Ask a Manager

It’s mini answer Monday — seven short answers to seven short questions. Here we go…

1. Am I getting a reasonable response rate to my job applications?

I’ve never had such a hard time finding a job. I’ve been looking for well over a year now and can’t seem to find anything that would be remotely interesting or worth my while. Over the course of the past year, I’ve sent out about 30 applications, which has produced 3 interviews. In all 3 instances, I was eventually rejected at the last stage because they had found someone more qualified. However, my feelings aren’t all that hurt because I’m only in my mid-twenties and I know that there are more qualified candidates out there.

What really bothers me is the poor response-to-application ratio. In the past, I’ve never had any difficulties getting an interview for every 5 applications sent. I don’t know what changed this time around. Do you think 3 interviews for 30 applications is a reasonable ratio?

Yes, thats a reasonable response rate, especially without a ton of experience. What changed this time around is the job market — there are now far, far more job seekers than there are openings, so you have a ton of competition. That said, I’d take a look at your resume and cover letter, since nearly every time people tell they’re concerned by the response they’re getting, the problem is their resume and cover letter.

(By the way, for whatever it’s worth, 30 applications in a year of actively job searching is pretty low. That’s barely more than one every two weeks.)

2. Was I unreasonable to refuse to drive 35 miles in my own car?

I don’t have a company vehicle. My director has asked me to drive 35 miles down the motorway to another office to meet with him to accompany him to a meeting. I don’t get paid to use my own vehicle for work, and although they will reimburse me for fuel, it’s not in my terms and conditions of employment to drive to other offices within our company. Do you think it was unreasonable of me to decline? And what if I did not drive?

The director drives around himself in a luxury company car, and he originally said he would pick me up but then had a re-think, I believe because he lives around 20 miles from our office.

It’s very normal to occasionally need people to drive to a different office for meetings, etc. If you didn’t drive, you would have raised that and they would have found some other solution, but since you do drive and do have a car, yes, it was unreasonable for you to refuse. The fact that your director drives a luxury company car has no bearing on this.

3. Did declining a same-day phone interview blow my chances with this job?

I have been working with a management consulting company that also has a recruiting component. I have had a couple of interviews and good leads from them. Two days ago, they contacted me about an urgent request for a great job and asked me to tweak my resume to reflect my qualifications that match the job description. I did. Then yesterday, they asked me for a same-day phone interview with the owner of the recruiting company (not the client company), with two available interview times. I was unable to do it and asked to push it to the next business day. My reason was that my kids are off school and I would be with them all day. I left a voicemail and didn’t hear back.

My husband is concerned that I blew my chance for this job, and that not being available for the same-day phone interview is a red flag. I can understand that they might have moved on without me due to the urgency of the request, but do you feel that not being available was a red flag and/or raised concerns about my reliability/availability to do the job? Should I have arranged child are for this interview? Money is tight, and if I wait a day, they are back in school, when I am free to speak uninterrupted without the additional expense.

No, it’s not unreasonable or a red flag to be unavailable for a phone interview on the same day it’s requested. It’s normal.

Ideally you wouldn’t have mentioned that it was because of a child care situation, because that potentially raises questions in their minds about whether child care will interfere with your availability once on the job — it would have been better to simply say, “I’m unavailable today but free later int he week.” But simply declining a same-day interview isn’t alarming and in fact is pretty common.

4. Why doesn’t my boss fire my awful coworker?

We have a member of staff who is consistently late and does not do her fair share of the work. We work at a day program for adults with dementia. On Friday, she had a disagreement with the coordinator of our program and so she grabbed her purse and coat, said “F*** y’all” and stormed out at 2 pm (our workday ends at 4 pm).

This is not the first time she has done something like this. Why is our boss not firing her and hiring a more responsible person?

Because your boss is a terrible manager.

5. Manager believes it’s illegal to give references

I work at a newspaper in Ohio. We had a reporter resign, and today was his last day. He hasn’t been the best employee (actually, he’s been a nightmare), so I asked my general manager, jokingly, if he was going to give him a good reference. My general manager then told me that it was illegal to give him any reference at all. He said he was only allowed to confirm the dates he was employed.

I found this odd. I asked him if he would give him a reference had he been a good employee? He still said no. He would still only confirm the dates of employment.

I’m planning to apply for other jobs at some point in the future, and by all accounts, I’ve been an excellent employee, earning much praise from the general manager and my editor. It bothers me that when I do decide to leave, he will potentially not volunteer that information to my prospective employers. Is this correct? If so, how often do you come by it and what are your thoughts about the practice?

Your manager is 100% wrong. It is not in any way illegal to give a reference, including a negative reference, as long as the content of the reference is accurate. Certainly some companies have decided to implement policies that they won’t provide references (although in reality their managers generally still do, at least for good employees), but that’s not the law — that’s an internal company policy. And a bad one at that.

You should tell your boss that you’re concerned by his practice because whenever you move on, you’ll need a good reference from him, and (presumably) have earned one. Show him this post. And this one.

6. Do applications when you’re under-qualified hinder you in the future?

I will be graduating with my master’s degree in a few months and am beginning to apply for jobs. I’ve read your post about how to get hired if you’re under-qualified, but is there any chance that applying for a position that requires at least five years of experience when I only have three years of part-time experience will reflect poorly on me or hinder a possible future relationship with this large and well-respected organization?

Probably not … although three years of part-time experience is pretty different from five years of full-time experience. If it were three years of full-time, I’d say to go for it, but you might be pretty significantly under-qualified for what they’re looking for. It shouldn’t hurt your future chances though, unless your application materials contain those awful statements that some people use like “I’m the most-qualified candidate you’ll find for this job.” Which you should never use anyway, but especially not in this situation, since it will make you look like you don’t appreciate how your experience differs from what they’re seeking.

7. I told someone he was getting promoted, but now he’s not

I’m a middle manager who was “promoted” without any warning a few years ago (didn’t really want the promotion but wasn’t given an option other than leavimg). So I have been in this position for several years now with little to no real training. Seems I keep making mistakes with my subordinates, but this may be the worst one yet. My supervisor wants to promote one of the people who works for me. My employee had somehow overheard part of the conversation and instead of telling him I knew nothing, I discussed the plans as I knew them, although not in great detail. Now it appears he won’t be getting the promotion. Yep, hindsight is 20/20. Not only am I likely in hot water for talking about the promotion, but what do I tell him? Do I wait until I know for certain that he won’t be promoted or do I talk to him now?

You need to walk this back with the employee. Without knowing more details, like how certain it is that the promotion won’t be happening, I can’t tell you exactly what to say, but at a minimum you need to tell him that plans aren’t finalized, that many things could change, and that it won’t necessarily go in that direction, and apologize if you implied otherwise. And if it’s certain that it won’t happen, you need to tell him that.  All this needs to be now, ASAP, before he spends more time thinking this is certain. The longer you wait, the worse it will be.

However, before you talk to him, I’d ask your own boss for advice about how to handle this, because this is messy and it seems like your instincts aren’t serving you well here — get someone else in the loop to help you. And yes, that may get you in trouble with your boss, but it happened and you need to come clean. And at this point, treating your employee right is the higher priority than keeping you out of trouble.

I’d also take a hard look at whether you want to stay in a management role. If it’s not for you — and you sound like you don’t think it is — you might be making things pretty bad for the people working for you. It would be worth looking for a different job if that’s the case.

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

1. Interviewing with other companies as a way to get a raise from your current company

My husband was hired on at his current company at the lowest point of the recession. Everyone at the time knew his salary was low, including the manager who made the offer, but it was a recession, that was the going price for new hires in his industry at the time, and my husband was a recent grad and had bills to pay, so he took it. Fast forward a few years later, my husband is a star performer at his company. He has top performance scores and has received the maximum merit pay increase he can receive after each of his annual performance reviews. Plus, he loves the job. We knew the pay was still low considering his tenure and his performance, but didn’t realize how much so until recently when one of the new hires at his company–also a recent college grad–let his salary slip. The new guy makes almost as much as my husband does now after all his raises.

My husband has been considering talking to his manager about a pay increase. He apparently discussed this with one of his older, male coworkers, and the coworker recommended that my husband go interview with other companies in the area and find out what they’d offer him, then bring it back to his manager and say, “This is what I’m worth. Will you match it?” My opinion is that this is a combative move that demonstrates to your manager you don’t trust them or their judgment and that you’re halfway out the door already. Especially since he really doesn’t want to work for another company, it just seems like all that is going to come out of this strategy is burning a lot of bridges, not only with other companies but also with his current boss. My advice was to have a discussion with his boss, explaining his reasons for why he thinks he deserves a raise (including, above all, his consistently stellar performance) and a dollar amount that can be used as a starting point for negotiations. My husband thinks this will make it too easy for his boss to turn him down, though, and that “it’s business” and he should go in with another offer in his hands. What are your thoughts on this? Am I silly to think that bringing in a competing offer is only going to put out his manager?

What?! Yes, that’s a terrible idea for all the reasons you said and all the reasons I’ve listed here for not taking a counter-offer. Plus, he risks his manager saying, “We can’t match that, so take the new job and we’ll miss you.” Bluffing is rarely a good idea, if you’re not willing to follow through on it.

Your husband should go to his manager and make the case for a raise. It sounds like he has plenty of ammunition to build that case; there’s no need for games. (And plus, the subtext of any raise request is “if you don’t give me this, I may look elsewhere.” His manager will get that without him having to say it.)

2. Listing work for my sister on my resume

I’m not currently looking for a job, but I’m working on updating my resume so that it will be ready when I need it. A few months ago, my sister hired me to be an editor for her blog. The blog in question had started out as my sister writing about her academic field, but expanded as she invited other people she knew to be contributors writing in their fields. I got the job because I spent about a year emailing or texting her after every post went up to let her know about grammatical errors, typos, or suggestions on rephrasing sentences. It became a running joke amongst the contributors that no matter how error-free they thought their posts were, within five minutes of publication I would send an email. My sister decided that I had already proven myself and that the site would benefit from having the posts read by me before they went public. I definitely got the job because of my relationship to my sister, as I would never pester anyone who wasn’t family with these unasked-for lists of corrections, but I was still hired based off of how well I did the job. I don’t know if I should address the relationship on my resume or only if I’m asked about it. If it helps, I’m doing this job on top of college and a part-time job in a café, so it doesn’t look like I was out of work until my sister hired me.

No need to announce on your resume that the work is for you sister. List it just the way you would any other job.

3. Explaining why I’m leaving a job after only six months

I recently finished grad school and have been at a my first full-time job for about 6 months now. I hate it. The work is boring, which I could deal with if it weren’t for the other issues. I wanted to pursue this particular line of work because I thought it would enable me to help people, but sometimes it seems all the people at the organization care about is money. There is high turnover: at least one person a month has left since I’ve been there. My department manager is ineffective and my coworkers in my department despise her and don’t listen to her. Everyone keeps doing things their own way, which creates confusion. There are major communication issues throughout the whole organization. One of my coworkers told me that they once had someone come and talk to everyone about the importance of communication, but nothing changed. I also do not feel like I’m living up to my full potential. I know I’m just starting out, but there are a lot of times when I feel like I have nothing to do and I go around asking others if there’s anything they need help with. Many of my coworkers, who hold the same job title of me, spend half their time surfing the internet or on Facebook. I know plenty of people would be happy with the down time, but I want to feel like I’m actually doing something. (This is also a job that is funded by the state government, so I often feel like we’re wasting everyone’s money).

I’ve started searching for a new job, but I’m nervous about it reflecting negatively on me that I’ve only been at my first full-time job for a short time. I’m expecting to be asked why I’m looking for a new job and I’m not sure how to answer this question without bashing the organization. How should I answer this question?

Yeah, it’s tough to explain why you’re looking after only six months. I’d go with something about the low workload and high turnover, without getting into detail.

(The good news, if you can call it that, is that job searches often take so long right now that it might be closer to a year before you’re interviewing, and then it will be easier to explain.)

4. Organization isn’t using my volunteer work

I’ve been volunteering for a nonprofit organization for a little over a year. I recently suggested that I start writing a weekly blog post on news related to the organization’s cause. The people at the organization were interested, and have given me really good feedback about the posts. However, the woman in charge of publishing them doesn’t always do so in a timely manner. I’ve sent in 3 posts, and of those, she took 2 days to publish one, and never published another one. Obviously, after 2+ days, the “news” isn’t really anymore. Is this something worth bringing up, should I keep sending them in and hope they get published, or should I try to find another organization that might be interested in the posts?

Yep, you should address it. You’re doing this for free, after all. I don’t know enough about the context to know whether you should raise it with the people who brought you on to do this or the person in charge of publishing the posts, but you should talk to someone and say something like, “I’ve noticed that my posts aren’t always appearing or are appearing a few days later when they’re not timely anymore. Can you give me some feedback so that I can make sure I’m writing things that you’ll be able to use? And would it be more helpful for me to write on less timely topics, so they don’t need to be posted right away?”

Be open to signs that they’re not actually as enthusiastic about publishing the posts as they originally were. If that’s the case, you might be better off looking for another outlet.

5. How to move up without leaving a company

I find that I am often pigeonholed in positions that I accept. My bosses love my performance and frequently express their satisfaction. However, when another opportunity for a greater role becomes available within the company, they don’t want to let me go. I usually hear, “But I don’t want to lose you. We are a great team.” While I appreciate the praise, I want to continue up the career ladder. My career ambition is not to simply make their lives easier. I too want to professionally grow. I find myself frustrated but, moreover, feel it is not right. When such sentiments are expressed, I generally have to leave the company altogether in order to take on a more responsible position. Why utilize an employee as a painter when its clear they have the ability to build? How can this be avoided?

You need to screen for better managers before accepting a job. Ask questions about typical growth paths within the department, what past people in the position have gone on to do, and what type of growth and development you can expect after a couple of years in the job. You’re looking for managers who seem genuinely supportive of their people moving up.

6. Name changes on job applications

If you were adopted or your name was changed for some other reason as a child (and your birth certificate was amended to reflect the new name), does that count as a name you need to mention if you’re asked for other names you’ve been known by on a job application? Or does that apply only to other names that records the employer may want to check appear under?

They’re asking because they want to know for background checks and reference checks. If they call a past employer and ask for a reference for Sean Combs and the person they’re speaking to says, “I think you mean Puff Daddy,” they want to know that they’re talking about the right person. And if you’ve been known my multiple names, they might do a background check on each.

So for your purposes, no, you don’t need to mention a childhood name change.

7. Listing graduate research on your resume

I recently finished my PhD in microbiology. I did research all through my undergraduate degree, including spending the summers doing research internships, and then went directly from undergrad to graduate school. However, I became dissatisfied with research as a career towards the end of my PhD, and now I am looking for jobs that are not research focused.

Beyond the problem that having a science PhD appears to qualify you for a job doing scientific research and nothing else, I don’t know how to write a resume that will look attractive to anyone outside academia. If I were to stay on a research track, all the research I’ve done — two pages worth on my resume — would be important information for my potential employers. However, now that I am applying for non-academic jobs, I can’t imagine that the hiring managers care about the specifics of my research internships from undergrad. If I remove all of my research except for my PhD research, I’m left with an almost empty resume. I currently have a job editing scientific papers, but that would bring my resume down to two items: my current job and my PhD work. I also don’t want to look like I was a layabout in college; I worked, it’s just that it was research, not a “normal” job. How on earth does one sum up a educational/work experience track that was focused on what academia wants when one is no longer interested in a career in academia?

Yeah, you definitely don’t want two pages of information about your research. One way to condense it is to group the work by time period, — so it essentially becomes, say, three or four separate jobs — and cut out a lot of the detail. Academia wants way more detail than non-academic jobs do, so you can trim the details wayyyyyy down.

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

1. Asking my future boss to stop emailing me until I start my new job

I don’t start my new job until March 20. My new boss is already sending me emails detailing meetings I will have to attend after I start — sort of setting up a calendar for me with names, locations, things I am unfamiliar with. At the moment I am dealing with relocating and finding a place to live, which he is aware of. Can I ask him to stop? I am not even on the payroll yet, it seems not nice to bombard me with this stuff when I am already spending all my time setting up my life to just get my life situated to start the job. I don’t know if I can diplomatically say something now — and set some boundaries — or just let it go.

Send your boss an email saying something like, “Thanks for all this! Because I’m in the middle of a move, I probably won’t have a chance to read these thoroughly until I start, but I’m setting them aside for now. I’m really looking forward to the 20th!” Then put them all aside into an email folder and don’t look at them until you start.

In other words, you’re not telling him that he can’t email you — but you’re alerting him that you’re not going to be looking at any of it until you begin work.

2. Asking to leave early every two weeks for a doctor’s appointment, when you’re new

I’m entering my fifth week at a new job as an executive assistant. I’d like to resume my semi-regular mental health doctor appointments. What’s the appropriately professional amount of time that I need to wait before I can ask to leave twenty minutes early one day every other week?

Go ahead and ask now. Just explain that it’s for a recurring medical appointment so that your boss understands the request is more important than if you were asking in service of a movie matinee habit or something like that.

3. Rigid rules for job searching when collecting unemployment

I’m sure it’s no surprise that the Department of Labor is encouraging what constitutes bad job searching tactics, but I’m really curious to know what you think of the new Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, which requires those receiving unemployment benefits to track their job search and apply to at least three positions weekly. We are to list the job, where we found it, and any information that we have made available to us. Those who don’t make those three contacts can have their benefits suspended.

I happen to be one of those on unemployment, but my market is a small and tight-knit one. Making three job applications a week would be considered flooding the market. Putting jobs that aren’t in my career choice would possibly trigger the audit process they have now, which also suspends or eliminates your benefits. Three job applications a week seems a bit much to me, especially if you’re already into your career a number of years. Is there a good way to meet the new DOL law requirements without being a bad job applicant, or is this a matter of following the spirit of the new law rather than the letter?

The unemployment benefits system seems to be set up to deal with blue collar jobs and blue collar job searching conventions and not as much with white collar jobs, particularly more senior ones. You could try explaining your situation to your unemployment agency contact and asking for her advice, but with unemployment, the rules tend to be the rules. I agree that they’re not particularly well-suited to quite a few industries.

4. Listing a nearly-completed master’s degree

I never completed the requirements for my masters degree. I attended the program for all 4 required semesters and took all the necessary classes, but due to some personal crap, did not hand in my final paper and so never put in the graduation request.

Should I list on my resume that I attended this school/program? Currently it’s on my resume, and instead of MA, Arts Administration, I state “post-graduate coursework in arts administration.” But I’m worried that having it on there at all leads to questions and confusion and might be turning people off from calling me in for an interview even.

Does it relate to your field? Do you have a gap that you’ll feel awkward about explaining if you don’t list it? If the answer to either of those questions is yes, I’d list it, and wouldn’t worry too much about turning people off. But if it’s not relevant to your field and not causing any work gap issues, listing it might not serve any real purpose.

5. Is this job ad bordering on age discrimination?

I don’t have a problem with jobs listing the number of years of experience wanted in applicants, although I’m aware it can stratify applicants by age. But I’m wondering if this job description is a bit too close to the edge of being discriminatory: “If you are newer in your journalism career, have a passion for politics, an enthusiasm for online content, and a comfort moving through the digital world of web-posting, social media and the Internet, this is your opportunity to develop your skills and take your career to the next level.​”

I think this employer should be a little more careful — this seems to me to be a big red flag saying “no one old need apply.”

It doesn’t strike me that way — they’re looking for someone at a certain stage of experience, which is legitimate and pretty typical. If they rejected a newly minted journalism grad who happened to be 55 because she wasn’t young enough, then sure … but the ad on its own doesn’t raise alarm bells for me.

6. Did I go wrong with this follow-up email?

Within a couple days of applying for a job, I decided to send my first follow-up email. I have heard so much conflicting advice on this subject. Fearing I would come off pushy and desperate, I put a little spin on the email. I emailed the HR person, included some of my interests/experience, and informed her that I had just applied for the open position. Then, I noted that according to their website, they were launching a project that was in line with my interests. Duties pertaining to this project were not in the job description. So I asked her for more information on the project and how someone in the position they were hiring for would/could fit into that project.

My hope was that I would stand out by demonstrating that 1) I am very interested in the position [by sending the email], 2) I actually took the time to research the organization before I applied and 3) I have experience in an upcoming project. Even though she answered my questions, her response to the email was very formal, and the tone seemed like she may have been a bit agitated. I fear that I crossed a line. Would you recommend that I do something similar again, or should I just stay away from any from of follow up e-mails?

Yeah, that’s all stuff that should have gone in your initial cover letter. Sending it later on, before you’ve had any contact from them, just seems like a second cover letter, which is annoying. And asking questions about the project is asking for her time before she’s even determined that you’re a viable candidate, and it’s asking for her time on something that will only be relevant to you if you move forward to an interview — at which point it could be discussed then anyway. So it comes across a little like you’re being disrespectful of her time in order to try to advance your own agenda.

7. Explaining a layoff

I’m hoping you can help me phrase something in interviews so it doesn’t sound awkward and “fumbly.” I began applying to jobs about two months ago after deciding that keeping myself in good mental health was more important than sticking it out in a job that turned out to not be right for me on multiple levels (this was the workplace from hell for me; I was there about 6 months). It turns out that this job search was in fact a good idea because last week the company decided to stop publishing the magazine I was attached to (due to recession-related low ad revenue) and I was therefore laid off.

Now some of the companies I applied to are getting in touch and scheduling interviews. I’ve had two phone interviews so far and of course the “Why are you looking to leave your current position?” question has come up. The resume that these people are working from shows that I’m still employed and I’m afraid that I stumbled my way through the answer, explaining why I wanted to leave and then having to explain that I was just laid off. Even though the layoff was strictly business and not related to my work performance, I’m afraid the timing is making me look bad in terms of when I applied to these jobs and when it happened. With jobs that I apply to from this point forward, this question won’t be a problem, but what’s the best way to phrase my answer to the companies that I applied to before being laid off?

I’d say, “The magazine stopped publishing, and so all the staff is gone as of (date).” You don’t need to get into details about the fact that you were actually sending out resumes before you knew about the layoffs; this is going to be good enough for people. Although if by some chance someone asks you when you knew (which is very unlikely), you can always say that you saw the writing on the wall and started looking before the layoffs were announced.

It’s fast answer Friday — seven short answers to seven short questions. Here we go…

1. Mentioning money when asked where you’d like to be in a year

I’m a program coordinator at a prestigious university and have held my position for a little over seven months. My question is this: when a self-evaluation questionnaire asks you where you’d like to be in a year, is it okay to mention that you’d like a raise in addition to the greater responsibility that you of course hope to be taking on?

It’s not really the place for it. They’re asking where you’d like to be in terms of your job and career, not financially. If you do end up taking on more responsibility, you can certainly talk about money as part of that, but that’s not what this questionnaire is asking about.

2. Manager isn’t enforcing the rules on account stealing

I have a situation at work that has happened repeatedly and my boss has not yet enforced the rules within the organization. The rules are as follows — if there is a note in our sales database that another salesperson is currently pursuing the account, then no other salesperson can contact them for at least one year since the last follow-up activity. I have a coworker who repeatedly pursues my current large potential leads, and when I go to the boss for back-up, he does not do anything. I play by the rules because this is a small business and the other sales rep who I mentioned (who pursues my prospects) is married to the VP of Operations. Any suggestions on how I could encourage my boss to stand up for me?

All you can really do is ask. Point out that the company has clear rules on this that aren’t being followed — to your detriment — and ask for help in addressing it.

3. I don’t want my resume to be in Word

I work in a very technical, non-Microsoft field (Unix mostly), and as such I prepare my resume using the skills I know best. The end result of my resume is either plain text, HTML, or a PDF. The style is typically clean and easy to read. However, I’ve noticed two things in my job search — recruiters often demand I put my resume in a Word document (which I can never seem to make look as good), and many online applications use text boxes that make it hard to format the content in any meaningful way (like using simple bullet points).

Of course, content is king, and I spend most of my time worrying about what I write and not how it looks, but I do wonder: when my resume gets delivered to a hiring manager and has been filtered to the point of looking ugly, does that hurt my chances of gaining an interview?

If it’s hard to read or quickly skim, sure. But there’s no reason for that to be the case in Word or text. Keep a plain text version of your resume (using asterisks instead of bullet points, for instance) so that you have something you can easily copy and paste from for online applications. And as for recruiters, they want it in Word because they often strip out your contact information before passing it on to hiring managers — because they “own” your candidacy and don’t want employers contacting you directly (or they may not get paid for connecting you).

4. Should I resend my resume in a PDF?

I have been sending my resume out as a word document, and just realized I should probably be sending as a PDF. Can I resend the resume as a PDF to jobs I’ve already sent it to as a .doc? Should I forget it and move on?

Forget it and move on. Sending it in Word isn’t a horrible thing — plenty of people submit their resumes in Word — and you’ll annoy employers by sending it a second time.

5. Explaining frequent moves as a military spouse

I married very young to a man in the military with about a year of college and limited professional experience. Somehow I managed to get a nice professional gig for 2-1/2 years. Then the moving started … needless to say, I have had 6 different positions in the past 7 years. I completed my degree in 2011, moved a fourth time back to my hometown, got a great job, and got a divorce. Unfortunately, I have been advised that my great job (it’s state government, been here for a year) is being eliminated and I will need to find a new position by May.

For the past two months, I have been editing my resume, submitting short cover letters, and applying my heart out. I’m getting NO response…not even a nibble. I don’t think telling potential employers I am recently divorced (and therefore wont be moving/leaving any positions) is good protocol. Do I have a scarlet letter on my forehead because of my many positions and frequent moves? How do I explain this so I can even get a call?

Say it right up front in your cover letter, because otherwise employers will assume you’re simply a job hopper. You don’t need to get into the divorce, but you can certainly say, “For the last seven years, I’ve been a military spouse and thus had to move frequently. That’s now behind me; I’ve settled down for good in ___ and am looking forward to finding a job that I can stay at for a significant period of time.”

(At the same time, though, make sure the problem isn’t one of the more typical problems with resumes and cover letters. Read this.)

6. Asking for feedback after starting a new job

I started a new job (part-time, temporary) a bit less than a month ago. I love the organization I work for and really want to see this job turn into a full-time position by being as awesome an employee as possible. In doing so, I want to ask my new manager for feedback on how I’m doing so far, but I don’t know when would be long enough to have worked with me for her reliably critique my work. The position is only 15 hours/week and is slated to end in August. I would ideally like to meet with her a few times to discuss this, but am wondering when the first meeting should be. Three months in? Longer? What’s you’re take on this?

Ask now. It’s entirely reasonable to ask after a few weeks how you’re doing and if there’s anything you should focus on doing differently or better.

7. Where have you found jobs?

I was thinking perhaps your readers would like to share where they have found jobs (I am so over craigslist and indeed) so am curious if others have come across additional sites to share.

Sure, I’ll throw this out to readers. One tip from me: Most fields have niche job sites (Idealist for nonprofits, PRSA for communications, Roll Call for politics, Chronicle of Philanthropy for foundations and fundraisers, and so forth), so you should try a search for the name of your field plus the word “jobs.”