Ask a Manager

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

1. Can I ask my staff to be nicer?

I’m a new director at a medium-sized nonprofit that has gone through a hard year. There have been many staff changes in the past year, and I can tell that many within the organization are still struggling to negotiate these changes. Two supervisors who report to me are very unfriendly to me. They give one-word responses most of the time. They don’t say hi or bye unless I really go out of my way. They never ever ask how I’m doing or anything like that, even though I try to initiate pleasantries with them. I don’t think it’s personal — I think they just are not in the habit of cultivating a positive relationship with a superior. Their lack of warmth rarely offends me, but I do think it sends a bad message to the other people in the department for whom they should be setting an example because they’re supervisors.

Can I ask them to be nicer and more mindful of the way they communicate? I will also continue to lead by example by being very friendly and communicating thoroughly. I have never encountered people at any stage of my career who behave with such a lack of awareness for how they interact with their superiors. I think niceness is really important and it’s not about kissing ass or feeling popular; it’s about laying the foundation for productive conversations and a free exchange of ideas. I don’t mean to imply that I would threaten to give them a negative review, but they really need to be aware of the fact that how they communicate, whether they are open with me, and the example they set for their reports are all things that I could consider in a performance review. Would this come across as petty or needy?

Well, the real issue isn’t about pleasantries; it’s that they’re operating in a way that isn’t consistent with the kind of culture you want, and I bet it goes well beyond basic pleasantries. If they’re this chilly with you, I find it hard to imagine that they’re keeping you in the loop on work, using you as a resource, cultivating a sense of positive sense of energy and mission with their staffs, and I’d focus more on that stuff. (Because really, if they were doing that stuff well, the rest of this wouldn’t be an issue … if it were happening at all, which it probably wouldn’t be.)

One next step might be to take them out to lunch (individually) and try to get to know them better — but I’d also stay alert to the possibility that they’re not operating the way you want managers to operate on a whole RANGE of things, and that you might need people in those roles who are better equipped to work in a partnership with you. (Before you conclude that, I’d have a direct conversation with them about how you want the relationship to work — again, focusing on substance more than the hi/bye stuff — and give them a chance to meet those expectations. But it’s really possible that they’re just not ideal for their roles, or that they’ve been so damaged by the hard year you reference that they might not be able to move on from it in the way you need.)

2. Should you use a headline on your resume?

I am an employment and training case manager, and I end up assisting many clients in writing resumes. I recently attended a “Resume Basics” workshop, in which the presenter stressed creating a Headline Statement at the top of the resume, under contact information. Samples of this would be:
“Cashier”
“Medical Assistant”
“Experienced Nurse”

No more than 5 or 6 words, and then after the statement would be the person’s profile/summary and the rest of the resume.

I don’t not include headlines on the resumes I assist clients with. Should I? Or is this an outdated practice? Normally I highlight whatever experience they have in the summary of qualifications and core skills, if applicable.

There’s no faster way than these headline statements to flag for me that someone used a professional resume writer, since no one else uses them.

No, there’s no need to do this. It’s unnecessary and a little gimmicky, and I wish people would stop trying to muck with the basic resume format, which serves hiring managers’ needs just fine as it is. (I think professional resume writers must feel they need to invent things like this to continue selling their services to clients, but you should ignore it.)

3. How do I politely decline a vendor’s offer?

A few weeks ago, a vendor emailed the director of my department a sales pitch for a software service. The director forwarded the email to me and asked me to evaluate. I did a 20-minute phone meeting and their service was pretty interesting, so I scheduled a follow-up meeting including the director, the head of my team, and two of our technical gurus to get their input. The tech guys listened to the pitch and are confident they can build us the same technology in-house without additional expenditures. Thus, we won’t be signing up with the vendor.

I’m never sure what to say to the vendor in situations like this. Earlier in my career, I’m embarrassed to admit sometimes I just stopped answering their emails or calls (and it often tooks weeks or even months for them to stop calling). Nowadays my professionalism is more important to me and I know I need to be up-front but tactful about declining. What’s the professional norm here? Do I tell him why we’re declining, like, “We’ve decided to build our own version of this tool and so we won’t need your service?” Or do I just say something vague, “We’ve decided to explore other options at this time,” or “We’ve decided not to pursue your service at this time”? Would either offend him? What do other people do when they are saying no to a salesperson who has invested a good chunk of time in pursuing their business?

You can be vague (“We’ve decided it’s not for us at this time”) or specific (“We’ve realized we can create this in-house and prefer that option”). Vague can sometimes be better, because specifics can open the door for the vendor to still try to sell you (for instance, in this example, offering to lower the price or telling you why an in-house system won’t be as robust, or whatever). But the main point is to realize that you’re the one in control here — they don’t have the power to take up any more of your time than you want them to, so there’s no reason not to simply be direct about what you are and aren’t interested in. It’s also fine to firmly say, “Please don’t contact us again about this” if a more polite no is being ignored.

4. Beauty routines during class

I’m a high school teacher who recently stumbled on your blog. Teaching high school juniors is a mess all by itself, but what disturbs me most is some of the habits that I see my students getting into, especially the young ladies. They will repeatedly put on makeup in the middle of the class late in the morning (one and a half hours after the day has started), and one of my female students even brings a curling iron and tries to do her hair during group-time.

It’s my opinion that beauty routines should be done either before school or during our short lunch, and this is because I believe it’s unprofessional (and rude) to do it during class. Even though my students are 16-17, I want them to get into good habits because some of them will be working their way through college. How would doing hair/makeup on company time be treated in the corporate world?

You’re right that it’s unprofessional and would reflect poorly on them in most offices. It’s almost just plain rude, according to basic etiquette. You should have no qualms about telling your students that your class isn’t the place to groom themselves and that you expect their focus to be on classwork while they’re there.

5. My request for time off from six months ago wasn’t approved

I put in a request for time off (not vacation or PTO) in November for 5 days in May. We do not have request off forms in our binder, as our manager never restocks them, so we use binder paper or text messeges. I was not told anything by my manager until a week and a half before my scheduled vacation that I was denied because those days were blacked out due to due a yearly Memorial Day sale. Okay, fine. Why wasn’t I told about this months in advance before I started making my arrangements for flight and hotel rooms? And now that I have complained to her, she has gotten rude (especially after finding out that I was seeking other employment) and scheduled me all closing shifts even though mornings are when more tips can made. Am I being unreasonable or should she have gotten to me sooner about demying me my request off?

Of course she should have responded to you sooner, but you also should have followed up when you hadn’t heard anything back, and especially before making flight arrangements. (Also, for what it’s worth, I wouldn’t use text messages for that kind of thing; it’s too easily overlooked and there’s no record.)

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

1. My volunteer role has become full-time and I want to be paid

I am a stay-at-home mom who has volunteered for ten years at my church. I started just helping with a flyer and then little by little doing more. I am bilingual, so I started helping as a interpreter/translator. As this required more time, they started paying me something just as a token of appreciation.

In September, we got a new pastor, and since then I have been working such extensive hours that I feel it is a full-time job – just not paid. I’ve been taking all that weight because I didn’t want the foreign community to feel lost. Many people have been commenting, even at the church office, about the load I have, and that I should get paid. A bilingual associate priest is going to start soon, and I want to speak up that if I am going to keep doing all that I do – which I really enjoy – they need to start paying me. But I am clueless how to do it. I’m feeling very down because I am very qualified: I have a degree (from a foreign country), I speak fluently both languages, I am computer literate, have people skills, and also really care about the community here, but I don’t know how to approach this, much less what salary to negotiate.

Definitely speak up. But realize that they’re giving you more and more work because you’re agreeing to it; it’s not fair to resent them for something that you’re agreeing to and haven’t told them you’re not happy with. So definitely talk to them. You could say something like, “I really enjoy the work I do here and think providing interpreting services to our members is crucial. However, I’m now averaging X hours per week and can’t keep that up without a real salary. Is that something the church would be open to working out?”

When you say, this be prepared for the possibility that the answer will be no. In many situations like this, a volunteer is doing valuable work and the organization is glad to have it done, but if it becomes something they need to find room for in their budget, it will lose out to higher financial priorities. If that happens, then your next step is to let them know what you are and aren’t willing to continue doing. You just need to be clear with them about what you’re willing to offer.

2. Managers and the possessive tense

I have a new manager who has placed his desk in the middle of the room, and conducts all of his conference calls in a rather loud fashion. In doing so, he constantly refers to the employees (myself and my peers) as “his” — e.g. “my team,” “my testers,” “my people.”

Am I wrong to feel a bit demeaned that my new manager is placing himself as a king among the common employee? His self-placement of prominence above those that he rules is causing quite a bit of resentment amongst “we the people.”

Eh. I don’t love “my people,” but it’s a far from uncommon way of speaking. Focus on the way he actually manages — does he set clear expectations, give useful feedback, recognize good work, ensure you have the resources needed to do your job? That’s what matters.

3. Jobs that claim to be career-track but don’t offer benefits

I’m currently job searching, and I recently came across an odd job description. In the title, they specifically ask for people who are looking for a full-time career, not just a job, which is definitely something I am in the market for. The posting looks fairly interesting and I meet most of the skills. However, they post at the bottom of the ad that “benefits are not available for this position.”

It strikes me as a bit disingenuous to ask for people looking for a career, but not provide them with any benefits. It doesn’t specify which kinds, but I’m assuming PTO, insurance, and other things fall in that category. I would not be willing to move from my current position to one that provided no benefits, so would it be a waste of everyone’s time to apply? If I did apply and got to an interview stage, is there a way to tactfully point out that a job with no benefits doesn’t really make for a “career” in many people’s eyes?

Hell yeah, it’s disingenuous. What they’re telling you, very clearly, is that they want professional level skills and commitment, but they’re not willing to compensate you in accordance with the market norms for those things.

I wouldn’t bother applying on the hope that you could convince them to change their mind; it would almost certainly be a waste of your time. Plus, they were at least transparent enough to tell you their terms up-front, so you should do them the courtesy in return of taking them at their word and not taking up their time if you’re not willing to accept those terms.

4. Misdirected emails when you have a common name

I have a very common name – both first and last. I recently started an entry level job at a large international company, and I’ve been periodically receiving emails that are very clearly intended for other people. It’s an easy mistake to make – our email addresses are all name@company format, and the address book will autofill with the closest match when you type a name.

I’m comfortable sending a reply of, “Sorry, I think this was sent to me by mistake,” to an individual, but sometimes I’m copied into group emails. I don’t know how to handle that. Should I response privately or reply all so I don’t get copied into responses as well? What if the president of the company is part of the group or the original sender? (That’s actually happened.)

To complicate matters, I don’t have access to the email outside of work, and my hours don’t overlap with corporate hours. If something is sent on a Tuesday morning, I won’t see it until Friday night. Does the time gap change how I should respond? I’ve mostly been ignoring these emails, but I really doubt that’s the correct way to handle it.

Just write back (to the sender, not the whole group who received it) with a quick, “I think you meant this for a different Jane — wanted to let you know so you can get it to her.”

Doesn’t make a difference if the sender is the company president; she still needs to know that the person she meant to email hasn’t received it and needs to. And yes, say it even if you’re only seeing it days later; it’s not ideal, but it’s still better than the person assuming the other Jane has seen the email and not realizing that she hasn’t.

And definitely stop just ignoring them — that could end up reflecting badly on you if someone realizes it’s been happening and you haven’t bothered to point it out.

5. Back and forth when scheduling a start date

So my sister is 16, and she just got this job at a breakfast place. Her new manager originally wanted her to start her training this Friday, but she couldn’t – she’s going on a band trip with the school. Then they suggested Wednesday, but she can’t do that either, since she’s going to a track meet, and if she doesn’t go to that one, she won’t qualify for regionals. The place is only open until 3 PM most days, and the training is an hour and lasts from 3 PM until 4 PM, but obviously this track meet would take all day.

When you’re scheduling a start date, is it generally better to lay out all the days in the near future that you won’t be available up front? That’s what I’m kind of thinking, because so far both days that the manager has suggested have not been an option for her. She’s treating this worryingly casually, because even though one of her friends is the daughter of the owners, it’s still a business, right? I don’t think it would make sense to pull the job offer over it, but I don’t know how this all works.

I’m 17 and in my first job myself, in a retail environment, (and funnily enough my best friend’s mom is my manager), but I didn’t have to deal with this kind of run-around when I started my job (there were three or four training shifts that I had to go through, and I wasn’t available for two of them, but I was in the office with her when she was scheduling me and I was able to list everything out right there). Maybe it varies from job to job. I don’t know. Does it look pretentious or anything if you list all of your unavailable days right away?

Your instincts are right. It doesn’t look pretentious, but it does make you look unnecessarily difficult if you end up in a back and forth that gets dragged out because you didn’t just explain all your availability right away. In your sister’s defense, I can see why she didn’t think to do it in the first exchange, but by the time there was a second scheduling conflict, she should have said something like, “I apologize! I already have a commitment Wednesday as well, but I could do any other afternoon in the next two weeks except for May 17 and 20. Is there another afternoon that would work?” The idea is to make it as easy on the employer to schedule as she can, without requiring more back and forth to pick a date — and also to make it look like the training really is a priority for her and something she’s helping to make happen, rather than just passively relying on them to make it happen for her. Please advise her!

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

1. Interviewers who make no effort to sell you on the job

Over the past few years, I keep experiencing interviews where the company makes no attempt to sell me on the job. Is this a trend?

Last week, I foolishly went on an interview where there was no job description – I kept being promised that the recruiter would get it to me, but it never appeared. I assumed I’d have a chance to ask lots of questions in the interview to figure out the job, but I had no time to even ask a question about the interview process! No time was spent selling me on the job or the company either, just softball management style questions. What is up with that?

What’s up with that is bad interviewing, and interviewers who forget that part of the point of the hiring process is for candidates to decide if they even want the job; it’s a two-way street. But if you’re ever offered a job and haven’t yet had a chance to get your own questions answered, it’s perfectly fine to say, “I really appreciate the offer. I have some questions about the job that we didn’t have a chance to cover when I interviewed. Is now a good time to ask those, or could we set up a time to talk in the next day or two?”

2. What if my coworker fails a class I teach?

In addition to my regular job, I also adjunct teach at a local university. My classes are technically an upper undergraduate level, but are a mix of graduate students, current professionals, and researchers at the university. I have a regular job peer who also is also an adjunct in this same department, and both of us have had several of her subordinates as students.

If a coworker does well in our classes, we generally both know about it and it definitely helps them in the workplace. But what happens when a coworker does poorly? What if a coworker fails my class or one of her subordinates fails her class because they simply failed to do the work?

We can discuss this as faculty and try to help the student with any barriers they may be having. Neither of us, though, knows if there is anything more we should do as coworker and supervisor.

FERPA probably does matter here, and maybe even good performance in the classroom should not reflect on the workplace. As coworker and supervisor, are there any workplace-related actions we should take relative to this? Can we let classroom performance affect how we view workload and new assignments? Or should we try to act as if this never happened and separate workplace from classroom?

Oooh, tricky. I think the cleanest way to handle this is that someone’s performance in your class is a whole different thing than their performance on the job — after all, someone could do well at one and not as well at the other (which actually happens all the time). Moreover, if someone is stretched thin, they might put more effort into work (since that’s their livelihood) than into school (where no one else is counting on them), so it seems wrongly to penalize them at the former for their performance in the latter.

That said, your coworker is actually managing some of the people in her class, which complicates it. If I were her, I think I’d talk to those employees/students at the start and explain that I try to keep a strict firewall between work and class — which might assuage worries that they might have (or should have, if they’re being thoughtful about this) as well.

3. Do employers not want to hire the long-term unemployed?

I’ve been reading a lot lately about the longterm effects of unemployment on hirability, and I was wondering if you could write a blog post offering an inside look at how managers view those who have been out of work for more than six months. Does this Washington Post article feel accurate to you?

I want to tell you that it’s not accurate, but in reality … yeah, that’s generally correct.

Because of that, if you’ve been out of work for a while, the more you can engage in work-ish activities, the better. Volunteer, serve on committees, try to take on some freelance work in your field — whatever you can do that’s as close to working as possible. (People often put “take a class” on this list, but I’m not convinced it’s the same.)

4. Wearing the “uniform” of a company to an interview

A friend of mine has an interview next week that he is very excited about. The company is well known for it’s high end and fashionable brand profile, although it is not a fashion company per se. Anyway, the culture there is for employees to wear all black. My friend thinks he should wear all black to the interview and is stressing about finding an appropriate all black ensemble. I think that just because the employees wear all black, does not mean that interviewees should, and that he should stop stressing and just wear a nice suit. But maybe I am off-base. What advice do you have?

I don’t think he needs to wear all black, just like you wouldn’t wear scrubs to interview at a doctor’s office, even if you’d be wearing them once on the job. (Although so many business outfits are all black that it wouldn’t be odd if he did end up doing it anyway.)

5. Writing a cover letter to a company where 8+ former coworkers now work

I am looking to apply for a position at a prospective company that happens to employ quite a few roll-over’s from the company I am currently with. There are at least eight people there who would be quite familiar with me and my work. I have contacted most of them via LinkedIn and all have given me their blessing to use their names as referrals. How can I use that in my cover letter? Do I list them all out, only use one or two names?

Listing them all out is going to seem weird and like overkill. I’d name just a couple of them — the ones who can best speak to your work — and say something like, “I worked closely with Perseus Mulberry, Lucinda Skeetmoore, and others from XYZ Company who now work for you.”