Ask a Manager

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.

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

1. Should I give my colleague feedback on her employee’s manner?

My role is quite specialized, and my education and work experience make me uniquely qualified within our organization for the work that I do. We are a very egalitarian organization, and I do my best to make myself available for special requests from anyone. Last week, I received a request from a coworker to join her and her subordinate on a conference call to address questions the subordinate has about a new system that we’ve put in place. The coworker’s subordinate is a bright young woman who’s one year out of college; by all accounts, she’s doing a great job, and her curiosity does her credit. Her boss – my colleague – helpfully forwarded a list of questions that they would like me to address, some of which are rather presumptuous demands for justifications about the new system that’s been implemented (e.g. if there are cheaper and/or “better” alternatives, when neither the young woman nor her boss make purchasing or financial decisions for our organization – this is just to satisfy their curiosity).

I want both the coworker and her employee to continue to feel comfortable reaching out to ask questions, but in this case I feel that my coworker should have vetted the questions before forwarding them to me and given her employee guidance about what questions are appropriate (and/or how to couch them). My plan is to address their questions during the call, and then follow up later with my colleague. I don’t feel it’s my place to instruct my colleague’s employee about what is and is not appropriate. Do you think I should take this up with my colleague, or should I let it pass without feedback, and hope that the young woman in question doesn’t go on to rub someone else the wrong way?

I wouldn’t make a big deal out of it unless it starts to become a pattern. That said, there’s nothing wrong with saying something on the call like, “I wasn’t sure about the context for some of Jane’s questions, like the ones about costs of alternatives. Can you tell me more about why you’re exploring that, so I can make sure I’m giving you the most helpful information?” And then, if it does turn out it’s just curiosity, you could certainly point out that balancing the pros and cons of different systems is a more complicated process than you could do justice to in your current conversation (and perhaps also that your X Department did carefully vet that question and considered factors like __ and __, not just cost, before this system was decided on). That said, it’s hard to do this without coming across as defensive or overly turf-protective, and in general you want to err on the side of being more open, not less open.

But ultimately I’d leave the larger issue — the “stop being presumptuous or you will annoy people” issue — to her manager, until/unless you start seeing multiple recurrences.

2. Being asked to fill out a reference questionnaire instead of giving a reference over the phone

An intern who worked for us last year recently asked me to be a reference for her. She just did okay at our company….I think that ultimately the internship wasn’t a good fit for her, but since she had some good skills and qualities and I could see her doing well somewhere else, I agreed to be a reference for her.

She recently interviewed at a company that she really wants to get into, and I think she would do well in the position. Her potential future supervisor sent me an email asking me to fill out a reference questionnaire. I’ve never had to do this before and was expecting to have a phone call. This might not bother me this much usually, but I just got back from my industry’s biggest trade show of the year and will be buried for the next two weeks, and then will be out of town again after that. I’d like to ask to do a phone call instead, especially as some of the questions I think would be better handled over the phone (like the ones about would you hire the candidate again; do you think I should hire the candidate, etc). I don’t want to hurt her chances of getting hired, though. Is this a normal hiring practice?

It’s not uncommon, but you’re right that it often takes up references’ time unnecessarily and puts them in an awkward position when they don’t want certain feedback in writing. Moreover, it’s a huge missed opportunity for the employer doing the reference-checking, because you get a ton of information from people’s tone over the phone — how enthusiastic they are, where they hesitate, etc.

You can certainly reply that you’d prefer to talk over the phone, but you do run the risk of harming her chances if they won’t entertain that option, unfortunately. You could minimize that chance, though, if you framed it as something like, “I’m excited to be a reference for Jane, but my workload right now means that a phone call will be much easier for me. If you call me at ___, I’d be glad to tell you about Jane’s strengths.” That way, you’re still saying something positive even if they don’t ultimately call you. (Note: If this intern actually did great work for you, I’d push you to just fill out the questionnaire — both because I believe that doing that kind of thing is part of the deal when someone gives you great work, and there would be fewer issues around not wanting to put sensitive feedback in writing.)

3. My coworker is pushing me to be friends with her friend, and I’m not interested

I’m the sort of person who likes to keep my work life and my personal life separate, for various reasons. However, someone I work with who is sort of in a position above me (I work as the front desk receptionist for a small medical practice and they are one of the practitioners, so not directly above) today met their friend for lunch. After lunch, they both came in and the practitioner introduced us, saying that they were really excited for us to meet and was confident we would be good friends.

The practitioner then proceeded to exchange our numbers for us (giving their friend mine and vice versa) without really asking permission. The practitioner’s friend grew up in the town I just recently moved to and I think this is why they are trying to force this friendship on us – they think I need friends in the area. However, I am not comfortable with this association. The friend is considerably older than me, and due to their association with my coworker I wouldn’t feel I could truly relax in any situation. How should I navigate this? I will ultimately want to turn down this friend’s offers to hang out. Is there a tactful way to do so?

For now, I think you can do nothing; the friend may not even reach out to you (and may be similarly rolling her eyes about your coworker’s match-making). But if she does contact you, you can always plead scheduling issues — as in, “It was great to meet you. My schedule is really busy these days so it’s hard for me to get together, but it’s great to know about another person from FormerCity in the area!”

4. Interacting with a company on social media when you’re applying for a job with them

I have been interviewing with a company for over five months now and I have still not received a firm “yes” or “no” from the hiring manager. The time that the interview process has taken doesn’t shock me because the company is not necessarily hiring for the position that they’re looking at me for. The problem I am asking about is social media etiquette between myself and this company.

I am an avid social media user and so is the company and my interviewers. I am consistently getting followed by members of the company on various social media channels and I haven’t met a majority of these people during the interview process. Do you have any idea what this might mean? How much should I interact on social media with the folks who are looking to hire me? (I’m currently employed elsewhere.)

I wouldn’t read much into them following you, and I don’t think you need to interact with them on social media at all. If there’s a natural opening to do so and you want to, then sure — but I wouldn’t go looking for opportunities to do that as a particular strategy.

5. Listing amounts of time at each job on your resume

Someone recommended including timetables in parenthesis for each job on my resume like LinkedIn does, to help hiring folks quickly see how long you’ve been at each job. For example:

Chief of Staff
December 2013 to Present (7 months)

Communications Director
January 2012 to December 2013 (2 years)

Good or bad idea?

Nothing wrong with doing that, but it’s not really necessary — employers are used to quickly making those calculations themselves on the 99% of resumes that don’t do this — and it will clutter your resume a little. I wouldn’t do it on mine or recommend a friend do it, but if you’re dying to do it, it’s not like you’re going to get rejected for it.

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

1. How to reject an internal candidate

I am a new manager at a small nonprofit (less than 10 employees). We have an opening and two internal candidates applied. I don’t know them well since I’ve only been with the organization for about two months. Based on my observations and interviews are comparable in skills and experience. They both are unfulfilled in their current positions and there isn’t any way for me to change their roles if they don’t get the promotion (they currently fill essential administrative positions). I know that at least one of them will quit if she isn’t selected. Do you have any tips on what to say to the one who doesn’t get the job?

“I think you’re great — particularly your strengths in X and Y. This was a very tough decision, but we’ve decided to offer the role to Jane, who has accepted it.” (If there’s an easily articulable skill or trait that Jane brings to the job, you can mention that here — for instance, “Ultimately Jane’s track record of successful grant writing was a deciding factor.”) “You’ve done an amazing job on __ and __ , but we only had one slot open. I want to be clear, though, how much we value your work, and we’d be glad to talk about future openings with you as they come up.”

(You should only be that positive if that stuff is really true, of course. You shouldn’t be disingenuous.)

Of course, make sure that one of them actually is highly qualified for the job. If they’re not, the organization will be better served by interviewing external candidates; you don’t want to promote someone just because they’re already working there and interested, particularly in a small organization where each role is crucial. That’s true even if you risk losing someone for not promoting them — you need top performers in each job, and you can’t hand out promotions to keep someone who won’t be great at what you’re promoting them to. (You can, however, look for ways to help them grow professionally in other ways — or should be honest with them if there isn’ room for that.)

2. I can’t afford to travel for interviews

I’ve been searching for jobs in my current location but haven’t had a lot of luck, so I’ve recently started looking in my hometown as well. Relocating (or, well, returning) to my hometown would be no problem. I’m familiar with the area, I know of some good apartment complexes, and if I can’t find a place right away, I can stay with family temporarily until I get that sorted out. That being said, I don’t have set plans to relocate; I only intend to return to my hometown if I find a job there.

The problem is, I don’t know what to do if I get asked to interview in-person and the company won’t pay for it. I know that you’ve advised people to be willing to pay their own way for this, which I completely understand. It’s not that I am unwilling, but I simply cannot afford the $400+ airfare (possibly more than once if I had multiple interviews) right now. Am I doomed to being thrown out of the running if I’m only available for phone/Skype interviews? What should I say (or not say) in a cover letter or long-distance interview about this?

This is tricky. You can certainly ask to interview by phone or Skype; some companies will be okay with it and others won’t. Some companies will be okay with it at an early stage but will want you to fly out before they make a final decision. Of the companies that do allow you to do it all by phone or Skype, you risk being at a disadvantage to other candidates. The bar is going to be a little higher for you, someone they can’t meet in person, and lots of people don’t build the same rapport over Skype that they so in person. Then throw in the fact that long-distance job searching is already much harder than local job-searching (which isn’t exactly easy these days either), and it’s not a great scenario. Honestly, if it’s at all an option to move now and then start looking, your search might be easier.

Of course, there are also plenty of companies that do pay to fly candidates in — it depends on what field you’re in and how in-demand your skills are. It could end up being a non-issue for you.

In any case, I wouldn’t get into any of this in your cover letter; that’s the place to convince them to interview you, not to throw up obstacles. Wait until you’re invited to interview and then see if there’s anything they can do.

3. My supplier ends his emails with “blessings”

I have a supplier who insists on ending his email signature with the word “Blessings” after every email. He said he is religious and this is a free country, etc. I find that very offensive and very non-business-like. I would like your opinion.

I don’t quite understand why you find the word “blessings” offensive (and I say this as someone utterly unreligious). It’s not like he’s trying to convert you to his religion or telling you you’re going to go to hell. It’s pretty damn mild, as subtly tinged religious stuff goes. I’d recommend he not use it in something like a job-search email, but this is his business. If he wants to reference blessings, he’s welcome to; he doesn’t work for your company, and he can sign his emails however he wants. You, in turn, can choose not to do business with him if you don’t like it — but that would be a pretty bizarre reaction to something this innocuous.

4. Shouldn’t managers’ resumes specify what size teams they manage? (Why, yes, they should.)

Recently I interviewed candidates for a manager level position of a technical team. This position currently has 3 full-time reports and 3 interns. The job listing specifically states this position supervises others and is at the manager level. Many of the candidates mentioned “leading teams” on their resume, but none wrote down number of reports, size of team, etc. Am I incorrect in thinking that this should be something to include on the resume?

Yes, ideally they’d include it, because there’s a big difference between managing two people and managing 18, as well as between managing individual contributors and managing other managers. The thing is, though, there aren’t really standards that dictate things like that’s it’s up to people’s own judgment, and as a result some do and some don’t. It’s generally in people’s best interests to be specific though — at some point interviewers are likely to ask, and if they’re looking for someone with experience managing large teams and you’ve only managed small ones or contractors or something like that, it’s a waste of your time not to surface that before you interview.

5. When should I say I’m graduating?

I will finish my university program in August 2014, but graduation is not until November 2014. Should I list the degree on my resume as “Expected August 2014” or “Expected November 2014”? I will be finished all of my program requirements by August and would like to start working immediately, but I will not officially have the degree until November.

What would your school say if someone called the registrar in, say, September to confirm that you’d graduated? You want to make sure that you’re not saying you’ve graduated and the school is saying that you haven’t. But absent some issue there, I think it’s reasonable to say “Expected August 2014.” If you’re not sure, though, you could write “Last class August 2014, diploma expected November 2014.” The point is that you want employers to know that you’re in school through August and free after that, without misrepresenting anything.

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

1. My boss’s boss’s debt collectors keep calling me

For the last three weeks, debt collectors have been calling my work phone three times per day looking for my boss’s boss. I have no idea how they got my number; I’m not a receptionist, and my number is not listed online. I’d love to not answer the phone, but these jurassic era telephone relics have no caller ID, and I’d hate to miss a call actually related to my job. I keep telling the debt collectors that I won’t give out contact information to a third party, but they have started to get very rude and have insinuated that I am lying, and that I am actually who they are looking for.

Since it’s my boss’s boss, it’d be pretty uncomfortable for me to bring up the subject with my boss (not really any of his business anyways), or his boss. I may already know the answer to this one, but just to confirm…this is one of those situations where I just have to suck it up and deal with the distractions, right?

Nope! There are two things you can do: First, I’d talk to either your boss or your boss’s boss and explain what’s going on. (If you have a great relationship, go straight to your boss’s boss and say, “Hey, I wanted to let you know that this is happening, and I’ll handle it however you’d like me to.” If you don’t have a great relationship or otherwise feel too awkward about it, talk to your direct manager instead.) This is not a “suffer in silence” thing; it’s okay to discreetly let them know about it in a “this is happening and I want to make sure I’m handling it the way you’d like” kind of way.

Second, you can actually tell the debt collectors to stop calling your number. It’s illegal for them to continue calling a workplace after they’ve been told to stop.

2. Coworker never tells us when she’s working from home

I have a coworker who seems to take advantage of the ability to occasionally work from home. For the month of May, I don’t think she has worked a full week in the office. She “worked from home” for 3 days with a sore throat when she admittedly felt fine, worked from home for a school spirit day for her children, the last day of school, and more. Despite that I feel like she’s taking advantage of this, I realize there is nothing I can do. My point is, it’s not in a once in a blue moon type of thing for her.

That being said, what I find frustrating is that we never know when she is not showing up to work. Of course her boss knows, but no one else seems to know where she is. She accepts meeting invites and conference calls for days when she is out of the office, only to end up not showing up or not calling in. This is a waste of time. What would be a good way of addressing the fact that I wish she would give us a heads up when she was going to be working from home, so we would not waste our time scheduling meetings she won’t be attending? I’m not her superior, so it’s not as if she should report to me. Still, it would be nice of her to let us know.

Be straightforward: “Jane, we sometimes end up running around trying to locate you or delaying meetings because you’re not there when we don’t realize that you’re working from home. Could you start letting us know on the days you’ll be telecommuting? Also, you sometimes miss meetings that you had accepted invites for — what can we do to make sure that we’re not scheduling things when you won’t be able to attend?”

Of course, that last part is really a bigger issue and something her manager should be addressing — and you might ask that your manager do so.

3. Will this statement work to explain a firing?

From a hiring manager’s standpoint regarding termination, I was curious if a short statement like this would suffice: “My company and department went through several changes, and although I learned a great deal from my position, I did not see an upward career path with this company. I spoke with my boss and we came to a mutual agreement to part ways.”

In short, I was let go because I was not a good fit for the company’s culture. My boss and I knew this, discussed this, and this was the result. I was given a small severance. I was advised that if I was truly fired that the company would not give you a severance. Is this true?

No, that’s not true. Many companies routinely provide severance to people fired for cause, so the severance itself doesn’t demonstrate anything about the nature of the firing.

If I were interviewing you and asked why you left your last job and you told me what you have in your first paragraph, I’d probe for more details … and also would ask directly if you were fired. If it was a culture fit issue, you might be better off simply saying that, and explaining how … although if the explanation is going to reflect badly on you or if you can’t actually talk in specifics about where the fit problem was, that’s not a good option. Ideally, you want to be able to say something like, “My strengths/interests are X and they’re really looking for Y.”

4. Approaching my boss about a weekly therapy appointment

I am struggling with depression and anxiety, but in the process of working through it with therapy. I live in a place where getting appointments in after work time slots can be next to impossible. Furthermore, I consider it essential to get on well with your therapist, which makes this even more difficult. I have found a therapist who seems a good a fit, but would need to leave work an hour and a half early once a week to make the appointment. My boss can be pretty understanding about these things, but considering the frequency and length of time I would need to leave early, a general “doctor’s appointment” explanation might be insufficient. However, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to come clean to my boss about my mental health issues. Any advice on how to approach this? If necessary, I will just continue trying to find a doctor, but this process has been going on for months already and I would rather not continue to postpone treatment of issues that may get worse.

“I have a recurring weekly medical appointment for at least the next few months, possibly longer. I’ve scheduled it for as late in the day as I could, but I’ll need to leave at 4:00 every Thursday to make it there. My plan for making sure it doesn’t interfere with my work is ____.”

That’s it! Your boss shouldn’t ask what type of medical appointment it is.

5. Employee refuses to track mileage

We have a superintendent who we have asked to keep a log book (mileage only) for getting a handle on expenses. We are NOT asking for hours on the job. We have also told him that all gas receipts must be turned in before the end of each month so he can be reimbursed, and if they are not, he will not be paid for expenses for that month. We are located in Arizona and as of yesterday he told us that he will not be keeping that logbook as it is illegal. This person is salaried. Can you help, as I didn’t think this was an irrational or illegal request?

There’s nothing illegal about asking an employee to log mileage (!). In fact, how else can you reimburse mileage if you don’t have mileage records? (By the way, it’s also not illegal to ask exempt employees — which is what I think you mean by salaried — to track their hours. You’re allowed to have people track their hours for all sorts of purposes; you just can’t deduct from exempt employees’ paychecks based on those hours.)

Something’s up with this dude.