workable that could lower the rates. After a while, the agency flat out refused to lower the rates they were charging in addition to mine, so now I’m pretending to quit so my boss can pay me directly and bring me on permanently.

I’ve never really done this before. What would happen if the agency found out? Could they sue my boss? Naturally, that would be an awful scenario and it’s the last thing anyone wants. I’m trying to cover my tracks but these guys have my Social Security information.

It depends on what their contract with your boss says; that’s what would govern it. They presumably have a contract that specifies that your employer would owe them a certain amount, and they could indeed go to to court to collect on that.

But the bigger point: What you and your boss are thinking of doing is pretty crappy. Your boss signed a contract with your agency agreeing to specific terms, and now she’s deliberately trying to violate that contract. Your agency provides a service that they need to charge for in order to stay in business, and your boss agreed to their terms when she decided to work with them. Do you really want to be someone who defrauds other people out of the fees they charge, fees that were fully disclosed in advance? And do you want to work for someone who operates that way?

2. How do I know if I did well in an interview?

How would one know if he/she does well in an interview?

Do you feel like you explained why you’d excel at the job in a convincing way? Do you feel like you had a reasonably good rapport with the interviewer, and they seemed engaged in the conversation with you? Those are both good signs. And the absence of either of those isn’t a good sign. That said, people get hired all the time when they didn’t think these things were true — and these things can be true and you still won’t get an offer, because someone else was a better fit. There’s really no way to know for sure, and you can drive yourself crazy trying to figure it out.

A better approach is to go into interviews with the aim of clearly explaining what you’ve achieved in the past, how you operate, and what you’d bring to the job, while simultaneously exploring whether or not you and the job and workplace are the right match … because that’s a question for you too, not just for the employer.

3. My boss won’t let us take time off while our coworker is on maternity leave

I am part of a three-person team, directly overseen by one director. One of my colleagues (not the director) is going out on maternity leave in August. My director has instructed my other coworker and I to not take any time off while she is out. He said time off is at his discretion and his decision is that we’ll be too short-staffed for either of us to take time off. (Let’s overlook the fact that he will be taking a week off right at the beginning of her maternity leave – I digress!)

Is this legal? I do understand that time off is at a manager’s discretion, but limiting our time off for three months to coincide with someone’s maternity leave seems fishy. One note: our days aren’t broken out into vacation/sick/etc. You take a day or a week as requested and they all fall into the same bucket.

Yeah, it’s legal. But I’d seek clarification from him: Often when managers say this in this context, they mean they don’t want you taking long vacations during periods like this — but a day here and there is fine, and if you’re sick or have some other emergency, it’s fine. It’s highly likely that that’s what he means — ask.

4. Employer wants to see the reference letter I wrote for a coworker

I have a colleague whose teaching contract was not renewed, so they are seeking work elsewhere. They asked me to be a reference, and I happily obliged with an honest and supportive letter. I have no supervisory role and made this reference as a friend, not as a representative of my school or district. Much to my surprise, I was contacted by my principal and asked for a copy of the recommendation. Obviously, by not renewing my colleague’s contract, the administration hasn’t exactly been supportive. I don’t know why they want it, or what good could come of them having it. Do they have any grounds to request this? I’m not inclined to acquiesce to their request. Any thoughts on how to politely decline such a request? Or do you think I should be turning it over?

That wasn’t really a personal reference, even if you intended it that way; it was a professional one, because you’re a current employee of your coworker’s most recent employer. I can guarantee you that whoever you were giving a reference to took it as a professional reference, not a “personal reference” (which is something that most employers don’t want or care about). So yeah, your employer can absolutely take an interest in what you said; you were representing them, whether you intended to be or not.

That said, you could could certainly explain that you didn’t keep a copy of the letter you wrote and ask if they have concerns about you having provided it.

5. I’ve been promised a promotion for more than a year

I have been working for a well-known department store for 4 years. I started out as a box truck driver 6 hours a week and have moved my way to the sales floor, averaging 35 hours a week, overseeing a small team but without the supervisor title.

I have been awarded employee of the month in several departments. On several different occasions, I have been approached by several supervisors who encourage me to apply for open supervisor positions. But I have been overlooked twice for two other employees who no longer work there and who had a suspect work ethic along with attendance and reliability issues. I am constantly revered for my work ethic and my ability to get things done, yet when I apply for any supervisor position it goes nowhere and I’m given no feedback as to what I might be doing wrong. In fact, I am constantly told I’m going to be prepped for these positions.

Over a year has passed now and still I’m being prepped and complimented. I believe its the “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” theory that has kept me from advancing. What is there left to do?

Ask for a specific timeline for advancing. Say something like this: “As you know, I’m very interested in moving into a supervisor role. I think my work doing X and Y demonstrates that I’ll excel at it. I’ve been told previously that I’m being prepped for this job, but it’s been over a year since I was first told that. I’d like to get a better idea of what the likely timeline is for being ready to move into the next open supervisor role.” You should also ask if there are specific things you need to work on to make that happen. If you can’t get a direct answer, that’s a sign that you might need to go somewhere else to move up — but I’d try asking directly first.

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

1. Asking job candidates to do a short writing prompt instead of a cover letter

I’m currently writing a hiring ad for an entry level customer support position. In the past, we’ve required applicants to submit a cover letter in the body of their email, but I’m considering changing that requirement. If applicants remember to include a cover letter at all, there attempts are perfunctory and bland at best. Even the better ones struggle to capture their skills in a compelling way. I’m reluctant to continue asking applicants to invest time in a tool that doesn’t help me determine who is the best person for the job.

I was thinking that perhaps a short answer response to a relevant question (e.g., what’s the most valuable quality that you can bring to Chocolate Teapots, Inc.?) might yield more desirable responses. I realize that the best applicants should be able to craft a cover letter without being teed up, but it’s just not happening. What do you think?

Well, on one hand, I hear you that the generic, form-letter-type cover letters that so many applicants send aren’t useful, especially when they just summarize the contents of their resume (which is why awesome, customized cover letters stand out so much and why I recommend them so strongly here). But I really dislike the idea of asking applicants to write an essay response at this stage, because the reality is that you’re going to be rejecting 90% of them without even a phone screen (assuming you get a couple hundred applicants, which is pretty typical), and I’m not fond of asking people to jump through special hoops when so many of them are just going to get rejected pretty quickly anyway.

So I’d suggest a compromise instead. Say something like: “We pay a lot of attention to what you choose to tell us about yourself in your cover letter and hope that you’ll use it to talk about why you’d excel at this job particularly, including things that might not be obvious to us from your resume.” That way you’re leaving it up to candidates how much extra work to do, but you’re making it clear what you’re interested in. You’ll learn a lot from who bothers to do this and who doesn’t, as well as how they go about it and what they tell you.

2. What’s up with video interviews?

I was wondering what you think of using “digital interviews” for the first round of interviews. Basically, I had to download an app on my ipad and then video myself answering typical interview questions, with no interviewer there to talk to or respond to. The main issue that I have is that this process feels very awkward and strange (when the interview process already feels unnatural). Plus, I can imagine people who don’t have access to a computer with a webcam or a tablet due to a variety of issues.

Yeah, some companies are starting to use these and I agree with you about why they suck. I don’t think they’re ever going to become something the majority of companies use because too many hiring managers will dislike them — in large part because they don’t allow for the follow-up questions and the give and take that are part of the most useful interviews — but I do think you’re going to see more companies start using them.

3. Can I ask for flexibility in my horrible schedule?

I was hired part-time last August for a position that required me to work weekend evenings from 5pm-1am. There is only one other person who knows how to do this job, and they work Monday-Thursday. At the time of accepting the position I was desperate for a job, and while this job in particular wasn’t exactly what I wanted to be doing, it was somewhat in my field.

The problem is that I am beginning to get burnt out only working weekends. I am in my late 20s, and have a lot of friends with full-time jobs in the city that I live.(Something I would be grateful to obtain as well.) Anyway, my friends relax and hang out, mostly on the weekends, and with my schedule I never see them. My family lives a few hours away, and also work during weekdays also with free time on the weekends. I feel like I have lost a sense of community in the town I live since I also do not feel as if I have any community at my workplace.(While the organization I work with is a very team oriented one, I work independently within it.) I think that for my well-being I need to change my schedule, but I am not sure if it is appropriate to even ask since I was hired for working weekends only, AND accepted. I do not mind working weekends, but never having one off is exhausting. Is asking to change a schedule something I should even consider, or is it better to just suck it up and keep on going until I can find something that better suits me? I can’t afford to quit this job, but I am also feeling as if I’m letting life slip me by too fast, and losing friends and communities over it.

You can certainly ask, but if you’re the only person working that shift and you were hired specifically as their weekend/evening person, this might simply be the job. If you were new to the role, I’d caution you against already trying to change your schedule, but you’ve been there 10 months; it’s not crazy to ask if there’s a little flexibility. That said, I doubt they’ll be able to give you as much flexibility as it sounds like you’d like; one weekend off every few months probably isn’t going to cut it for you, and more than that sounds like it would eat into exactly what they hired you for.

4. Do I have to attend my horrible boss’s farewell party?

If you have been invited to your boss’s farewell party who has literally made your life a living hell, what should you do? I’ve reported her to HR, they reprimanded her, my coworker’s corroborated everything I said, and she got another job with a promotion. She even stupidly left her offer letter out for everyone to see her salary. I gave them 10 pages of documentation on her unforgivable acts, including not doing her job, but she got another job with our company. I’m thinking not saying anything is taking the high road as long as I don’t badmouth her. What do you think?

It really depends on how noticeable your absence will be (not attending a 5-person party will be more noticeable than not attending a 50-person party, as will not attending one during work hours versus after work). If it’s small and during work hours, suck it up and go, and consider it your own personal celebration that she won’t be your manager anymore.

5. Blog dislikes

I saw your mention last week of Ask a Manager’s seventh anniversary. Congratulations! What do you like and dislike most about writing this blog?

Ooooh. I love almost everything about this site and its commenters, but I’ll confess that there’s one thing that reliably drives me crazy in discussions about the posts: people assuming that their experience is universal and arguing that forcefully. In other words, they’ve seen some employers do X, so they assume all employers do X and advise people accordingly, in the strongest of terms. X tends to be something negative, which can lead to remarkably bad advice for people when they’re dealing with employers who don’t do X. For instance: “Never tell your employer that you’re dissatisfied with your job, because they’ll just tell you to suck it up or even fire you.” But at a good employer, this will sometimes lead to your problems being solved. Not always — but enough that it’s crazy to make a blanket statement like that as if it’s fact. (We saw this the other day, with some people arguing that you should never give more than a couple weeks notice, which is just not backed up by other people’s experience.)

I’m all for pointing out that some employers operate certain ways, but you’ve got to allow for other possibilities too rather than speaking in absolutes. You lose credibility and weaken your advice tremendously when you don’t do that.