10 impressive questions to ask in a job interview

by Alison Green on January 10, 2023

It’s the question you’re likely to be asked at the end of every job interview: “What questions do you have for me?”

As someone who’s interviewed probably thousands of job candidates in my career, I’m always taken aback by how many people don’t have questions about the job at all. After all, you’re considering spending 40-plus hours a week at this company … surely there’s something you’d like to know?

The problem, I suspect, is that people worry that the invitation to ask their own questions is really just another way for interviewers to judge them. They’re worried they’ll ask something that seems overly demanding or out-of-touch, or they wonder if they’re supposed to pick questions that will somehow burnish their image as the most highly qualified candidate. Or, especially common, they have no idea how to tactfully ask the things they most want to know … like “What are you really like as a boss?” and “Is everyone here miserable?”

So what should you ask when it’s your turn to question your interviewer? At New York Magazine today, I suggest 10 questions that will get you useful insights into whether the job is right for you.

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my employee doesn’t think we’re doing enough about bears at work

by Alison Green on January 10, 2023

A reader writes:

Okay, I’m going to sound like a strange Canadian lumberjack stereotype here, but I had a question come up in my workplace about bear safety and when it’s reasonable to refuse work in bear country for occupational health and safety reasons. The safety hazard is “potential bear encounters” but I feel like the logic of other workplace health and safety and team dynamics should also apply.

I work in a natural conservation area. My team of seasonal staff does some of their work outdoors in a campground, working with the public. All of the staff live on site in the park or nearby. Black bears are common in this area. My team gives bear safety talks to visitors as a part of their duties, so they are very aware of the kinds of things they should do to prevent bear encounters, and know the steps they should take if they actually do encounter a bear. Bear attacks are extremely rare – usually once the bear and human notice each other, one or the other retreats with no issues. Sometimes we have to posture a bit, or get into a building or a work vehicle. Bear encounters are a frequent part of life here during our operational season. I probably see them twice a week, but almost never in super close proximity or in a dangerous way. They frequently wander through residential areas, including near staff housing and visitor cabins. If you’re aware of them and know what to do, they aren’t considered any more of a danger than, say, being aware of vehicle traffic and making sure to stay safe around motor vehicles.

This past summer, as a part of general safety supplies, like our two-way radios and sunscreen, I purchased two canisters of bear spray for my team, and said that if members of my team wanted to carry it when out in the park on work business, they were available as an optional tool. Bear spray, for the uninitiated, is pepper spray for bears. If a bear is charging you or won’t give you space, you make sure the wind isn’t blowing into your face and then spray it at them. It’s a non-lethal deterrent and it’s only deployed as a last resort. I’ve only had to use bear spray once, while hiking on my time off, in nearly 10 years. Other teams at my site who work in different jobs in the backcountry carry it as a part of their kit because they’re more isolated, and I thought it would be a good optional thing for my staff to carry – also to set a good example for visitors setting out to go for hikes in the woods.

One staff member, when they heard that I had made bear spray available to our team, said that we needed “intensive” bear safety training and that what I had provided was not sufficient to keep them safe from bears while they were on duty. This person had apparently received a half-day workshop at a previous job with a different organization and another site and was expecting the same here. It apparently involved actually deploying some sort of deactivated spray. The thing is, the only other formal bear safety training my site offers for employees are for those who haze problem bears out of town and actively trap and relocate them. Getting that close and personal with the bears is far and above what’s required of my staff and that training is not something that the other team can take the time to lead for my team. Essentially, it’s not a requirement of their role. When I spoke with the visitor safety officer at my workplace, they said that reading the instructions on the canister and watching the instructional video on the manufacturer’s website should be sufficient for the kind of work my team does, especially as my staff are trained to deliver bear safety messaging to visitors. That’s what other teams who work in the backcountry who carry bear spray do. We do not have a specific documented work practice from the occupational health and safety committee for bear encounters, but we do have one for if staff are actively working with wildlife (again, like relocating bears) which is not what my staff do.

When I came back to my staff member with this information, they were still very dissatisfied, and announced in front of the whole team that none of them should enter the campground unless they had intensive safety training in bear spray. I did say that it was not a requirement to carry or use bear spray, so if they were not comfortable with it they didn’t have to carry it and can follow the other safety protocols as normal (be aware of your surroundings and escape routes, practice prevention, carry a radio for communication). They countered that carrying bear spray was necessary when working outside on site for “safety reasons.” It almost got to the point of a refusal to work – but in the end, I hadn’t even assigned this staff member the shifts that would take them into the campground so the complaint fizzled.

I was a bit baffled by what my staff member was asking me. If this person is saying that it’s actively unsafe for staff members to enter the campground without bear spray and “intensive” training … then following that logic, would it not be considered unsafe for any people, including janitorial staff and members of the public, to enter the campground there without the same tools and training? Should we evacuate the campground? Should I just … not provide bear spray as an option for my staff to carry? But nobody else on the team had any objections to carrying bear spray or working outdoors. Spending time outside on-site is a requirement of the job and that will always carry with it the potential for animal encounters (bear, deer, elk, wolves).

I know this is an extreme example, but I’m struggling with what to do should this person come back next season and have the same complaint. Bear encounters are a normal part of living and working in this region – and this person is a long-time resident and to my knowledge does not own bear spray or carry it in their off hours. Bears are just as likely to walk through their front yard as they are to be in our outdoor workplace. What happens when I as the employer provide safety tools and training that the occupational health and safety committee and our park’s visitor safety officer consider sufficient and my staff member still says it’s not enough?

I can’t speak to bear safety at all, but I can talk about how to approach this from a management perspective in general — with the caveat that there might be something specific to bears that I don’t know but you’d need to factor in.

From a strictly management standpoint, I’d argue that you need to do two things:

First, reality-check your approach with someone who is a bear expert. Do they agree with the training and support you’re providing to keep employees safe? If so, great. (That might be exactly what you did when you checked with your visitor safety officer, assuming that person does indeed have expertise in bear safety.) For the sake of answering the rest of your letter, I’m going to assume that you’ve done this step and gotten confirmation that you’re using the best practices to keep people safe.

The second step is a very up-front, transparent conversation with your concerned employee if they end up wanting to return next season. Before hiring them back, you should raise this! You can say, “I know you had concerns last year about bear spray training. I sought advice from (insert specifics here) and they’ve confirmed we’re using best practices for the type of work we do and the bear exposure we have in our work. They didn’t recommend bear spray training, and it’s not something we’re currently able to offer. Knowing that, will you be comfortable with the expectations of the job? If not, I certainly understand. I want to make sure we sort this out up-front so you’re not in a situation you’re not comfortable in.”

But also … are there any creative ways to offer this person the training they want? While the team doing that additional training doesn’t have the time to offer it to your team too, could this employee (or other interested team members) sit on in a training the other team is already doing for themselves? Or if there aren’t other local resources for training, are there online trainings you could make available if your team members want it? I get that you’re saying it’s unnecessary for their jobs, but if you can make people feel safer at work with just a bit more effort (or money), it’s worth doing.

On the other hand, it also sounds possible that this person was revealing a fundamental lack of alignment with the work you do. My lack of bear knowledge makes it hard for me to assess that with any confidence, but I do wonder if that was part of what happened last summer. Maybe it wasn’t! And certainly it’s reasonable for people to want to feel safe performing their jobs. And while I get your point that there are others at the campground without this training (janitors, members of the public) and that a bear is just as likely to walk through someone’s front yard as through your campground, I do think it’s different when you’re in a professional role where you are responsible for other people’s safety. So from that perspective, your team member might not have been entirely off-base.

Ultimately, though, all you can really do is to (a) confirm that your practices are safe and the ones recommended, (b) see if there are realistic ways to offer any extra training anyway, and then (c) be up-front with employees and potential employees about what you can and can’t offer, so they have a clear-eyed view of what they’d be signing on for and can decide if it works for them or not.

Read an update to this letter. 

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I caught my employee in a compromising position in the parking lot, employer only gives raises for promotions months later, and more

by Alison Green on January 10, 2023

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

1. I caught my employee in a compromising position in the parking lot

One of my employees was seen in her boyfriend’s car in our workplace parking lot, supposedly having sex. When I went out to the car (because she was already late clocking in), her boyfriend was fully clothed but appeared to be using his hand to pleasure her. At that point I did not walk any closer because that was a visual I did not want. I yelled at them that she needed to come to the office immediately. I was going to write her up and send her home but now corporate office is saying no because she was in a personal vehicle and no one actually saw fully what was happening. Can I write her up and send her home or is corporate correct about harassment on my part if I do?

Everyone is wrong in different ways here. First, obviously, your employee shouldn’t be in sexual situations in the workplace parking lot! But the impulse to write her up and send her home is weird (what does sending her home achieve?). You can just have a clear conversation where you say, “That was a real error in judgment; you can’t do that on company property, and anyone who walked by would have been exposed to that against their will. It can’t happen again.”

The other thing is, if someone is late coming into work don’t go outside to track them down, let alone yell at them for not being out of their car yet. There are all kinds of things your employee could have been doing in her car that would have made that inappropriate on your side — having an emergency phone call with a doctor or her kid’s school, trying to fight off nausea to see if she was well enough to come in, etc. It turned out none of those things were the case  — but the impulse to go out to her car when she was late isn’t a good one. If someone’s late, you’ll address the lateness if you need to … but you don’t get to track people down before they’re even at work. And yelling is never okay unless there’s a fire or other imminent danger you’re warning them about. I realize none of this is the point of your question, but there’s a lot revealed here that’s worth reflecting on!

As for what to do from here, your corporate office is telling you to leave it alone, so leave it alone. Frankly, being yelled at by her boss while she was in an intimate situation with her boyfriend in the work parking lot is probably sufficient delivery of the message you want to send anyway, and I doubt you’re going to lose much by not taking further action.

2. Employer only gives raises for promotions during their annual compensation review … the following year

I just came away from a company meeting where they announced how raises will be handled when you get a promotion. I’ve never heard of this before. In order to keep to budget if you get a promotion mid-year, the company won’t give you a raise until the following year during the annual compensation review. I’m honestly pretty baffled by it, but I wanted to know if this is more common than I think. The way they framed it was “some companies do this and that’s how we do it.”

Personally, I think I’d just turn down a promotion (more work, same pay) unless it was being offered around the time the company was giving merit increases anyway. And presumably if they hired outside the company they’d be paying the fair market rate for the position.

It’s true that some companies do this: bad ones. Because this is really a crap policy. It means you’ll be doing higher-level work without appropriate compensation for, what, up to a year? And it means that to accept a promotion, you have to give up all your negotiating power — you have to accept the job without knowing what it’s going to pay (!), and when they do finally offer you a raise, you’ll lack the leverage you normally have before you’ve accepted a position. What if you can’t come to terms on salary at that point? Your only choice would be to quit (and meanwhile, you’re stuck working at subpar wages).

And yep, as you pointed out, when they hire external candidates, they’re not telling them they won’t know their salary until a compensation review the following year. They’re setting appropriate salaries for external candidates to get them to accept the job initially, and they can do the same thing for internal candidates too. They just see a way to take advantage of you, and they’re using it.

3. Am I responding too fast to emails (especially when saying no)?

I know you’ve answered “do I respond to emails too quickly?” but the letter writer in that case was responding in ~1 hour. If I don’t think about it and consciously delay sending a message, I’ll often message back within ~2-3 minutes.

I have a heavily organized email system, so any emails in my inbox are essentially a to-do list and I prefer not to have them sitting around, plus I have ADHD so anything left for too long is in real danger of being forgotten. My work is very responsive, and I am speedy across the board, so I often am just waiting for an email so I’ll have something to do. It’s also pretty easy to come up with responses (think: “here’s that PDF” or “no, I can’t get you that book, it’s only held by the National Library of Slovenia”) so it’s not like I need to put in deep thought before responding.

I get great feedback from the people I can help, and am often thanked for my quick response. But I worry I’m coming off the wrong way to the people who I have to say no to, like I haven’t put enough effort into helping them. I genuinely have! The book would just still only be in Slovenia whether I looked for two minutes or two hours.

Is there a way to balance making them feel like their request was heard with my natural quickness, while also ensuring that nothing falls through ADHD related cracks? I know I can schedule emails but that feels disingenuous, and like it would make communication unnecessarily slow. But maybe that’s the solution!

I don’t think it’s disingenuous to schedule emails! If your sense is that a quick response will make someone feel you only put in minimal effort, schedule it for an hour later; I do that all the time. But also, be realistic about when that’s really necessary. For example, “no, I can’t get you that book, it’s only held by the National Library of Slovenia” should be fine coming within a few minutes (given the realities of that particular answer) … as opposed to a question that obviously required deeper research/deeper thought that would have been impossible in the few minutes you gave it. (Caveat: if you’re dealing with people who will think their questions are in the latter category even when they’re not, those are good candidates for scheduling the response.)

Also, when you’re sending a really quick response, making a point of warming it up (like some of the suggestions here), that can help mitigate any sense on the other side of “did she even read this?”

And last, don’t discount the people who will really appreciate your quick responses! There are lots of us (we might even be the majority).

4. My boss keeps scheduling meetings for the time when I’m supposed to leave

I have a new manager (new to me, not the company — I was assigned to her during a reorg earlier this year) who keeps scheduling meetings after my workday. Granted, I work early — 7:30 to 3:30 — but I do that 1) because my company allows flextime and 2) so I can catch the train home and pick up my kids. I have told her my situation, and my calendar is up to date, noting that I leave at 3:30, and she has yet again scheduled a daily “wrap-up” meeting for 3:30. I don’t want to seem like I’m not dedicated to my work, but this is after my work day. I could probably take comp time for the meeting, but the issue is that I need my schedule to be like this so the rest of my life works — I don’t want comp time! How do I tell her? Or do I just keep declining these meetings?

There’s a good chance there’s no message here — that she’s just forgetting the individual details of everyone’s schedule (especially if you have a large team) rather than implying you should stay late on those days. But when something like keeps happening, it’s better to address it head-on. So talk to her! Say something like, “I know we’ve talked about my schedule being 7:30 to 3:30. I’ve noticed you’ll sometimes send me invites for meetings starting at 3:30, when I need to leave. I know you’re probably just not remembering my exact schedule, but I wanted to double-check with you to make sure I should just decline and propose an alternate time when that happens?” If there’s some larger issue, that’ll prompt her to address it (and if there is, better to get it out in the open at that point anyway).

5. Should I tell my boss I want his job?

I love my job and I love my boss. I’m in the middle-end of my career and, after a long time working in the private sector in a very competitive industry, I’ve landed in a very low stress, yet well-paid job helping people and the environment. I’ve been here a little over a year. My coworkers all do things in my area of interest as well, so I get to help out with a variety of things in addition to my specialized program. I do want to continue to advance, but outside of our really cool group I’d be right back into the higher stress area that I left, which is really unappealing.

My boss recently asked what I’d like to be doing in three years, and ideally he’ll get promoted and I’ll move in to his spot. I’m well positioned to do it in terms of my experience, areas of expertise, and relationships with my coworkers. Should I say something like that? If so, how do I say it without sounding like I’m gunning for his job? I’m very happy where I am, and would love to retire from here in 10-15 years. Knowing myself, if I don’t advance I’ll get bored (and look for higher pay) and leave after 5ish years.

I’d say it this way: “I’m really happy with what I’m doing right now, but eventually I’d love to be in a role like yours.” The first part says “not immediately gunning for your job” but the second part makes clear what path you’d like to eventually be on — somewhere, if not there.

You can also plan to ask more explicitly about advancement opportunities if you’re not seeing natural openings for them over the next year or two.

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do I still need to wear a suit to a job interview?

by Alison Green on January 9, 2023

A reader writes:

I read your blog religiously and am excited to have some interviews coming up! Looking back through your archives, like these posts in 2015, 2012, and 2008, you have me convinced that my best option is to wear a suit for these interviews. But when it comes to actually shopping for a suit, I am at a loss! At my go-to workwear stores (Ann Taylor, Banana Republic), blazers/jackets are sold separately from pants, whereas I thought I needed to buy them as a set to ensure the color/fabric are an exact match. Plus, when you buy these pieces separately, I’m looking at something like $300 – $400. I’m also not sure what to do in a situation where I’m called back for multiple interviews — surely, people don’t have three suits that they plan to wear pretty much one time only?

So, my questions are practical ones:
• Where should I be shopping for a women’s suit?
• Am I correct that what I’m looking for is a suit set, meaning a blazer and pants that are sold together?
• A sheath dress would likely be cheaper. Can I wear a sweater with a sheath dress, or must it be a blazer?
• Any recommendations for those of us who want to impress, but don’t have $300+ to spare?

I am so excited to say this: This convention has changed!

In all but a handful of conservative fields (think: parts of law and finance), it’s become normal to interview in something a step down from a formal suit. You still need to dress up for most job interviews (not all — some fields, like IT, can be an exception), but for women that no longer needs to mean a traditional suit where everything is made of the same fabric in the same color.

Things you can wear now wear as alternatives to suits:

* a jacket and pants that aren’t made of identical suiting fabric
* a reasonably businessy dress on its own, no blazer
* a dress and a cardigan (the dress should still at least somewhat businessy; not a casual sundress)

You also don’t need to buy three separate outfits. You wouldn’t want to re-wear the same highly memorable outfit (like a bright dress in a bold pattern) to multiple interviews with the same people (no, I can’t defend this but it’s the convention nonetheless) but you could re-wear a basic black blazer and pants but change up the shirt and accessories, for example. In addition to your go-to workwear stores, you can try department stores (which, depending on the store, could be less) or consignment/thrift stores (although some sizes can be easier to find there than others).

As always, this is general advice. Some fields have their own conventions (either more or less formal), as do some geographic regions. So adapt for your field and location.

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here’s some free help preparing for job interviews

by Alison Green on January 9, 2023


If you’re like most people, you struggle with preparing for job interviews and feeling confident going into interviews, so I have a free guide to help you.

How to Prepare for an Interview:
Boost Your Confidence, Impress Your Interviewer, and Get a Job

You’ll learn things like:

  • An easy 4-step process for interview prep
  • 14 tips to get your mind in gear
  • 15 questions that I would ask you in an interview

Get the guide

Just enter your email address into the sign-up box below, and I’ll email you the guide.

If you sign up here, I’ll also send you an occasional email about other resources I’ve produced, but you can unsubscribe at any time (including immediately). There won’t be a lot — I think I’ve emailed that list twice in the last five years.


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was I wrong to be put off by interviewing on Bring Your Kids to Work Day?

by Alison Green on January 9, 2023

A reader writes:

I wanted to get your thoughts on an interview situation I was in a while ago. This experience sticks out in my memory as Not Good, but I wonder if I’m being a stick-in-the-mud.

A while ago (pre-Covid), I had an in-person interview that ended up coinciding with Bring Your Kids to work day. (They did not warn me ahead of time.) While I was waiting in the building lobby to go up to their office, I noticed lots of people and little kids wearing company t-shirts as they boisterously made their way to the elevators. When I went upstairs to their office, there was a general atmosphere of “party” and it took a bit to hunt down the receptionist person to let them know I was there. I was nervous for my interview and having so many distractions going on didn’t really help me get into a good mindset.

When it was time to do the interview, we went into an office that had a door, so that kept the noise down, and luckily my back was to the door (which had a window in it) so I couldn’t see people walking by. After the interview, they offered to show me around the office, but I politely declined, figuring that since there was so much extra activity going on, it wouldn’t really represent what the office was normally like.

Is it too much to expect to be able to attend an interview and not have a circus going on at the office where you do the interview? I understand that offices can be busy, but this was beyond the normal hustle and bustle. It really added to my anxiety about the whole process.

I did well enough in the interview and they called me to move on to the next stage of the process. However, I decided the combination of the strange style interview and a less than calm atmosphere for my interview left me not feeling great about the company.

(The interview was conducted by two people: one of them asking all the questions, the other just typing the answers on their laptop. They asked me to tell them both a positive and negative about each job AND manager I had for the past 20 years. It felt like being grilled down to minute details and like nothing I had ever before experienced in an interview, and not a two-way conversation)

It’s not that I’m against Bring Your Kids to Work Day, because I also have kids and have in the past brought them to work occasionally when it was appropriate and we had a great time. I never conducted an interview with it going on though! It just seems like it’s unnecessary to interview candidates on the same day as that. Am I a curmudgeon and this should have been totally fine? Maybe the rapid fire one-way interview made the family activities just seem that much worse. I didn’t get any info myself from my interviewers, and could only judge the company based on the general atmosphere I saw.

I think this was just an unfortunate confluence of events.

The person scheduling your interview may not have realized it would be Bring Your Kids to Work Day, or they didn’t realize how loud and disruptive it would be (it’s not like that everywhere!), or it was the only day where everyone’s schedules lined up.

But even when interviewers make every attempt to ensure a distraction-free environment for interviews, things can go wrong. I once interviewed someone with a loud protest going on right outside my window (not against my organization! this was D.C., where protests are common). I was once interviewing someone when a fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the building. Stuff happens, and to some extent you’ve got to try to roll with it.

I don’t know that you’re a curmudgeon necessarily. It’s understandable that you felt distracted and thrown off your game, and it sucks that that happened. But the “how could they have thought this would be okay?” part of your reaction is probably a little misplaced, and you might be assuming that clearly anyone would have reacted as you did, when in fact I don’t think everyone would. It’s okay that you felt thrown off! But it’s also worth knowing that it’s not a universal reaction.

If you hadn’t been turned off by this company for other reasons, I would have encouraged you to go back and do the second interview because it probably would have been on a quieter day and you might have ended up feeling better about things. But it sounds like it wasn’t a match regardless — but not because of the Bring Your Kids to Work scheduling.

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my team planned a wine-tasting while I’m pregnant, no one is paying attention to my training, and more

by Alison Green on January 9, 2023

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

1. My team planned a wine-tasting team-builder while I’m pregnant

I’m on a team of 15 people and am currently pregnant, which the team is aware of. The team is fairly young, and only one other employee has a child.

One of our teammates who is in charge of running quarterly team builders chose virtual wine tasting as the next activity. I expressed to her that I wouldn’t be able to participate, and to her credit she offered to find non-alcoholic options to send me, but I was still offended this activity was chosen. I didn’t think it was inclusive or considerate.

I declined the team builder invite, and when my boss asked me I told her why. She was initially surprised and suggested I go along anyway, but when I stood my ground she agreed to change the activity.

Am I in the wrong or making too big of a deal of this? It’s over now, but I’m still debating documenting the situation with HR, but again am not sure if I’m overreacting.

With a young team, it’s likely that you’re dealing with people who haven’t yet needed to think much about the needs of pregnant people. It sounds like your coworker picked wine tasting without realizing you wouldn’t be able to participate (probably reflecting lack of life experience) but then tried to think of a way to include you once you pointed it out (even though it wasn’t a particularly good way). And then your boss changed the activity once you brought the issue to her attention. None of this is ideal, but it sounds like it’s more about inexperience on your team than deliberate carelessness.

If your boss hadn’t agreed to change activities, it would have made sense to bring it to HR at that point (since team-building by definition needs not to exclude people). But since she did, there’s not a need to loop them in. If you really wanted to, though, you could frame it not as a complaint but as “it would be helpful to remind managers that team-building activities should be inclusive of everyone on their team, which means they need to ensure activities work for people who might be pregnant, don’t drink, or have physical restrictions.”

2. Should I have to be the one scheduling meetings with my boss?

My boss routinely puts it on her staff to schedule one-on-ones or any meetings. I don’t understand this, she has access to all of our calendars since she does the schedule.

Recently she asked about dividing up job duties since a staff member is leaving. I replied to the email, indicating what I thought. She then replies to me saying, “Please set up a meeting with me, thanks.” I feel if she wants to meet with me she should send a meeting request. I don’t get it. Am I being nitpicky here? I feel there is no real professional way to answer that email, except ignoring it without sounding bitchy.

Yes, you’re in the wrong. It’s reasonable for your boss to ask you to handle setting up the meeting so that she’s able to spend her time on other things. In fact, when I coach busy managers — many of whom have way too much on their plates — I encourage them to delegate everything that can be done by someone else, so that their own time is freed up for things only they can do … even when something seems small, because those things add up.

My advice to you is to see it as an advantage because it means you can pick the meeting time based on what works best for you rather than your boss always controlling that.

3. I’m leaving my job and no one is paying attention to my training in what they’ll need to do when I’m gone

I work in healthcare. My job is a very niche role in my organization; literally no one else does my job in its entirety. After a lot of thought, I accepted another role in a completely different organization with a 20% pay raise and 50% more PTO. I’m super excited. I’ve given a total of four weeks’ notice.

I have been working with the two people who are at least temporarily getting my job responsibilities: Lisa, who is my manager, and Kim. I have run into an issue where my job is demanding basically a brain dump. I am writing incredibly detailed instructions of how to address things for both Lisa and Kim. However, neither of them has been following said instructions as I have them working alone. It has become a great frustration in the training process when I find yet another noteworthy error that is directly related to not following the written procedure in front of them.

In addition, neither wants to take any incentive in trying to learn anything or attempting a new task that I don’t absolutely push on them. They are more than willing to ask me very basic questions and demand that I write up a “cheat sheet” on that question, which is significantly lower level than they need to be at (and should be at.) They have ignored my numerous requests to write down the questions as they ask them so I have something to go by.

Every time I’ve tried to train my supervisor when I went on vacation in the past, when I returned I’d get everything just dumped back on me. She is supposed to be my backup but doesn’t want to do the work.

I am 1.5 weeks into this notice period and I want to just scream every time they seem to think that I’m not going to leave or ignore the process. I don’t know how to phrase that they need to take some level of ownership or they will be figuring it out after I leave. I don’t know if I need to address this to my supervisor’s boss. They have a tendency to be very aggressively verbose without accomplishing anything.

I have good news: this isn’t your problem to solve. You’re going above and beyond in trying to ensure things will run smoothly after you’re gone, but that’s out of your hands. It’s up to Lisa and Kim, and they apparently aren’t terribly concerned about it. So be it, then — it doesn’t make sense for you to be more invested in getting them trained than your own manager is. You’ve spelled out what you need, you’ve tried to convey the urgency … and they’re not matching your investment. All you can do is continue being diligent about your own responsibilities, including the documentation you’re leaving behind (within reason — you shouldn’t try to write down every single thing you’ve learned about doing your job in the years you’ve been there because that’s impossible … and would probably be wasted effort if you did, since for some reason when people leave detailed manuals behind, more often than not they’re consulted far less than the people who leave them envision.)

Again, this is not your problem to solve. You’ve given notice, you’ve offered to train people, and the rest is up to them. In a couple of weeks, you’ll move on to a better job and they’ll figure it out one way or another at that point.

4. My employees and I have different ideas of what professional development they’re owed

What is the expectation for managers to help their direct reports grow and develop, leading specifically to a promotion or another role (internally or externally)? I’m of the mind that it’s my role to help my team develop relevant skills to their role, and capitalize on their strengths, talents, and what they enjoy doing. Then if they come to me with ideas about what they want their future to look like, I can help them with guidance and resources and help pave the way if it’s in a role in our company or department (connect them with relevant people, pull them in on projects that would build their skills and put them in the spotlight, etc.).

What I can’t do is come up with a tailored career path for each of my direct reports and guarantee that each step will happen on a specific timeframe. Most of them are six years or less out of college, and I think have the expectation that that’s how things work. Many of them don’t know exactly what they want to do (which is fine!) and I am happy to show them a couple of common areas of growth within my department.

For example, one teammate told me she was interested in project management (we are not project managers). I gave her a few responsibilities that would align but told her if she wanted that as a career, she would likely have to take classes, get certified, or learn more outside of working hours. She thought that that wasn’t fair, and that I should allow her to have professional development time during the workday or we should create a PM role for her, and that I and the company owed her professional development opportunities of her choosing, and otherwise we wouldn’t be enabling her growth. I really don’t want to be the “kids these days” person, so I’m hoping you can gut-check me on what’s happening.

Your understanding is the common one, and your reports sound out-of-touch. What you’re doing is exactly what you should be doing (and what a lot of managers don’t). It would be highly unusual to create roles for people that aren’t aligned with what your team needs (like the PM job) and it’s not a typical expectation that you’d offer development that has nothing to do with the work your team does. Occasionally there might be circumstances that make it possible (for example, someone is a strong writer and wants more writing experience even though her job is phone sales, and so you have her write some things your department happens to need) but it’s not an expectation or obligation; it’s more a lucky confluence of events. And offering on-the-job time for someone to prepare for a totally different position at another company would be really unusual — maybe something that could happen in the exact right set of circumstances, but not something people typically expect or feel entitled to as a matter of course.

You should be really up-front about this with your team so they know what they should and shouldn’t expect … but they sound naive enough that they might not get it until they have more professional experience (and it might not happen while they’re working for you at all).

5. Invitations to interview before I finish the application

I am applying to some positions in schools, and the strangest thing keeps happening when I apply to a charter school — I get an invitation to interview before I finish the application!

At two different schools now, I have started an online application and then paused halfway through, only to get an invite to interview from my unfinished application. Both websites sent form letters asking me to finish my application, but then sent another form email inviting me to pick an interview time immediately after! As far as I can tell, they’re all automated emails, so no human is connected to this process.

Is this a new thing? It feels creepy that even beginning an application — usually by uploading a resume — triggers an interview request. It doesn’t make me feel particularly good about working at the school! The first time this happened, I assumed I hadn’t done my due diligence and the charter school was a bad match. There are a lot of subpar charter schools in my state due to lack of regulation. But the second time, this happened with a charter school with a superb reputation! I uploaded my resume, saw that they asked me to disclose my salary range, and decided to do some more market research. The next thing I knew I was invited to interview!

Is this just the new normal? I’ve worked in public schools for almost 10 years and am only moving away from it due to outside circumstances, so I haven’t done this in a while. But it seems like such a strange thing to do! It really made me feel like it wasn’t a school I should interview at, even though it is beloved in my state.

You’re the second person I’ve heard about this from. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s because there’s a major teacher shortage right now. (But also, if you’ve fully uploaded your resume, it’s not totally unreasonable that they’d feel they have enough to do an initial screen and invite you to talk.)

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weekend open thread – Jan. 6-8, 2023

by Alison Green on January 6, 2023

This comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand.

Here are the rules for the weekend posts.

Book recommendation of the week: How Lucky, by Will Leitch. A man with a degenerative disease that’s left him unable to speak, or to move without a wheelchair, witnesses a kidnapping outside his door and tries to solve it.

* I make a commission if you use that Amazon link.

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it’s your Friday good news

by Alison Green on January 6, 2023

It’s your Friday good news!

1.  “This week I took advantage of their line manager’s holiday to pop in on 1:1s for my skip-level junior team and catch up with them (something I don’t get to do often enough with 8 direct reports of my own and C-level strategy responsibilities) including one relatively new hire who has been floundering. This was meant to be a fairly serious conversation — based on her manager’s last feedback, I had prepped my HR rep earlier this week for a failure to pass probation pathway, which is never fun, but looked like our best case scenario.

When I looked more closely at her training portfolio, though, something was nagging at me that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. So I went into today’s meeting and channelled Alison. I said I’d heard from her line manager and her mentor and her teammates and now I wanted to hear from her how she thought her probation was going. She hesitated a minute and visibly fought back tears, so I gently reminded her that I genuinely wanted to know how she felt about it.

She opened up and within minutes it was clear that what I had before me was not an individual performance problem, but a management style mismatch. We talked for another half hour and put together a concrete plan for getting her into a better place emotionally and professionally, leaving her with a to do list (and me with a ‘things to coach’ list with her line manager and mentor). She left our call looking like a weight had lifted and jumped straight into her next task (which I’ve just had back from her for review, and it’s excellent!) and I am reminded that managing people is a skill and it can be just as rewarding as the subject matter expertise I gave up to do this (which is fresh in my mind, because I’ve also been dabbling in that this week).

For this I have to thank you, Alison, for teaching me that 95% of workplace issues are in fact communication problems, and the Ask A Manager commentariat who have so patiently explained, time and time again how to measure what’s important to the job vs what it is easy to measure.”

2.  “I started my current job two years ago at a time when the company had gone from 25 employees to 3 over the course of about two months. They had just taken several new large contracts and hired a team of us to help create infrastructure and systems going forward. We had all new leadership and energy and I specialize in creating systems, so it felt like a great fit.

When I arrived, my new boss had no idea I was hired and was very surprised to meet me. Within the first few weeks it was clear that everyone on the leadership team hated each other and the Executive Director really had no idea how to run an organization. He had previously been a manager of a summer camp and treated all of his staff like teen-age camp counselors. Every system we tried to implement was shot down, as the Executive Director didn’t want anything in writing so no one could prove anything if we made a mistake! There are three of us without Master’s degrees, and we are all treated like second class citizens, which is disheartening. I’ve been building up my savings so I can cut back to a part time job and go to school to get my Bachelor’s degree. I’ve given my notice. They are bending over backwards to make sure I get my end of year bonuses because they are already asking me if I will contract with them as needed, because no one really knows how to do what I do. I don’t know if I’ll jump in later to help, but right now I am excited at this new chapter in my life, and I really value what I’ve learned by working with this level of dysfunction. It’s not a lesson you can learn any way but by surviving it.”

3.  “For the last three years, I had been working for one of the most prestigious companies in my industry. During that time, I had been a temp whose contract kept getting extended over and over until they suddenly let me go because ‘we can’t keep temps forever’ legal reasons. Up until this point I kept getting comments like ‘we value you so much, you’re basically part of our staff’ from management. Even after this news, I was told, ‘You are one of our most productive employees so please come back in 3 months when we can hire you again.’ Meanwhile, multiple other colleagues were getting offers for full time positions within the department. I wrote so many drafts to you Alison, asking, ‘Am I right to be upset at what happened to me?’

I’m not proud of what I did, but I decided to come back after those 3 months to try and prove to someone (hint – it was myself) that I was good enough to get a full time offer within the next chunk of employment there. I lasted about 6 more months, and I was miserable at least half the time I was there. I would wake up in the middle of the night often, fighting for my right to belong in that office.

I got a therapist to deal with the stress, and she ended up being worth her weight in gold. I knew my relationship with this company was messed up, but she really gave me the strength to do something about it.

Near the middle of my contract, my manager told me that they weren’t even sure they could extend me this time because of budget constraints. I took them at their word and started to look for a new job. I found a fantastic (full-time!!) role at a smaller company, and they were so excited to have me on their team. I hadn’t felt that needed in years. I also ended up getting an extension offer after all — you should have seen the looks on management’s faces when I politely declined.

I have now been at my new company for about a month, and I am so happy here! It has been a big adjustment for my confidence, and I am so much more at ease. It doesn’t just feel like a privilege that I get to work here; they need me just like I need them. I will never know if I was ‘good enough’ for the prestigious company, and I am so relieved that it’s finally Not My Problem.

For anyone out there, remember that a perfect job is not worth sacrificing your mental health and self esteem. You deserve a happy life, and you deserve to feel valued. And you deserve to have a restful night’s sleep!”

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open thread – January 6-7, 2023

by Alison Green on January 6, 2023

It’s the Friday open thread!

The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on any work-related questions that you want to talk about (that includes school). If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to take your questions to other readers.

* If you submitted a question to me recently, please do not repost it here, as it may be in my queue to answer.

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