Ask a Manager

It’s seven short answers to seven short questions. Here we go…

1. My employer is sticking me with part of the bill for out-of-town travel

My employer wishes me to work out of town occasionally. I have to stay in a hotel and obviously feed myself regularly. The company gives me a per diem rate of $110 to cover all my expenses. Unfortunately, this NEVER even comes close to covering my hotel costs — and I am not even being particular about a hotel. The city is Calgary, Alberta and take a peek online, there is nowhere that I can stay that will give me anything leftover for food costs.

I have explained to my employer that I am always out of pocket and I cannot afford to do this anymore. They have stated that this is all they will pay for my expenses. What are my options?

Sit down with your manager and say, “It’s costing me an average of $X of my own money each time I take a trip. I can’t continue to cover these costs, which are being incurred by our work, not me personally. I’ve looked for every place I can cut costs on these trips, but they each require around $Y, not the $X I’m allotted. Since I can’t continue to pay for them myself, what should we do?” If your company still won’t budge, then you’d be left to (a) refuse to take more trips, which may or may not jeopardize your job, (b) accept that you’re going to be paying $X in order to stay in your job, or (c) seek a new one, at a company that pays its own expenses.

2. Independent study as a way to stay current in your field

Your answer to the question in yesterday’s short answer post about taking a back-up job while continuing to seek work in your field, particularly the end where you mention being prepared “to talk about what you’ve been doing to stay current in your field,” prompted this question. What do you, as a hiring manager, think of independent study as a way to stay current in your field when your current job isn’t related to it or isn’t enough? I have been out of school for a little over a year (graduated May 2012) and while my current job looks relevant on paper, I actually don’t do much at all and don’t have any opportunities to develop skills, despite reaching out several times to my manager about this.

I am searching for a new job, but in the meantime I’ve been compensating by studying on my own time. I read books (ones I bought for classes and newer ones I’ve acquired since graduating), follow germane and reputable blogs, and learn software. Since I can’t “prove” I’ve been doing this, not with hard evidence anyway, would it be worth mentioning it in a cover letter or interview? I mean, anyone can say they’ve been keeping up on their own time, so maybe a hiring manager would either be skeptical or not care one way or the other if I bring it up. I’d really appreciate your insight.

Yes, absolutely you should mention it! If it makes sense to mention the software on your resume, you can list that there, and you can talk about the rest of it in your cover letter and interviews. Hiring managers love to see this kind of thing — it indicates a passion for your field, a desire to continue improving your skills, and self-motivation to do that stuff even when it’s not required; it’s the mark of a better-than-average employee, by far.

3. What leverage do I have in negotiating a higher salary for my promotion?

I literally fought for my promotion after being in the current role for 5+ years. Finally I made them budge by suggesting that I was going to apply for a higher position in a different department within the same company. I made up my mind to really move to that position, in case things did not go my way.

Now I am being offered a promotion with a 6% raise and was told either to accept it or stay in the current position. I was expecting at least a 10% raise and I know others in the promoted role are being paid at least 20% more than what I am making today in my current role. I want to know what leverage I have now and how to negotiate for more.

The leverage you have is your willingness to walk away from both jobs, and how much they’d care if you did. I don’t have any sense from here of how much they’d care, but you probably have at least some idea. (Be aware, though, that sometimes people overestimate that.)

You can certainly make the argument for the work and your skills being worth a higher salary, and you can back that up with market research, but they may or may not budge. If they don’t, you’ll have to decide if you’re interested in the terms being offered or whether you’d rather stay in your current job or look for one outside the company.

(Also, did you really “literally” fight for your promotion? That seems like it would be a firing offense.)

4. Is it better to hire for skills or attitude?

I am a fairly new manager, and I am in the position of having to hire new staff. One of my staff recently accepted a promotion so her position is vacant. My supervisor has told me to focus on skills when creating the job description — that it does not have to be the same exact position title or position as before. I am excited about the opportunity to shape my team, but I do have a dilemma about this. I have two junior staff on my team, and both of them have come to me about the position. One has the right can-do attitude, completes any task given to her, and she is looking to move ahead in the organization, but she lacks technical skills. The other has more technical experience, and she told me point-blank that she would be resentful if the other junior staff member got promoted because she feels that she would have to train her to be able to do the job she is promoted to. I made no promises to either of them and thanked them for expressing their views.

My question to you as I write the job description — is it better to have someone in a team lead role who has a strong work ethic and is all around positive and can learn the skills or is it better to hire someone based on skills only? What is most important — the skill set or the attitude and growth potential?

It depends on the job. There are some jobs where it might make sense to hire for attitude and teach the work itself, when it won’t require a major investment of time to do so. There are other jobs where experience and a pre-existing skill set are essential. I don’t know which you’re dealing with, but I do know that what you never want to do is hire only for skills. That’s a recipe for disaster. You might require the skills to be there, but you should always require the right attitude to be there — because that’s something that you can’t really teach, nor should you spend your time trying. So if your second staff member has a poor attitude, I’d discount her based on that alone.

That doesn’t mean that you should hire the other one though … which leads me to this: Is there a reason you’re determined to pick between these two people, rather than opening the job up and comparing these two to outside candidates? You might find a candidate who has the skills, attitude, and growth potential that you want — and you should hire the best person for the job, not confine yourself to a choice of two.

5. Should I evaluate my current job on where it might take me in 5-7 years?

I have been told a few times that if I want to be promoted, I should be evaluating my current positions on a 5-year basis — i.e., if there is no room to move up in the next 5-7 years, I should leave the company and find a new company with more growth potential. Do you think this 5-year plan is a valid theory, especially with the high unemployment rate?

I think it’s useful to think about where you want to be in 5-7 years and whether your current job is positioning you well for that — but that doesn’t mean that it has to provide you with room to move up within the company. Your current position might have no growth potential internally but might be positioning you really well to eventually move up outside your company. It’s about growth potential generally, not specific to your current organization.

6. Should I cover scars on my arms for interviews?

I graduated school back in December and have been applying to jobs ever since. More recently, I have been going on interviews that have gone quite well. I would love to get one of these jobs, but I was cutter for about ten years and as such have scars from it (a lot of scars and some that are quite noticeable). I read your post about bruises and cuts, but my question is should I keep my scars covered in interviews, and while I am at work in general?

I worry that it will cause potential or future employers to worry about my mental health, and thus whether if I would be a good fit. I tend to wear a lot of cardigans because I love them, but also don’t want to make people feel uncomfortable, but this has raised a lot of questions in the warmer months. I am hard worker and I tend to be private, and don’t want what was a past problem to be cause for concern now.

I’d cover them for interviews, mainly because you don’t want an interviewer focusing on anything about you other than how you’d do in the job. But I wouldn’t use a cardigan for that — in most industries, that’s too informal for an interview. You want a suit jacket for interviews.

Once you’re in a job, you have a lot more leeway. If you don’t feel like covering your arms, you shouldn’t have to — but if you feel private about it, there’s no reason you can’t wear cardigans (lightweight ones in the summer). If anyone asks you about it, you can simply say you get cold easily. And given the prevalence of overly air conditioned offices, you’re probably not going to be the only one in a cardigan anyway. Good luck.

7. Should I jump ship or stay where I am?

I work in an industry (media) where building my profile outside the company is really important.

I work for a smallish company that’s doing pretty well, and I recently asked for my job title to reflect the job I’m actually doing (which I started doing when the person who was doing it was fired).

The company is dragging its feet on this. I never get a “no,” I just get a “Well, there’s a lot going on right now and I’ll have to think about it.” I’ve asked three different people at various levels of the command chain about this over the past six months, and all that’s happened in the meanwhile is that my workload and responsibility — and to be fair, my level of public exposure — have increased while my pay and job title have not.

Meanwhile, there’s an opening at a competitor at the level I’m looking for that I could probably get. But it’s a back-end job that won’t see me building as much of a profile outside the company as I am now. Should I cut my losses here and jump ship? Or will moving into a back-office role not be worth the pay raise in the end?

I don’t know — which will better serve your long-term professional interests? It sounds like your current one might, but there’s not enough information here for me to know.

What I can say for sure, though, is that your choices aren’t to stay in your current job or to take a job that doesn’t sound like it would serve your professional interests as well. Your choices are to stay in your current job or conduct a search for work elsewhere — not just at this one competitor.

It’s seven short answers to seven short questions. Here we go…

1. Is a back-up job going to hurt my chances in the future?

I graduated in January and despite having experience have not been able to find a position in my field. I’ve been pushed by my family to take a retail job as a “back up,” especially since my family and I have started paying my loans back. I’ve recently taken a job at a big box retailer. I was hoping I could do freelance on the side, but I’ll be working in the store 30+ hours a week so I don’t know if that will be feasible. I know I’m not the only one in this economy who’s had to take a retail job to keep their head above water financially, but I’m afraid it’ll hurt my chances in the future and I’ll be stuck there. Do you have any advice?

Also, do I have to list this job on my professional resume? I obviously wouldn’t try to hide it from employees if they asked, but this job is in no way related to my field and it would be a waste of space on my resume.

Retail work isn’t likely to hurt your chances more than simply not having recent work experience in your field. So the question is really whether it will make you less likely to pursue other jobs, go on interviews, and take on freelance work that could bulk up your resume. If you can minimize those impacts, I wouldn’t have any worries about this at all; if that’s the case, you’re not adding any problems, just income. (And even if that’s not the case, financial realities might dictate that you need to take this work anyway.)

You don’t need to put it on your resume. It’s generally better to be able to show recent or current work, but (a) it’s not at all in your field and (b) as a recent grad it’s not unusual to not have been working in your field yet. That said, you’ll want to be prepared to talk about what you’ve been doing since January to stay current in your field — so make time for at least a bit of those sorts of activities too.

2. Can I decline this networking request for our alumni’s contact info?

I work as a graduate program admin in a state university. A few days ago one of our graduates — someone who graduated in the mid-80’s — emailed me and asked me if I could send him names and emails of people he went to graduate school with (in our program) so that he could network and make new connections. He wants to network because he has written a book and would like to “advertise it and sell his wares.” I do have some of their contact info, but it doesn’t seem right to share any contact information with him, and certainly not information for people who have not been here for almost 30 years and who did not ask to be “networked” with. Is this an appropriate request, in your opinion? What would you reply to a request like that? I’m sure he’s not trying to be jerky, and I certainly don’t want to be rude.

Yeah, I’d tell him that you can’t allow your alumni list to be used for advertising. However, it really depends on the policies of your program — most alumni offices have guidelines about how they will and won’t supply people’s contact information, and to who. So ideally you’d already have some rules in place to cover this. If you don’t, though, I don’t see any reason why you can’t decline, perhaps also explaining that these people haven’t given permission to have their information shared.

3. Should I have told my interviewer about another job I’d prefer?

What is your opinion on telling potential employers about other job offers or that I’m waiting to hear from offers during an interview? I ran into this problem on an interview that was my second choice, with an interviewer who wanted to hire me on the spot. But I told her that I had another opportunity in the works that I felt was a better fit, I just didn’t have the final word. It turned into an awkward situation and now I wonder if either one of them will hire me. Would you have done something different? How do you think I should handle this?

Yeah, that was a misstep. You basically told her that you’re not especially interested in the job and would only take it if something better doesn’t come along. That may well be true, but it’s close to impossible for her to feel good about hiring you when you’ve told her you don’t think it’s a great fit (which is how “the other job is a better fit” will often come across). Generally, it’s better to stall if you get an offer while you’re still waiting to hear about another (see here), rather than essentially say “I’m hoping for something else.”

4. Is it a red flag if a company doesn’t have any online presence?

I am in the process of searching for a new job. I found a posting on a job board run by my state. It seems like a really cool position doing graphic design with a small company that makes displays for trade shows and other events. It’s something that I would enjoy doing and would give me great experience, but I’m having a hard time finding information about the company. They have a website that is about half finished with very minimal info. They don’t have a Facebook page, Linkedin page, Twitter, nothing. I always like to do my research on any company I apply to just to be sure that it’s somewhere I really want to be and so I can things to my cover letter about work they do, etc. I’m pretty positive it’s a legit business, but I guess they’re just really bad at marketing themselves. Should I be wary of applying for a position with a company that I can’t find a lot of info on?

On a side note, would it be rude to mention in a cover letter that I would be more than glad to help them with their website, if offered the position?

If they’re a small company, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. A lot of smaller companies don’t have much presence online; believe it or not, not every business requires it! (And even those that have websites often don’t have Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook pages — that part definitely isn’t weird.) If you’re worried about whether they’re legit, tell them during your interview that you had trouble finding much about them online and ask them to tell you a bit about their history and keep your eyes open for red flags — but the lack of online presence alone isn’t troubling.

I wouldn’t mention that you’d be glad to help with their website in your cover letter if it’s not a part of the job — this seems like a company that doesn’t much care about the Internet, and while it’s possible that they’d love the help, it’s at least as likely that they’d take that as a sign that you’d be focused on things they don’t see as priorities.

5. Are clients being insensitive after my coworker’s death?

I work in client services for a tech company. Our organization is structured so that each client has a dedicated account manager and dedicated project manager. Last week, the account manager who I worked with on two of my clients unexpectedly passed away. It’s a big loss both personally and professionally.

The reason I’m writing though is that I’m perplexed about how some of my clients are handling the situation. I know it’s business and business doesn’t just stop when someone dies. However, the way some of my clients are acting isn’t sitting well with me. One particular client is coming to town for the funeral and wants to have a business meeting discussing the transition plan right after the service. It hasn’t even been a week since my coworker’s death! And the day after my coworker passed, a different client wrote me an email asking for updates on a project and closed it with “P.S. Sorry about John.” And another client called to express condolences, but then was all “so about that TPS report.” I kind of expected they’d give me and my company a little space to deal with the loss of our coworker and friend. Am I being too sensitive or are these clients being insensitive?

A little of both, probably. The reality is that business does go on, at least outside your firm — and that’s what you’re seeing. These people need to continue to conduct their business, and they’re dependent on your firm for some of it. You can certainly push back on the guy who wants to have a transition meeting right after the funeral, but you’re going to need to have that meeting fairly soon — they do, after all, need to move forward with their work. The other stuff, though — well, that doesn’t seem terribly offensive to me. These people just aren’t as close to the situation as you are, and people don’t always realize that the death of a coworker can be quite different than the death of another type of business contact who you see less often. I’m sorry about your coworker, by the way.

6. If I spot a mistake on a time card, who do I talk to?

If I am in charge of time cards in payroll and I see a mistake that wasn’t there before, am I supposed to ignore it, take to the manager, or go to the employer for correction?

This is exactly the sort of question you’re supposed to ask your manager. This kind of thing varies widely by office. You need to find out how your manager wants you fielding this sort of thing — so ask.

7. Fired and charged for burglary

Our 19-year-old son was working in a grocery store. He, along with the night manager and other crew, were ringing each other up for $1.00 and eating a piece or two of day-old chicken and Jo Jo’s on their break. A security company came in to do questioning and began with my son. They made it a huge deal for three hours, forced a confession, and actually arrested him for felony burglary. The others kept their mouths shut, didn’t confess, and still have their jobs. The security company told our son he would be called by the store the next day and fired.

No one called, no one sent a letter. We finally contacted an attorney, who worked his way to the headquarter’s HR manager who stated that the security team was overzealous and they were dropping the charges for a fine. And the town prosecutor is dropping the charges. The whole thing is ridiculous and has cost us >$1,000.

Now our son is looking for a new job. Was he fired? What should he put on future applications? Should he send them a letter of resignation?

Yes, he was fired. The charges being dropped doesn’t change the fact that your son was fired; those are two different things, and so it wouldn’t make sense to send a resignation letter.

Ideally, he’d just leave this job off of future applications. There’s no reason to call attention to a situation that’s likely to hurt his chances.

It’s seven short answers to seven short questions. Here we go…

1. Do I have to tell a recruiter what company I ultimately took a job with?

After I accepted a job offer, I received an email from a recruiter from another company asking me to come in for an interview. I immediately responded back, thanked her for considering me as a candidate, and told her I would have to decline because I accepted a job else where. She responded back and asked me where I accepted the job. I have not responded back and don’t know if I am going to. Do I need to respond back? Is it rude if I don’t?

Is this a recruiter you’d been working with or someone who contacted you out of the blue? If it’s someone you’d been working with, it would be rude not to reply at all, but if you for some reason don’t want to share the company you’re going to, you could share the title/type of work instead — for instance, “I’ll be working as a communications analyst. Thanks for your help!” On the other hand, if this is someone who you hadn’t been in contact, you don’t even need to reply if you’d rather not, and they’re probably fishing for contacts.

2. My coworker complains people are rude to her, but she’s the rude one

A coworker constantly complains about how mean people are to her, how cutting, and how rude. Yet she constantly makes rude comments herself. During lunches with her, she has said the following to me: “Your nail polish looks like something my daughter would wear. What are you thinking?” “You probably got this job because you’re always wearing fancy high heels.” “Your hair always looks the same” (after I got 7 inches cut off).

Should I gently suggest she is bringing the negative talk to her with her own comments (I have no evidence of this, just a guess), or simply stay out of it? By the way, I have started to avoid her. We don’t work closely enough together for me to have to work with her at all.

You’re not under any obligation to point this out to her, particularly since your job doesn’t require you to work with her … but you could certainly say something if (a) you think it will do any good or (b) you’ll feel better for speaking up.

Also, who gets jobs by wearing fancy high heels?!

3. Phone interview went terribly because the position was different than what I’d expected

A friend of mine referred me to a company in an area I’ve been interested in moving to for while now. I read up on the company and got really excited about working there, though they didn’t have any current openings that fit with me. I sent my résumé to their general inquiries listing and immediately got a phone call — they thought I would be a perfect fit for a new role that was a combination of chocolate teapot troubleshooter and designer. I explained I mainly had experience in troubleshooting and was still very junior at designing. They said that was fine, the position was mostly troubleshooting, and could I do a phone interview? I of course said yes and had the phone interview today.

It went awfully; really, truly, awfully. They basically grilled me for 20 minutes straight on technical design questions, about 75% of which I could not answer. I was probably noticeably shaking by the end. When they asked if I had any questions, I explained that I was not expecting this position to focus so heavily on the design part and that it seemed they wanted someone with a lot more experience than me. They said there was a lot of focus on troubleshooting and kind of rambled for awhile; they then asked, would I still be interested? I said I was very interested in their company but I wanted to make sure I could actually contribute in the role they were filling. They said they would talk and I would find out next steps later.

At this point, should I reach out to the HR person I originally spoke with and explain that I know the interview did not go well and ask whether there was some kind of miscommunication about the position requirements? It was a truly embarrassing experience to say “I don’t know” over and over and over for 20 minutes. I want to write this off and move on, but part of me wonders if it’s possible the fact that I’m a junior teapot designer got lost in translation and they were expecting a lot more.

I wouldn’t say that you know the interview didn’t go well, since you don’t want to say that if their impression is different (and who knows, it might be). But you could certainly reach out and saw that you got the impression from the interview that the impression is primarily design work, whereas you thought it was more X, and ask if it makes sense to continue in light of that.

Read an update to this letter here.

4. Mentioning tarot cards in a cover letter

I just saw a job posting for an organization that deals with entrepreneurs. I have participated with entrepreneurial groups and events during college and I had a small on-campus business. I like to reference all of that in my cover letter, but the problem is that my business was giving advice using tarot cards. I never promoted my business as fortune telling, but still the fact I used tarot cards is going to be considered very weird to some. I do want to mention it in some way because it taught me how to handle customers, which is relevant to the job.

How should I talk about my small business in my cover letter? So far in my draft, I only mentioned I had a small business without saying what it was. And for future reference, how could I talk about it in an interview if it was brought up?

I don’t think you have to mention tarot cards in your cover letter; I think you can talk about running a small business without getting into what the business was. But you’re right that you’re probably going to be asked about it in the interview, so you’ll want to be prepared to talk about it in a way that counteracts any preconceived notions your interviewer might have about what it signifies — so for instance, if you’re concerned that people will think it’s weird or overly new agey or too out there, counteract that by being very polished and professional in the way you talk about it. Focus on the business elements of what you were doing, and you’ll convey “it’s not what you’re picturing” to people who are picturing you in a headscarf over a crystal ball.

5. I accidentally forwarded a private email

A funding agency granted one of our students a fellowship, and subsequently the student’s advisor negotiated a slightly different arrangement via email, where the funding agency committed to paying for something additional. Now an administrator at the agency is contesting that, although I think she just wasn’t informed of the arrangement. To clarify, I forwarded the email correspondence — but I mistakenly sent a later email in the conversation, where there was further discussion between administrators on my end, i.e. past the end of the professional exchange with the agency. There was nothing salacious or rude or anything of the sort, but there was some discussion of strategy. I feel as though it is completely unprofessional for me to have sent it outside of our institution.

My email program doesn’t allow me to retract messages. Do I send a follow up message to apologize? Or leave it alone and not acknowledge it might be inappropriate? Aaack.

If you just feel you need to apologize for sending them private correspondence that they weren’t intended to see, I wouldn’t worry about it — you’ll just draw more attention to it by doing it, and it doesn’t really require an apology. But if there was anything in there that might have rubbed them the wrong way, I’d actually consult with your manager about the politics of the situation — since it might be less about apologizing and more about damage control.

6. Should my employer pay for time spent taking a shuttle from the parking lot to work?

I work in an hourly position at an outlet mall in Texas. The mall management sent a flyer around stating that no employee could park in the designated employee parking area during tax-free weekend or we would be towed at our expense. We are required to park several miles away and take a shuttle to the center. Neither the mall nor my employer will compensate us for the additional time we are spending driving offsite and waiting for the shuttle. Last Christmas, there were waits of 15 to 30 minutes due to full capacity of the shuttles.

I feel we should be able to consider our start time when we arrive at the shuttle stop. Normally, we park behind the stores and go in the back entrances of our respective stores. One minute max to our store. What’s your take on the situation?

I can’t speak to Texas specifically, but at least under federal law, that’s considered part of your commute time and thus your employer isn’t required to pay you for it. The expectation is that you’ll factor in the fact that your commute might be temporarily longer during that weekend, and adjust accordingly.

7. Sunburn at work

You’ve discussed visible cuts and bruises at work, but what about visible sunburns? Those hurt to cover, hurt to look at and hurt to have. What’s a sunburned person supposed to do? Does she call in sick or go to work?

My stance on cuts and bruises is that anything more than very minor ones will look unprofessional if they’re on an easily covered area like arms and legs. I think sunburn is different, in that it’s less likely to produce the same reaction of concern, and I think you can worry less about it. (For what it’s worth though, I wouldn’t say someone with cuts and bruises should call in sick either — just cover them to the best of your ability and solider on.)