Ask a Manager

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

1. My boss’s speeches are way too long

The head of our office is frequently invited to give opening remarks at events, and our new boss is very passionate about speaking … to the point where he is just talking way too much.

To give two recent examples, he was asked to provide three to five minutes of remarks, and spoke for 45 minutes. At another event, he was given 20 minutes to do a more in-depth speech, and he spoke for an hour and a half. These were both dinners, and the food was cold by the time it came out! At other events, he’s caused the scheduling to run massively overtime, and on several occasions the main content of the event has had to be cut from the schedule.

His role is quite high-ranking (think politician/CEO), so no one is in a position to stop him once he gets going. Generally a staff member will write the speeches so we can monitor length/content, but this boss insists on either writing his own from scratch, or greatly expanding on whatever notes were provided to him. A couple of staff have quietly suggested he keep speeches short when passing on a request we’ve received for remarks, and he reacted quite angrily.

Do you have any suggestions on how we lowly staff can gently approach him to give feedback? I’m afraid we’ll stop being invited to attend events, which would be hugely detrimental to our office.

If he didn’t have a history of reacting angrily when people bring it up, sure. In that case you could say, “We’ve been hearing from event organizers that your remarks are going too long and throwing off the rest of the program, and they really need you to stick to X minutes and no longer.”

But since he does have a history of reacting angrily, you need someone high-up and influential to address it with him — a board member, a major donor, possibly a second-in-command or another senior leader who he respects, the head of an event he really cares about appearing at — someone whose feedback he’ll feel obligated to take seriously.

It that’s not an option or it doesn’t work, all you can really do is try stressing the schedule to him right before he speaks … and maybe discreetly mentioning to event organizers that he tends to run long and they’ll need to be assertive about managing his speaking time if they want to stick to their schedule; they may have tools to do that if they’re prepared ahead of time. But otherwise … this is who your boss is and if he lashes out at feedback, you can’t fix that for him.

2. Etiquette when someone is coughing right next to you

Last week I was sitting at a conference presentation and the person behind me started coughing. They were unmasked, as was I. I am low-risk for Covid complications, and have accepted the risk I’m taking going unmasked in public settings, but I still don’t want to expose myself when someone around me clearly seems ill.

I didn’t know this person, so I don’t know if they were sick/just allergies and didn’t feel comfortable asking. I didn’t want to offend them (or get into an argument) by masking up when they started coughing, and for the same reason I didn’t move my seat (we were in the back and they would definitely have seen me move, plus I didn’t want to disrupt the presenter). For the same reason, leaving the presentation entirely wasn’t an option. I chose to do nothing, sat there trying to not visibly wince every time they coughed, and took a ton of vitamin C as soon as I got home! If (when) I find myself in this situation again, what’s the best way to handle it in a way that keeps me as germ-free as possible, while not insulting anyone or risking a scene?

The best thing you can do is to carry your own mask and put it on if you feel uneasy. You can’t control what someone else is doing, but you can take steps to control your own level of exposure. It sounds like you felt that would be a rude and obvious reaction to their coughing, but it’s not rude to take measures to protect yourself (and they don’t know what your situation is; maybe you meant to be masked the whole time and forgot until the sound of a cough reminded you) … but if they do take offense, that’s their own issue. If they comment on it (unlikely from someone sitting behind you mid-presentation, but not impossible), you could just cheerfully say, “Yeah, I can’t risk getting sick right now, should have had this on the whole time!” If they have Feelings about that, that’s on them. You’re protecting yourself, not asking them to do anything differently.

That said, I also think it would have been fine to get up and move. If they saw you, oh well! If someone is coughing in public, some people might choose to keep a distance. That’s just how it goes. An alternative is to get up for a different reason — grab some coffee or go to the bathroom — and then choose a different seat when you return.

Obviously there’s also a whole thing here about how people can spread infections without coughing or having other visible symptoms, but you’re aware of that and it’s not unreasonable to calibrate your level of risk tolerance to “if you visibly have a higher chance of being ill, I want to take extra protection.”

3. Employee turns in paperwork with gross things on it

Is there a good way to address what I think are occasional dried boogers on paperwork? I can’t believe I have to ask this. I’m a manager and starting a couple months ago (with an employee I’ve had for 10 years) it has become a not-too-uncommon event to find dried boogers on paperwork they turn in. I don’t want to keep dealing with it, but I’m afraid of what happens after I say something. We all have embarrassing habits and I don’t think I could return to the office if anyone ever had to have a conversation like that with me.

Gross, what the hell! You could address it without speculating on what the, uh, foreign matter is: “Could you please ensure your paperwork is clean before you turn it in? Lately there have been things smeared on it.” If they seem confused, hand one of the papers back and say, “Like this — I’m not sure if it’s food or something else, but I’d like you to be more careful to keep paperwork clean.”

But also: is something else going on with this employee? This seems awfully similar to people who purposely do gross things to bathroom walls as an act of hostility. Eeeww, I’m going to stop thinking about it now, but sadly you have to.

4. Can I call out a hiring manager for excessive back-channeling?

A few weeks ago, I turned down an offer for a position with a company I’d been referred to by a friend. This friend’s organization is a client of the agency that made me the offer.

During the hiring process, the co-founder had reached out to my friend for a back-channel reference check, which I thought was a bit odd. I would’ve been happy to have that conversation with him and answer firsthand, but my friend did splendidly. I brought it up during a subsequent chat but didn’t make a fuss. However, that prompted me to listen much more carefully, and several red flags were raised, which is why I ultimately turned the offer down. The CEO and his right-hand dude both received my email response to their offer.

Cut to now, almost a month later. I receive a text from my friend showing the message she received from the CEO on LinkedIn. He states that he offered me a much higher salary than I expected but that “something that was said during the offer must’ve turned (me) off”, and he was hoping he could get some “back channel feedback” from her.

I’ve already drafted an email to the CEO, because I feel very icky about the whole thing — that he’d reveal something like this to my friend, a third party to this entire process, feels like my privacy was violated. It’s also dragging her into this unnecessarily, which I find inconsiderate of them. Especially when they could’ve written to me directly at any point, but chose not to. I know it’s template “tech dude heard a tip about back-channeling at a conference and figured he’d do this all the time,” but I feel like someone should at least try to shake it out of him. Am I off-base, or is this just deeply out of touch with professional norms?

It’s not off-base that he contacted your friend for a reference — she’s their client and she referred you for the job; it would be surprising if if he didn’t ask for her thoughts on you. When someone refers a candidate for a job, it’s understood that they might be asked for their impressions about the person. That part isn’t weird or inappropriate.

The message after you turned down the offer is odder — not necessarily because he asked if she had any insight into what went wrong (they have a relationship, she referred you) but the way he asked it is a bit off (sharing the salary thing, calling it “back channel feedback,” implying they must have turned you off in some way rather than you just not thinking it was the right fit). Also, there’s not always a sharable story when you turn down an offer, especially not one you’d want someone else to share on your behalf. So I’d say that was a bit off, but not shockingly so, and not something worth calling him out for.

5. Screening candidates when your candidates aren’t great at applying and interviewing

As a candidate I’ve read so many of your Q&As and tips on writing resumes, cover letters, interviewing skills, etc. and it’s made such a massive difference to the interview process each time I’ve been on the candidate side, so firstly — thank you! Secondly, from an employer/manager side, I’d love to get your thoughts on what to screen for, or what to do, when you aren’t getting applicants who have done these things.

We are hiring in a relatively competitive market for a mid-level job (non-management) at a mid pay range (on the high end of industry and role salary bands, but not over and above) and what I’ve noticed is that the majority of candidates are not writing cover letters, or when they do both the letters and their resumes aren’t personalized to the job at all. Oftentimes its clear even at the interview stage that they haven’t put any effort in to researching the company or industry, and these are the best of the candidates applying.

I guess my question is in this type of situation, do I take it as a mark against them (I am happy and able to keep the position open and keep searching) or do I accept that this is the standard of applications and focus more on their skills? Part of this is I see it as a bit of a double standard — I would never send an application/interview like this but I am aware I am a very career-oriented person — but maybe this is okay in some situations?

Yes, it’s okay.

When you’re the one looking for a job, it’s in your interests to present the most compelling case for yourself as a candidate that you can. That’s what all the advice about strengthening your resume and cover letter and prepping for interviews is about.

But when you’re hiring, your job is to identify the candidates most likely to excel in the job. That doesn’t necessarily mean the person who wrote the best cover letter or prepared the best! Those things help candidates show you who they are and why they’d (hopefully) excel at the job — but they are means to an end, and you only need to be focused on the end (which is finding the strongest person for the job). You’re not looking for the person who’s the best at job-hunting; you’re looking for the person who will be the best at the role you’re hiring for. Candidates who take the sort of job-search advice here make it easier for you to see when that’s them, but them doing it/not doing it isn’t on its own a reason to hire/not hire them.

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

1. CEO said she “can’t stand” me in a public Slack message

Two years ago, I was recruited to a team I had long admired and knew well through a shared network. I was excited to join, and my initial six months were extremely positive and I was elevated to our leadership team.

During this time, I experienced some growing pains with my role and expressed my frustrations to a colleague. That colleague unfortunately betrayed my confidence, and word that I was unhappy got to our CEO. I found this out because my CEO accidentally put a message in a public Slack channel about how much she “can’t stand” me and that I was “an ungrateful brat.” A number of colleagues saw it, and it triggered a breakdown that has taken time to recover from.

My supervisor has been extremely supportive, but said there will probably never be a resolution to this. My CEO has never and likely will never apologize or bring it up. I do not work in an environment where I can be supported by HR in filing a complaint. Over a year later, it still weighs on me. My CEO and I don’t speak. I was dropped from our leadership team without explanation and have hit a ceiling in terms of my role here. To make matters worse, I work in a smaller office in another city from our main HQ. I feel increasingly isolated and it impacts my work. I’m a senior level person and in my 40s — the idea of finding another job is terrifying and unlikely. But I also feel trapped and retaliated against in my workplace. How can I resolve this? Do I need to simply find an exit plan?

First, your CEO sucks! People in a position of power have a responsibility to speak more judiciously, even if they think they’re speaking privately. And once the Slack incident happened, she had a responsibility to deal with it — to find a way to clear the air and to work through whatever issues led to her feeling that way, and to be straight with you if she didn’t think they were resolvable.

But yes, you need to get out of there. Fair or not, your CEO has publicly said she can’t stand you, and you’ve seen firsthand the impact on your career there: she won’t speak to you, you’ve been dropped from leadership, and you’ve been isolated. Your manager has told you nothing is going to change. It makes no sense to stay.

People find jobs in their 40s (and beyond) every day; it’s by no means “unlikely” that you will! That’s not to downplay age discrimination, which is a real thing, but it doesn’t mean you can’t get hired. (Consider all the forms of discrimination that are out there; discrimination is usually about having extra obstacles, not about never finding another job again.) You might have barriers you didn’t have when you were younger, but you’re still highly likely to find another job if you start looking.

2. We listed salary in the ad but still got people asking for much more

I was recently part of the hiring process to fill two positions within the team I’m on. The role is a project management job with some technical aspects for a specific tool under the umbrella of a larger nonprofit. The job being what it is, we get applicants with all sorts of backgrounds from pre-law/law, to social work, to education, to computer science, and some folks with more customer service or help desk backgrounds — all of which can be a reasonable fit in the right situation. Knowing how wide the applicant pool would be, in the ad we made sure to list the salary range explicitly and ask what pay folks are looking for in the application.

Despite that, maybe a fifth of the applicants listed a pay well above the advertised range. I’m talking like 1.4x or so higher on average. Some of these candidates seemed excellent, but in an effort to rein in our candidate pool (we ended up with upwards of 300 applicants), we ended up unilaterally cutting anyone who asked for more than about $10k over the high end of our range, knowing we had a little wiggle room to come up maybe $2-5k for a truly exceptional candidate and that our benefits are better than most comparable nonprofits. Was cutting the pool this way the right call?

On one hand, I know that I’d be frustrated if I asked for a specific amount, went through the interview process, and then at the end of the process was offered something around two-thirds of what I asked for. But on the other, the range was posted in the ad, so maybe they’re just hoping we have more wiggle room than we have or they’ve been given advice to ask high so that there’s room to come down and would have been fine with the high end of the advertised range. Is there something we could have or should have done to check?

It’s not unreasonable to cut your pool that way, but I don’t love it if it meant you were cutting people who looked really strong. With people who you otherwise would have been excited to talk to (meaning they were really strong relative to the rest of the pool, not just generally qualified), why not just ask about at your first stage of screening (which is hopefully something low-commitment like a short phone interview)? It’s perfectly reasonable to say in that first contact, “I’m not sure if you saw the range we listed was $X-Y and we don’t have wiggle room on that. You wrote that you’re seeking $Z, so I want to be up-front that we will not be able to go that high. Does it still make sense to proceed?”

But also, I’d strongly recommend that you stop asking people to list what pay they’re looking for on the application. It’s great that you’re listing your range — keep doing that! — but there’s no reason to ask candidates to give a number themselves. That just invites games around salary, where people will worry about undercutting themselves or overshooting … and it’s not necessary. You know what you’re willing to pay. You’ve told them what you’re willing to pay. If the concern is that they might be in a lower part of your range than they’re anticipating, you can clear that up in the first screen too — “for candidates with your level of experience in X, you’d be in the X-Y part of our salary range.” Then they know and can decide if they want to continue or not.

3. Can smoking keep you from getting hired?

My niece is a smoker and has interviewed for several jobs but hasn’t received any offers. She has a great work history but moved to a different state and usually does a Zoom interview, then gets called back for an in-person interview and that’s it. Many places are “health” places (hospitals, doctor’s offices, etc.) and I wonder if the smell of smoke on her is a deterrent? She gets pretty defensive, so I hesitate to bring this up. But if I were a hiring person it would definitely have a negative impact on me because I hate smoking.

Yes, it’s definitely possible. If she smells like smoke, that will be a strike against her with a lot of places, medical offices in particular. (Although some states do have laws that prohibit employers from discriminating against smokers.) It doesn’t sound like you have the standing to raise it with your niece, though.

Alternately, it might not be that at all. If she’s only had a handful of interviews, it’s not necessarily meaningful that she hasn’t had an offer yet.

4. My boss undervalues me and barely pays minimum wage for skilled work

I’m a graphic designer in an extremely small office and have a BFA and 20 years experience. In September 2021, I quit, only to be begged to come back in January 2022. I came back with the caveat that it was remote only and I had to have a flexible work schedule due to my daughter’s medical needs (the reason I quit in the first place). I went back and received a $1/hour pay raise. I have been there 11 years total and started at $13/hour in 2012. Now I make $14/hour in 2023. Next year in my state, $15 will be minimum wage. The market rate for my education and experience in my field/area is $28-$50.

I explained to my boss that I don’t feel valued as she keeps giving online people (think Fiverr) my duties and gets upset when I voice my opinion. I told her that I was available 15-20 hours a week. She told me she doesn’t charge customers for artwork and doesn’t feel that paying me per project is fair because I can produce art quickly and that my pay is fair because I work from home. I told her that experience deserves compensation. I started “working my wage” (basic designs, clipart, etc. as opposed to detailed pieces the customers were used to) and not being as available, as clearly she doesn’t value me. How else can I explain that if she wants good art then she has to pay? Can I negotiate a raise? After 11 years and 20 years experience, I feel like I’m worth so much more than nearly minimum wage.

Why are you staying there? Even if you can somehow wrangle a raise out of her, it’s likely to be only a few dollars more an hour — when the market is paying people with your skills more than triple your current rate. It doesn’t make sense to stay somewhere that so wildly undervalues and underpays you and where you have to fight for every additional dollar (or where you feel compelled to resort to clipart to make your point — something that won’t help your portfolio).

Stop trying to persuade your boss to see reason, and use the market to walk. This small and stingy company isn’t the only employer out there. (I suspect you might be staying because your boss let you go remote and have flexible hours, but those things are increasingly available elsewhere too.)

5. Are informational interviews the real way to get jobs?

I am a job-searching recent college graduate. A bit ago, I stumbled upon a newsletter claiming that “normal” job applying, resume and cover letter writing, etc. are all pretty much irrelevant and the real way you get jobs is by reaching out to professionals in your field for “informational interviews” where you ask them about the field and how to grow in it. Then, because people who are already known to employers are the ones who get hired, you’ll get a job out of it all.

Am I wrong in taking it with several grains of salt and continuing in my job searching the old-fashioned way? Is this advice specific to certain career fields? For what it’s worth, the newsletter writer is in marketing and I’m in an extremely different field. I told a late-career professional in a very different field about this and they scoffed and said, “Yeah, not at my workplace!”

Anyone who’s claiming that informational interviews are the primary way to get a job is full of crap. Informational interviews can be one part of your overall strategy, but they absolutely should not be your main focus, and that’s a really weird and misleading thing for that person to claim. In fact, most people get jobs without ever doing a single informational interview — which doesn’t mean they don’t have value (they can and do) but they’re hardly the linchpin to a successful job search.

A lot of people who sell their job search advice start making odd claims like this, and I think it’s because they’re looking for some distinctive piece of advice to make their own — something that sets them apart from the standard “write a great resume and cover letter that show your track record of achievement.” That doesn’t mean it’s good advice though; much of the time it isn’t.