Ask a Manager

It’s wee answer Wednesday — seven short answers to seven short questions. Here we go…

1. Can my friend avoid being laid off?

My best friend is three months into her first full-time job post-college. It’s not in her field, but she was generally happy with having a job, her coworkers, etc. Her boss just announced that they will be laying off one staff member who will be chosen from a group of three workers doing generally the same thing (my friend is in this group).

The announcement of who it is will be coming in two weeks because it’s corporate’s decision. Naturally, the fear is that she will be the one laid off because she’s the newest worker. Is there anything she can do in the next two weeks to increase her chances of staying? Or is this basically a done deal?

There’s probably not much she can do in the next two weeks. The decision will probably be made either on seniority or merit. She obviously can’t change her seniority, and if it’s decided on merit, there’s not much she can do to change whatever impression she’s already made in that regard, good or bad. What she should do, however, is (a) start job-searching; if she’s laid off, she’ll be glad she had the head start, and if she’s not, she can short-circuit the search at that point, and (b) be prepared to ask for severance if she’s the one who’s let go. To strengthen her case there, she might point out that she turned down other jobs to take this one, if in fact she did; that argument and similar ones can sometimes help.

2. Company doesn’t offer benefits until after six months of employment

I have been offered a job which does not offer benefits (health insurance, paid time off, sick leave, etc.) for the first 6 months. It is a full-time permanent position. Employees do accrue paid time off during that six months but are not paid for any time off.

I have never experienced this before. To me, the company is saying, “We don’t expect our employees to stay here more than six months so we aren’t going to provide them with benefits,” and either people are leaving before six months or getting fired before six months, neither of which is good. What do you think of it?

Some people do leave or get fired before six months in pretty much every company. It’s possible that it’s happening here more than most, but it’s more likely that they simply have a bad insurance policy. I don’t take issue with their paid leave policy — it’s not uncommon to allow leave to accrue but say that you can’t use it in your first six months. It is, however, a bad policy not to offer insurance until six months, because it means that their employees will either have to pay to use COBRA if they had a COBRA-eligible job previously (which doesn’t account for everyone, and COBRA premiums are often very high) or that they’ll be uninsured. So that part of the policy sucks.

3. My manager asked for volunteers to do yard work at our director’s house

One of my managers asked, mostly via email to everyone, for volunteers to do yard work for our director. While this was voluntary and meant as a nice gesture to a well-respected director, it didn’t seem right to me. I voiced my opinion and now my hours have been halved. My concerns included the question of what if someone gets hurt, whether participants would later receive preferential treatment, and whether human resources would condone this.

You were right to speak up, because it’s inappropriate to ask employees to do yard work for a manager. They were wrong to cut your hours as a result. Ethically wrong, that is, and managerially wrong — legally, it’s their right to do that, but it’s a ridiculous response. If you have a good HR department, you might consider raising this to them.

4. Is it useful to mention being in the advanced stages of interviewing with other companies?

I have been working at a very idiosyncratic fixed-term contract job. I’m not paid by the company, but by a third party. It’s impossible for me to keep on working there. I have around $65,000 student loan debt, and I make almost nothing. I am granted the favor of being allowed to list a staff title (low ranking, but at least not “intern”) on my resume and on the company’s website. But it’s not a very respectable industry and has very poor exit options.

After a very, very long period of not having any leads for good, full-time jobs with decent potential for career growth, I’ve gotten a little lucky recently. I got 3 rounds with a company in my desired field, for an entry-level position. But I also am in the second round with a different company in my field, and also a second round with a company in a different, less desired field, but for a higher position.

At this point, my priority is getting any decent offer. Once I have a real job in a decent industry, I will be able to build on that and move up either there or through networking. My question is: In lieu of an offer, is there a way to leverage late stage interviews (being very deep in the interview process) with one company for another? The first company actually told me two times, in my last interview, that I should tell them right away if I had any other offers, and that could speed their decision time up in giving me an offer. It’s been a little over one week now since my final interview there. They told me they’d take a few weeks. I originally planned to follow up in two weeks.

Hearing that you have an offer from somewhere else isn’t likely to push them into making you an offer if they otherwise never would have. All it can do is speed up their decision making process — which could mean a faster “no,” not just a faster “yes.” And you definitely don’t want to bluff and say you have an offer when you don’t, because you risk hearing, “We won’t be making decisions for a while, so you should take it” and then being removed from their process.

But you’re not asking about offers; you’re asking about mentioning that you’re in advanced stages of interviewing with other companies. That isn’t really useful, because employers know all too well that hiring takes time, and you could reach a late stage with a company, only to have it take weeks (or longer) before offers are made.

5. Explaining a job gap due to a mental health issue

Until recently I held a position that I loved in the entertainment industry. However, I am in my mid-twenties, the time of onset for many major mental illnesses, and I learned I am bipolar when I had my first major manic episode. This necessitated my leaving work to get help, and while they loved me and would have held the job if possible (my boss told me this), it is obviously a fast paced industry, and taking two months off isn’t feasible.

Now that I am properly medicated and looking for work again, what do I say when asked why I left my last job? I am confident I can count on good references from my previous job, but how do I explain leaving? I don’t want to vaguely reference a medical crisis that will make them worry about my reliability, but the truth is obviously even worse! Any thoughts would be appreciated.

“I had a health issue that has since been resolved.” It’s accurate and it doesn’t reveal any more than you need to.

6. How can I find out what happened with the job I was interviewing for?

After three months of interviewing with a hedge fund for a senior role, I progressed as far as being told that we would be getting contracts shortly. Three weeks went by and nothing. I emailed and called and am getting no response. I have to assume they changed their mind, but I have never encountered this total lack of professionalism. Any suggestions on how I can find out what happened?

You might not be able to. You’ve attempted to contact them multiple times and they’re not responding. At this point, all you can do is chalk it up to rudeness on their side and move on — which will serve you far better than spending any energy trying to figure out what happened anyway. (Because really, it doesn’t matter what happened, whether it was a better candidate coming along, the position being put on hold, hiring being frozen, doubts about your fit for the role, or whatever. Sure, it would be nice to know, but since they’re being rudely unresponsive, just move on.)

7. My company won’t compensate me for the level of work I’m performing

I am in a situation where I have been in my current job for over 2 years, have been doing excellent work for those two years, but not getting the pay nor the title associated with that level of performance. My performance reviews have been Exceeds Expectations during this time, and the feedback I get is that I am performing at a level far beyond my experience. Not only that, over the last year, my company assigned me to the most critical product launch in the last 10 years, one that saves the company if it is successful, and dooms it if not. (It has been successful and is nearly fully launched.)

My dilemma is this: I am much younger than the typical person in this role, yet I am performing at that much more experienced level and I think I should get compensated for it. The excuse from my management is that I do not meet the on-paper experience requirements for them to place me at the organizational level I think I deserve, and that HR will fight it to the death. My company’s policies/philosophy for this type of thing makes it much more attractive to leave the company for 1-3 years and come back for substantially higher salary and organizational level.

How hard should I push my manager/management, or should I begin to look elsewhere? I do not wish to leave the company, and I very much like the people I work for. My gut feeling is that they do not currently see me as someone at risk to leave, so they are not thinking about this in the same light I am. That said, I am aware that most of the large corporate mindset in America these days is that everyone and anyone is replaceable and that they won’t “use their chips” to “go to bat” for you. I have a mid-year performance evaluation coming up in about a week, and I plan to discuss this then. What should I do?

Start looking for another job. You answered your own question here: “My company’s policies/philosophy for this type of thing makes it much more attractive to leave the company for 1-3 years and come back for substantially higher salary and organizational level.”

You can certainly tell your manager that you’re concerned that the company’s policy encourage you to leave in order to be appropriately compensated, and that you’d like to stay but you do want to be paid fairly … but that’s about all you can do. If you want more money and they won’t give it to you, you’ll need to go somewhere else to get it.

It’s tiny answer Tuesday — seven short answers to seven short questions. Here we go…

1. I was interviewing for a job when suddenly they started talking about an internship instead

I am going in for a third (and final) interview for a customer service position at a large corporation and have several years of experience in the field. This position would have significantly better benefits and pay as outlined in my initial interview (and posted position). I just received an email stating that my third interview is for a customer service “intern.” I never applied for this, never discussed it, and frankly have no interest. As an intern there are no benefits, and the pay is 40% less than discussed. What are my options, and how are they getting away with this assumption that intern is an acceptable level for someone more qualified?

Well, they’re not “getting away” with anything (it takes two to interview and put someone in a job, you know; it’s not something they can “do to you”), but more importantly, you haven’t spoken up about it! For all you know, it could be a mistake or miscommunication — why didn’t you immediately write back and say, “Your email says that this is for an internship, rather than the staff position we’ve been discussing. Can you please clarify?” If they respond that they think you’d be a better candidate for the internship, then you can let them know that that’s not a path you’re interested in.

2. Asking for an informational interview with a related office

I’m a new paralegal with ABA certification and I’m interning at the county trial court (mostly doing administrative work for a judge’s court clerk). I’m wondering about the best way to request an informational interview with the prosecutor’s office (in the same building) and the public defender’s office (down the street). I’d like to introduce myself and get my resume into the hands of the hiring managers.

It’s a plus that I’m interning because I see assistant prosecutors and public defenders daily in court, and a referral from a judge would go a long way. But I’m not sure about the initial contact with these offices. Should I call, email, mail, or walk my resume in? I do have a contact who works at the prosecutor’s office, but she is in a very junior position and extremely flaky (to be generous). Not sure whether it’s even a plus to mention a connection to her.

Email. Always, always email unless your contact there specifically instructs you to do otherwise. Email allows them to respond when it’s convenient for them (unlike calling or showing up in person), and it allows them to review your materials before doing so.

However, are you sure what you want is an informational interview? Those are not to get jobs; those are to learn about a field. If you ask for one and it turns out you’re hoping they’ll think about hiring you, they’ll (a) not agree to the meeting if they figure it out beforehand, or (b) be really irritated if they figure it out afterwards. If what you want is a job interview, that’s what you need to say.

3. Did my company secretly have this recruiter call me?

I work for a large corporation and was recently told by my manager that I could be promoted this year pending the HR process. About four weeks after that conversation, I got a call from a recruiter saying they saw my profile on Linkedin and had a position I might be interested in.

My company is experiencing a lot of turnover lately. Is it possible HR had this recruiter call me? This recruiter was working very hard to pull information out of me and I got nervous and when that person asked for me to send a resume, I said I would (even though I had no intentions of doing so; I just wanted to end the call). Instead I sent the recruiter an email later that night saying I am happy with my current employer and am not interested in another job.

I mean, it’s possible that HR had a recruiter call you, but it’s very, very unlikely. Close to paranoid levels of unlikely. That’s not how these things normally work. And when a recruiter calls, they normally do try to pull a lot of information out of you, so that isn’t a signal of anything nefarious.

4. Can my resume be as short as half a page?

I’m an average college student. I’ve had a couple internships, and am active in few campus organizations. I strive to keep my resume concise and objective, which makes it roughly half of a page. Is there anything wrong with that? I’m not sure. My college’s career center said yes, and constructed a version that “solved” the problem by being verbose. They also had me include work experience from high school. Perhaps having a half ‘o’ page resumé is an issue, but there’s a better way to fix it.

Yeah, you really want to have enough to say about your qualifications that it fills a page — otherwise, you’re basically conceding that you have so few qualifications that no reasonable employer should consider hiring you … which is the opposite of the normal goal of a resume. That doesn’t mean you should be superfluously wordy, but with a couple of internships and the high school jobs (assuming they were within the last 5-ish years), you should be able to fill a full page if you think about what you did in those jobs.

5. Can I decline an exit interview?

I’m resigning as soon as I get a written offer for another position and formally accept. But I always dread exit interviews. I’m not going to say anything negative because I don’t want to risk hurting a future reference from my current managers, so I’m just going to be super positive and say how great everything is at my current job. There’s nothing horrible going on like harassment or anything that I would feel obligated to report, but there is plenty that needs to be addressed and those things certainly are the reason I’m leaving. With this in mind, how would it be viewed by HR if I just politely declined the exit interview? If it matters, this is a Fortune 500 company, I have a professional position and have been there about two years.

I would much, much rather you simply decline the exit interview than be falsely positive in it. If it’s a form to fill out, just don’t fill it out. If it’s an actual meeting and HR makes it hard for you to avoid it, it would be better to simply be carefully neutral than to take positivity that you don’t feel. But try to just avoid it if you can — say you have a ton to do before you leave or something like that.

6. Online application systems that won’t accept design portfolios

I’m a designer, so I often check design-specific job boards for postings. As expected, to apply for a design position, these postings always ask you submit your resume and portfolio/samples. But large corporations usually don’t give out email addresses; they instead direct you to their career center website. The problem I’m running into is these are never set up to accept portfolios. The past three jobs I’ve applied to… One allowed you to upload a max of 500KB, which is pretty much my resume and nothing else, and my resume is nothing fancy. One just wouldn’t upload my portfolio, no error message, no size limit given (it was 5MB, which I consider reasonable); no matter how many times I hit upload, nothing happened. And one just didn’t even give me the option; there was space to cut and paste my resume and that’s it, no option to upload anything.

So given these difficulties, I’ve just been putting a link to my online portfolio in my cover letter and resume. Short of maybe stalking people on LinkedIn to get a contact, which seems insane, I can’t think of another way to get my work in front of them. But the posting specifically asks to send work samples (and then provides no way of doing so!), and I hate feeling like I’m wasting my time creating targeted resumes, cover letters, and portfolios that they will never see because of there system. Is this reasonable to expect them to click on the link I send? Or am I just wasting my time even applying?

Your solution of including a link to your portfolio in your cover letter and in your resume is exactly right. It’s perfectly reasonable to expect that if your cover letter and resume interest them, they’ll follow the link to see your work. Keep doing that, and don’t stress about it.

7. Should I keep following up for feedback from the job that rejected me?

I interviewed for a job, and didn’t get it. They asked me to ring them, which I did, where they then said I didn’t get it, and asked if I had any questions for them. Note that when they told me, it was exactly when they promised they’d get back to everyone.

I asked for feedback, and the manager said she’d get back to me in the next few days. When a week had elapsed with no response, I sent an email to follow up, saying I was fine with written feedback if she was too busy to phone. She responded by email, saying, “No it’ll be fine, ring me tomorrow.” I did, and she said she was snowed under and could she ring me back in 45 minutes. That never happened, and that was last Friday. Fridays and Mondays are generally busy, so I didn’t bother following up yesterday. Now that it’s Tuesday, should I, or move on? Have I persisted enough in getting feedback?

Yes, move on. You’ve requested her feedback three times now — and while she’s actively encouraged you to do that, if she really was motivated to give you feedback, she would have done it by now.