my dad says I shouldn’t have asked for time to think over a job offer by Alison Green on March 1, 2016 A reader writes: Recently I had a second interview with a company where I met with the other owner and learned a lot of new information, including salary and schedule. At the end of the interview, I was offered the position and I said I would like a day to think it over and talk about it with my family. They said of course and that they would always expect that. Later, when I was talking with my parents, my dad got mad that I would even think about asking them for a day. He said that nobody should be at an interview if they didn’t already know they want to take the job, and furthermore if anybody he interviewed ever said that to him, he would rescind the offer immediately and show them to the door! I was astounded that he has never encountered this, as I have always found it quite the norm. People like to go home, talk with their spouses about what this means for their future, do the math on whether they can afford to take the job for the salary and benefits offered, and sometimes wait to hear back from another company. My dad hires people all the time and works for a large government contracting company but has not been on an interview since 1984. From what I have read on your site, what I did does not seem egregious, but it has become pretty obvious that everybody hiring has their own rules and expectations and as a job seeker it seems like a losing battle trying to meet all of them. And what do you do when you’re getting information that is clearly outdated (like my mom telling me that offering to work for free is a good idea) but the people who are hiring you are older and may be following this info? Ignore your dad. It’s very, very normal to ask for some time to think over an offer (and a day is nothing). If your dad is seriously pulling offers from people who ask for a few days to think it over, he must be losing the majority of his top candidates, or he’s working in an industry with really weird norms. An employer who reacts poorly to someone asking for a few days to think over an offer is an employer whose offer you should turn down — it’s a really bad sign about their understanding of professional conventions and how reasonable they’re likely to be in other ways. About your dad’s statement that no one should be interviewing if they don’t already know they want to take the job — half the point of interviewing is to figure out if you’d want the job, be good at it, etc. No one can come into an interview already knowing that; an interview is a two-way interaction for both sides to assess the other. I’m sure your dad is a lovely person, but do not take work advice from him. It’s true that there are all sorts of hiring managers out there with all sorts of ideas about how things should work. You can’t cater to all of them — it would be inherently contradictory — so the best thing to do is to pick the practices that are most likely to screen out bad managers and screen for good ones. You may also like:I've been offered the job -- but they won't tell me the salary until we can meet face-to-faceemployee's dad called to see if we had "properly briefed him" on his travelI negotiated salary for the first time -- and it worked! { 193 comments }
should you get rid of all the managers? by Alison Green on March 1, 2016 On days when being a manager or dealing with a manager is making you tear your hair out, you might wonder how things have been going at Zappos in the two years since the company famously announced its transition to “holacracy,” a system without managers or titles. But if you’re tempted to wonder if a flatter, manager-less structure might work in your company, proceed with skepticism. The New York Times, which talked to Zappos employees last summer to see how the transition was going, reported: “Pressed for instances of Holacracy’s achievements at Zappos, employees could offer only pedestrian examples,” such as shutting down a bridge to a parking garage so everyone had to use the same main entrance but later reopening it, and requesting that employees not leave trash on the shuttle bus. “So far, however, no one could point to any innovations that have improved customer service or increased sales. Critical issues like how to hire, fire and pay people in a company with no job titles have emerged as sticking points.” In addition, “It’s taking time away from getting the actual work done,” reported one employee. “I have five hours of meetings today.” Interestingly, one oft-noted critique of manager-less structures is that authority structures emerge anyway. Brilliant management thinker Bob Sutton points out that when organizations say they’re getting rid of management roles, authority structures tend to stick around anyway, but without a formal hierarchy, people can become “less productive and effective, dysfunctional competition for status emerges, and coordination and cooperation suffer … As you scale an organization, getting rid of the hierarchy – or even assuming that a flatter one is better – is the wrong goal. Your job is to build the best hierarchy you can.” Moreover, what happens in hard times? Some types of decisions need to have a clear decision-maker at the top: budget cuts, layoffs, and what will happen in their aftermath. Downtown Project, a $ Las Vegas urban-renewal project, dropped most aspects of holacracy after finding it was distraction, especially during layoffs. Transportation startup Shift dropped the system after less than a year, finding that it led to too many meetings and unclear decision-making authority. And last month, the New York Times reported that Zappos is “hemorrhaging” employees, with 18% of the company having less since the previous March. If you’re feeling like management in a given organization is getting in the way of better, more creative work and better results, that’s a flag to examine why. It might be something about the way management is structured, or how it operates, or it might be a few bad apples. But it’s probably not an indictment of management in general. When managers are working the way they’re supposed to, they’re the ingredient that builds strong teams, makes sure people have clear roles that they can take true ownership of, checks that goals and work plans collectively add up to the big results the organization wants, ensures that people get useful feedback that will help them deliver better and better work, thinks about to retain strong people, and addresses and resolves problems forthrightly. When managers aren’t doing that, the problem is that they’re not doing that – not that they exist in the first place. So don’t throw all managers out just yet. You may also like:do job titles matter?should employees have to ask for a raise?company will let us work from home -- but our pay will fluctuate based on our productivity { 68 comments }
how can I make sure my team meets deadlines? by Alison Green on March 1, 2016 A reader writes: If you’re a (much younger millennial) project manager contractor managing non-contractor long-term (much older) folks, and they say they’ll get something done but the deadline’s in less than 48 hours and they have nothing sent to you yet (after an earlier reminder), how do you remind them and get things done without: 1) panicking 2) nagging them 3) getting neurotic? This is my first time managing folks on a large team project on a high scale effort, and while I’m excited (and happy that AAM helped me get to this point, even), I’m also silently terrified that I’ll miss even one deadline and my head’ll be on the chopping block so to speak. Another person used to be on the team but missed some deadline(s) and was sacked awhile ago. I find myself sending frequent project updates to remote employees, asking for updates, and doing lots of collaboration. Another thing that worked was finding a snippet of a presentation, paraphrasing it, and getting it approved by its writer–ie. giving them the info, and they edit/add/or ok it. Is there anything additional I can do? Well, do you have any reason to think they’re likely to miss the deadline unless you keep following up? If these are responsible people with a track record of performing well, give them the space to do their jobs. They know the deadline, and you’ve already reminded them once. You should be able to trust people to meet deadlines unless they’ve already given you reason not to. (And if they have given you reason not to trust them to meet their commitments, then that’s the problem, and the one you need to address.) The fact that the deadline is in less than 48 hours and they haven’t sent anything to you yet just means that it’s not the deadline yet. They are assuming that the deadline you gave them is the real one. If you secretly are panicking when you don’t get anything earlier, that’s not fair to them. If you truly need it earlier, or if you need some kind of check-in from them earlier, tell them that you’re first assigning the work. Don’t tell them the deadline is Wednesday but then get antsy when you haven’t heard anything by Monday. Otherwise you will annoy the crap out of them, make them feel you don’t trust them to do their jobs, and make them wonder if all your deadlines really have secret deadlines that they’re supposed to figure out on their own. Now, that’s not to say that you should just delegate work and then disappear and just hope that when it comes back to you in a month, it looks the way you wanted it to. Particularly on on large or important projects, you should stay involved along the way — to spot problems, give input, and course-correct if needed. But you want to build that into your project plan from the beginning so that everyone is clear on what that will look like and how it will happen. For example, you might ask for an initial outline or a piece of a section of a written product by X date, or for a progress report by Y date, or to look at a small sample of the whole by Z date. That’s smart to do because it will help you know early whether a project is on track and allow you to make any needed adjustments before tons of work has been done, and it will cut down on the angst you’re now feeling. Build those check-ins into your schedule from the start and then you shouldn’t be panicking and wondering what’s going on with the work, because you’ll have a clear system to make sure you stay appropriately in the loop. (Of course, don’t go overboard on that either — calibrate the level of your engagement based on the skill and track record of the people on your team, and the difficulty/newness/importance of the project.) With an experienced staff member who you know does good work, you might just need a single interim check-in on a month-long project. With a newer staff member or one whose work you’re not confident in, or on a high-profile, high-stakes project, you might schedule more reviews/check-in’s along the way. It’s too late for that on this project, of course, because you’re 48 hours away from the deadline. You’ve already issued one reminder, so at this point, you probably need to just sit tight and give people room to do their jobs. At most — at absolute most, and only if you do have some cause for concern — you can say to people, “Is everything looking in good shape to meet our Wednesday deadline, or would it be helpful to touch base before then?” You may also like:my employee meets deadlines ... but is much slower than the rest of us"I'm so sorry you have to work on this garbage project with these horrible clients"how much is it my responsibility to remind coworkers of deadlines? { 85 comments }
how to tell an employee to stop cc’ing my boss, exclamation points in cover letters, and more by Alison Green on March 1, 2016 It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. How to tell an employee to stop cc’ing my boss I’m a new manager and I have an employee who consistently copies other people on emails I’ve directed specifically to her. What is confusing about this is that sometimes the emails are related to situations that may not have been well handled by her. I’m trying to be supportive and encouraging and make these things teachable moments instead of “you’re in trouble” moments, but when she then turns around and copies my boss in her response it makes me look bad for not immediately reporting the issue to him. I don’t know how to explain this to her without making it sound like I want her to hide things from my boss. Do I just cc my boss every time I think her judgement may have been off to get ahead of the problem? That would probably get her in trouble more, which I don’t want either. I don’t have a problem with her telling my boss about an issue that has come up in her area, but when I’ve responded saying something like, “You used your best judgment in the moment; let’s figure out how to fix it together,” it’s a little jarring to then discover that she’s included my boss in her response. The good news here is that you’re her boss so you can just direct her to stop doing this. I’d start, though, by asking what her thought process is when she does it. For example: “Jane, I’ve noticed you’ll often cc Fergus on a response to me when I’ve initially sent the email only to you. How come?” She’ll presumably respond with “I thought he should be in the loop on X” or something similar, and then you can explain why that’s not the case: “Actually, Fergus doesn’t need to be involved in that. If I decide that he does, I’ll of course loop him in, but part of my job is fielding this sort of thing so that he doesn’t need to spend time on it.” And then give the clear direction to stop: “Going forward, please leave Fergus off emails about this kind of thing. I’ll loop him in if I think he’d want to be informed or be able to give input.” I think you’re feeling weird about saying “don’t tell Fergus things,” but that’s not the message; it’s “Fergus has other things he needs to focus on. He and I are aligned about when to bring him into the conversation, and I’ll do that when it’s needed.” (Also, I wouldn’t assume that you’ll look bad to your own boss for not immediately reporting issues to him, unless they’re truly big enough that he’d want immediate notification. Your employees will make mistakes. You only need to loop your boss in when those mistakes are big ones that will impact things he needs to know about, or when it’s enough of a pattern that you’ve developed serious performance concerns about an employee and need your boss’s buy-in on your plan for handling it.) 2. Exclamation points in cover letters I have a question about the use of exclamation points in cover letters. Yes or no? I wrote a very compelling cover letter and used a total of three exclamation points (all appropriately) throughout the one-page document. I shared the cover letter with a former colleague. His feedback was that my cover letter “contained WAY too many exclamation points.” What’s your take? There is very little advice on the subject. There’s no hard and fast rule here because it really depends on the content of your letter, but in general I’d say that one or two exclamation marks are fine, but three is probably a little overboard (and I’d bet you could change one or two of them to periods without losing anything). Also, keep in mind that you want your text, not your punctuation, to do the heavy lifting when it comes to conveying tone. All that said, there are many enemies of exclamation points out there, some of whom believe they never belong in professional correspondence (I disagree), and if this was your colleague’s only piece of feedback on your cover letter, he may have such leanings. 3. My ex-husband with anger issues was just hired as a temp at my new job I was laid off over a year ago. Since then, I have been on unemployment and doing temp work at a local hospital, which is a very difficult place to be hired. I have made many friends and love it there; it’s a great place to work. I also volunteer there weekly. Long story short, I was finally offered a full-time permanent job there, and I start in a week. Yesterday, my daughter told me her father, my ex-husband, who was just fired (again) from his job due to anger issues, was hired at the hospital as a temp worker. He starts tomorrow in the same office as me! I have been divorced for 14 years. Without going into the horrific details for the break-up, I had a restraining order for the first few years, and I have had very little contact with him since. I do not know my new supervisor well enough to tell her how I feel about working with my ex-husband or the possible liabilities he poses to the hospital due to his behavior towards women. He acts very polite and friendly to other people. He doesn’t start to “slip up” until he feels comfortable. I really need this job and do not want to jeopardize losing it. I am nervous to be anywhere near this man and feel he purposely applied at my workplace to be near me. I was thinking about talking to my current supervisor about the situation. What would you suggest? If you don’t feel comfortable talking to your new manager, start with your current manager and ask for advice: “I just learned that my ex-husband, who I had a restraining order against for years because of abusive behavior (or fill in whatever broad description is correct here, if you’re comfortable sharing it), has been hired as a temp in the department I’m moving into. I feel really awkward raising this as a brand-new employee, but I feel unsafe and am concerned he may have applied purposely to be near me. Can you give me advice on the best way to handle this? Should I talk to (new manager)? HR?” Alternately, just go straight to HR. They should be able to help figure out what to do about this (and since your ex is a temp, it’ll hopefully be pretty easy to handle). Do it ASAP though, like today. 4. My boss is pressuring me to consult after I leave for a new job After a year and a half with my first post-college employer, I got a job that fits very well in line with my long-term career goals. Because of the structure of my new company, I was able to give my current employer nearly four weeks notice. I was glad to be able to do this because my department is very small and we’re all very overworked. It’s given me time to close up some projects so my boss doesn’t need to rush to replace me. However, she asked me last week if I could sign on as a consultant to work a few off hours (a couple hours on a Saturday or in the evening) in the spring for one project that she is worried can’t be done without me. While I appreciate that she thinks so much of my work, and I’m not totally opposed to it (more money could be a great help for certain loans of educational persuasion), I’d have to get permission from my future employer and I don’t totally feel comfortable going to them and asking them to approve my working for another company when I haven’t even started with them. This is a smaller part of my larger concern over how big of a deal my boss has made about my leaving. She’ll concede that it’s better for me in the long run, but three to five times a day since I’ve given my notice, she’ll (half-joking…but not) say, “Please change your mind” or “You’ll miss us. You won’t have fun like this at your new place.” She’s even gone so far as to quiz me about all of the benefits with my future employer and commenting that by taking this new job, I’ll have to wait to apply to graduate school for another two years (I didn’t sign a two-year contract; this is just her thinking) and I’ll be too old to be accepted anywhere good. I’m not sure, at this point, which is more exhausting, laughing her off/defending my career decisions, or the workload I have to complete in my final week. I don’t want to leave this place on bad terms because she does like me a lot and would give me a very good reference. I’m just concerned that if I do not complete everything by the end my final week and if I do not sign on as a consultant, I’ll wind up leaving with lower marks than I otherwise would have. Unless you strongly want to do the consulting work and aren’t just being influenced by her pressure, say no — for all the reasons here. Say this to her: “I’ve thought about your suggestion, and I think I’ll be too busy with my new job to take on other commitments.” If she keeps pushing, “I really have thought it over, and I just can’t do it. But I’ll leave things in good shape for the next person.” And then repeat as necessary. This is a reasonable stance to take, and no reasonable manager will hold it against you, even if they’re disappointed. Same with the workload: as long as you’re putting in a good faith effort to get done what you can and — importantly — keeping her in the loop about what can and can’t complete, that’s all a reasonable manager will ask of you. And even most unreasonable ones won’t go so far as to hold it against you in a reference. As for the constant “please change your mind” and “you’ll miss us” comments, smile and ignore. You’ll be out of there soon. Read an update to this letter here. 5. Am I right to be turned off by this volunteer interview experience? I applied to work as a volunteer with a nonprofit charity. The position involved working directly with members of the community, so I did expect a fairly thorough process. I initially filled out a lengthy paper application, including reference information. I really hate inconveniencing references unnecessarily, but I assumed that they wouldn’t check them until after an initial interview. This assumption was wrong, as I found out directly from my references that they had been put through a lengthy and detailed telephone interview about me (note, at this point I have not had as much as a phone interview myself). I was a bit surprised, but moved forward with setting up an in-person interview. Initially the interview went well. The representative told me a lot about the work the nonprofit does, and we talked about how my experience could play a part in that. About half an hour into the interview, she casually mentioned that they only train new volunteers once a year, seven months in the future, and that while I would be a good fit, she wouldn’t be surprised if I wanted something sooner! I was quite stunned that no one had mentioned in the long thread of emails to this point, or even earlier in the interview, that they weren’t looking for new people, and that they had contacted my references knowing this(!) but managed to politely finish the interview. Several months later I was contacted asking if I wanted to enroll in their training, but I had booked an out-of-state trip that weekend (it was a major holiday weekend) so I declined. Was I right to consider their interview process to be somewhat inconsiderate and almost rude, particularly considering that I was about to commit a significant amount of volunteer time to them? It really turned me off the organization, and I hope that I am not being petty. Good lord, no, you’re not being petty. There’s no reason for them to contact references before talking with you and confirming that they wanted to bring you on and you were still interested. And there was no reason for them not to tell you when they reached out to schedule the interview that the role wouldn’t be available for seven months, and see if you were still interested in talking now. They were thoughtless and inconsiderate of your time on multiple fronts. If you wanted to, you could send them a polite note pointing both of these things out. It might be helpful for them to hear it from a volunteer applicant they were interested in. You may also like:is it OK to say "Jesus Christ" as an expression of frustration at work?our new-grad employees see less glamorous work as beneath themwhat to do if your references aren’t available { 217 comments }
update: telling a member that his behavior at our events is ruining it for everyone else by Alison Green on February 29, 2016 Remember last week’s letter about the guy who was hassling women at church events for young professionals (a demographic he didn’t even belong to), among other obnoxious behavior? Here’s the update from the letter-writer charged with dealing with the situation. I talked to my pastor today, and we went through all of it. I even quoted him the whole Missing Stair Theory! The pastor revealed that a few members who I thought were in their 20s and 30s are actually in their 40s and just look really young. But these people are well behaved and accepted amongst the younger people. So we’re going to work hard at only marketing to young people but we’re not ready to disinvite the well-behaved “aged-out” crowd. We finally agreed we would tell him he’s not invited to the young adults group but could still come to general church events. We agreed that we are disinviting him because of his age AND his behavior. We agreed I would tell him and the pastor would be available for backup. So I worked up my courage and called. First, I asked him to reflect on what Melissa said and he sounded sad but was saying things like, “I get it” and “I understand.” I was wondering if he already had made the decision to stop coming. Hurray! Fearing it was too good to be true, I pushed him to clarify whether or not he’s going to stop coming. Then all of the pushback started: He’s stuck by us for so long, he pays dues and he knows for a fact that other people don’t, some people just come to church to socialize and don’t pray, this is all un-Christian gossip, this makes the church look bad, this is peer pressure, Melissa shouldn’t have been so rude, in fact, this is all Melissa’s doing. I intervened and said, “No, it’s not all Melissa. People have been saying this before Melissa arrived” but he kept hinting that clearly I and the pastor don’t believe he’s a problem and we’re just doing due diligence on Melissa’s wild accusations. Finally, he clarified his position: There are other aged-out members and when they come to our events, he’s going to come too because that’s only fair. I was proud of myself for saying, “It’s not about fair, it’s just not appropriate.” But he clearly wanted to make this an age issue and because he’s never (never!) creeped anyone out, age is the only barrier here. Sigh. At this point he’s saying he’s willing to talk about this with the board and the pastor but I sensed that he was pushing this off into a Larger Discussion For The Future and I decided to transfer him to the pastor so we could just do this now. I didn’t hear what they discussed but the pastor gave me the pertinent information. James will only come to events where his other aged-out friends are going, which will cut his presence down to just a few times a year. The pastor will work on counseling him on his behavior and how to change the perception that he’s creepy. One thing I didn’t mention earlier is that James considers himself our promoter and prides himself being involved with the church. So by telling him to quit coming to events, he would have to mentally resign his “post” and accept that he’s not a goodwill ambassador, he’s a pest. I’m not sure when that will happen. I feel let down that we didn’t (couldn’t?) ban him all together and we’re going to have to keep negotiating his behavior. I hate the idea that he could creep out more women, but at least now he knows he is not slick or subtle in his attentions and we’re watching. So, not a triumph but a start. Thanks so much to Alison and commenters. When I was struggling with my nervousness about calling him, I actually thought of everyone here. I told myself, “They would cheer me on! They want me to be brave! Do it for them!” So I can honestly say I did a very hard professional task because of you all. Thanks! You may also like:men compliment my handshakecan I fix how my boss treats people?writing an improvement plan for a pastor, job-searching outside of business hours, and more { 288 comments }
how to prepare for a second interview by Alison Green on February 29, 2016 If you received a call after your job interview inviting you to come back in for a second interview, congratulations! In most cases, an invitation for a second interview means that the employer is seriously considering you for the position. That’s good news. However, if you’re like most job seekers, you might be uncertain about what to expect. Will different topics be covered? Will you meet with different people than in the first interview? Should you prepare differently? There’s no one answer to this, because different companies and different managers do things differently. A second interview could be for any of the following reasons: To have you meet with additional people who you didn’t talk to the first time. These could be higher-up decision-makers (like the boss of the person who you’d be reporting to), or potential peers, or even people you’d be managing if you got the job. To probe more in-depth. While the first interview might have covered the basics, the second interview might be designed to probe more deeply – to ask more rigorous questions, probe more deeply into your background and past experiences, and to talk more in-depth about challenging aspects of the work. To better assess areas where the hiring manager still has questions or concerns. If your first interview left your interviewer with some questions or worries, a second interview can be the place she’ll try to address them. For example, your interview might have realized that she needs a better understanding of your experience with X or your approach to Y. Simply to get a better sense of who you are and what you’re all about. Sometimes second interviews are intended simply to get a deeper impression of you. In these cases, the conversation might be mostly light and without the rigorous question-asking you often find in first-round interviews. It can be hard, if not impossible, to know ahead of time which of these categories your second interview will fall into – and it may fall into more than one category. The best thing you can do ahead of time is to prepare just as vigorously as you would for a first interview. Don’t make the mistake of thinking, “They’ve already asked the tough questions, so this is just to rubberstamp the decision.” That means that in preparing for a second interview, you should: Do the same sort of practice and preparation you did last time. Hopefully, that means making sure you’re very familiar with the company and the job posting, reflecting on common interview questions and how you’ll answer them, and practicing your answers to particularly tricky questions (like about salary or why you left your last job). This might feel unnecessary; after all, you already did all this for the first round. But you want to be just as prepared and have your answers just as fresh in your head as they were last time. You don’t want to perform worse the second time around. Come up with new questions of your own. You probably asked some of your most basic questions in the first interview. But now you know the job and the company a bit better, and you probably have questions based on that greater knowledge. This is the time for more nuanced questions about the work, the culture, and the team. Research anyone who you know you’re be meeting with, if you were given names ahead of time. This doesn’t mean compiling a detailed dossier; it just means that you want to know what their role is and how long they’ve been with the company, and in some cases what their professional history was before this job. Dress as well as you did for the first interview. Sometimes people show up at an interview in a suit, see everyone else in jeans, and figure they can dress down for the second interview. But in most fields, interview dress is different than what you might wear day-to-day on the job. Most fields continue to expect job candidates to show up in suits. Don’t blow the second interview by showing up looking like you didn’t take it seriously. Don’t be thrown off if you’re asked the same questions that you were asked last time. This might happen if you’re talking to new people, and it even might happen if you’re talking to the same person as earlier because people may have go-to questions and forget that they’ve already asked you them. Don’t sound annoyed or give an abbreviated answer on the assumption that they can get the details from someone else, and definitely don’t say “well, I explained that to Larry.” Answer pleasantly and thoroughly, the way you would the first time the question was asked. Go with the flow. This is always a helpful attitude to take with interviews, but it’s especially true with second interviews, where there are a number of directions the employer could take the conversation and no way to know in advance how it will play out. And remember, a second interview almost certainly means that you did well enough in the first interview that the employer thinks there’s a good chance that you could be the right hire. It’s not a guarantee and you shouldn’t take it as one – but it should boost your confidence to know that you did well enough the first time around to warrant continuing the conversation. You may also like:can I ask what to expect at a job interview?a job candidate tried to give us a presentation we didn't wantshould you give job candidates the questions ahead of time? { 8 comments }
how can I talk sense into a young relative with terrible workplace habits? by Alison Green on February 29, 2016 A reader writes: This question veers a bit into personal life territory, but I was wondering if you had any advice you could share anyway. I have a young relative who has limited parental guidance and appears to be developing some horrible workplace habits. She has never appeared to take work very seriously, but since her employment history was mostly summer jobs, it was hard to tell. Since she graduated from college almost a year ago, though, she’s been sounding like a parody version of a the media’s version of an irresponsible millennial. She got a prestigious paid internship through family connections, only to announce almost immediately that it was horrible because “they didn’t give me an office with a window,” “I can’t handle fluorescent lighting,” “the work doesn’t match my self identity,” and that she found any more mundane tasks they gave her insulting. She ended up breaking her contract four months in. She believes she left on a good note, but the family member who referred her confirms otherwise. She’s taking six months off now to “recover” before she looks for work again. To be clear, I work with interns at my workplace all the time. I know this isn’t typical age or generational behavior. She seems to really think workplaces exist entirely to fulfill her needs and seems to have no clue that these relationships are not friendships. I’m worried that not only is she not going totally tank her prospects for the future, but also that she’s going to alienate her family members (myself included!) who have had to work hard at far worse jobs to get where we are. To complicate matters further, due to an insurance settlement, she actually has enough of a nest egg to make financial pressures nonexistent for at least five years. In the workplace, the necessity of these conversations is normally pretty clear. In my personal life, however, I’m totally at a loss how to approach this or even if I should. We have a pretty good relationship otherwise, so I’d like to try to say something. How would you go about explaining basic workplace norms to someone who doesn’t seem to have grasped them? I think you get one shot at this, and during that one shot, you can be pretty blunt, assuming the relationship is reasonably close. I’d say this: “Hey, I want to talk to you about something that I’ve noticed. I’m only going to bring this up once and won’t keep hassling you after this, but I care about you too much not to say something. I think you’re smart and talented and could have a career that makes you really happy in the long-term, but I’m worried that you’re making decisions right now that will make that harder and harder to achieve. You’ve said things to me that sound like you have expectations for jobs that aren’t in line with the reality of most jobs, especially early in your career. For example, not having a window is pretty normal! Fluorescent lighting is going to be in almost any office you work in. And lots of jobs when you’re starting out are going to include mundane tasks. The only way you get to a point in your career where you can be pickier about this stuff is by digging in and doing the work that’s available to you now — and building a reputation for being reliable, driven, and easy to work with. When you do that for long enough, you’ll get to a point where you’ll have a strong reputation and can be more selective about what jobs you accept. “You’ve got an unusual financial situation right now that can feel like it gives you more options than most people your age. But it might be doing you a disservice if it’s leading you to reject or quit jobs that you’d feel more obligated to stay in if you had more typical financial pressures. At whatever point that money runs out, you don’t want to find yourself in a position where you’re not a strong job candidate because you haven’t worked much, or have quit jobs quickly, or just haven’t built up the persevering-through-work muscle that your peers will have built during that time. Employers in five years are going to look at what you’ve been doing since graduating from college, and to get the jobs you want then, you’re going to need to have built up a good history. “I want to see you set yourself up for a work life that will make you happy long-term, not just in the present, and I’m worried that the way you’re approaching it now is going to make that harder for you down the road.” Will that message get through? Maybe. Maybe not. If she’s a basically decent but naive person, probably somewhere in between. But that part is out of your control. All you can really do is deliver the message; what she does with it is up to her. After that, though, I think you’ll need to resign yourself to just watching from the sidelines; talking to her about this stuff once is kind, but pointing it out repeatedly is just going to be annoying, and also probably wasted on her. However, you could certainly make it clear that you’re available if she ever does want a sounding board. Also, urge that family member who got her that internship and knows that she burned a bridge there to tell her that. Letting her think that she left that job on good terms is doing her no favors, and is actually helping to enable her currently wonky world view. You may also like:an entry-level candidate with no job history wants more money for their "experience"is it normal to assign hotel roommates on a work trip?can you leave dates of employment off your resume? { 310 comments }
I was offered my boss’s job but now she’s not leaving, negotiating salary through a recruiter, and more by Alison Green on February 29, 2016 It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I was offered my boss’s job, but now she says she’s not leaving About two months ago, senior management took me aside to let me know that my boss would be leaving the company in a few months and that they wanted me to take her position. It would be a huge bump in salary and responsibility, and a position that is rarely vacant, so I enthusiastically said yes. Since then. I have been shadowing my boss, attending trainings, having regular meetings with leadership, and sitting on hiring panels in preparation for my new role. Today, my boss abruptly told me she wasn’t leaving after all so I’m not getting her job, sorry. I’m dumbfounded. She said this literally as she was getting on an elevator so I had no chance to follow up. What do I say on Monday? I feel like sending out resumes right now! I’d say this to her: “I wanted to follow up your mention on Friday about your plans. We didn’t a get a chance to talk much, so I was hoping you could tell me more about what’s going on.” If she continues to be brusque (and “you’re not getting my job, sorry” certainly qualifies as that), I’d just say, “Okay, thanks for letting me know” and then go talk with whoever offered you the promotion earlier. To them, say this: “Jane has told me that she’s not resigning and that the plans for me moving into her position are off, but she hasn’t told me anything more than that. I was hoping you might be able to talk more with me about what this means.” They owe you a fuller explanation than what you’ve received so far. Because of the work they’ve been having you do these last few months, they owe you some information about what changed and why (not necessarily micro-details, but at least the gist of the situation) and some discussion about what that means for you and your future there. (The latter might just be “you stay in the job you’re at,” but ideally they’d recognize that this sucks and would talk to you about other paths to development and promotion.) 2. Resigning employee is slacking off during his notice period An employee of mine put in his two weeks’ notice a week ago. During that conversation, I outlined the tasks for his remaining time, and checked in with him again on the Monday after that conversation. However, for the past week, he has been coming in late, leaving early, and from what I can tell, not completing the tasks we discussed. I had a conversation at the end of the week with him about my concerns (that he wasn’t completing the tasks and putting in a full 40 hours) and he responded that it was his prerogative to adjust his own hours and that he still had a week to complete the tasks. While the company is flexible with work hours, it’s still expected that people regularly come in for a full eight hours. As for the tasks, a few of them are ongoing and would easily fill his remaining two weeks. After our conversation, I’m feeling very powerless in this situation, and would prefer at this point that he simply not return to work. While it may be too late to salvage his last week, how do I handle this now, or with future employees who put in two weeks’ notice? I’d say this to him: “While you’re still working here, we need you to meeting the same standards as before you gave notice. If you’re not up for that, would you prefer to simply make today your last day?” (Say this in a collaborative tone, not a threatening one.) If he says yes but doesn’t change what he’s been doing, it’s your prerogative to intervene and say, “Hey, it seems like we have really different expectations of what these last two weeks should look like, so I think it would be best to wrap things up now.” Keep in mind that if you do that, he’s going to leave pissed off (which you might be fine with — he’s clearly not too invested in making a great impression on you). Depending on details I don’t have, it might make more sense to just roll your eyes, accept that this guy sucks, know that he’s blown his reference, and just get through the remaining time in his notice period without getting into it with him and be glad when he’s gone. 3. Recruiter is making it hard for me to negotiate salary About five weeks ago, I was contacted by an outside recruiter regarding a position across the country, in my current field but at a much larger organization and in a narrower (probably less stressful) role. There were phone interviews with the outside recruiter, the internal HR guy, and the hiring manager, and then a day on-site of serial interviews with eight different people. Initially, I’d provided a target salary range to the recruiter and HR guy, but I qualified that I’d need to look into cost of living. In later conversations, I let the recruiter know that the top of my initial range was where I would need to start in order to break even. In my final interview with the hiring manager, she asked about salary for the first time, and I told her what I’d told HR, and that I was preferably looking for a little above the top of my range. She said she thought she could get me the top of the range, maybe higher depending on how I did with her boss. I received an offer via the recruiter the other day, but it came in lower than the low end of my initial range, and he indicated HR had suggested they did not have room to move. I really want to go to work for this company, but they’re in an area with much higher housing costs as well as state income tax, and the accepting base salary offered would in effect feel like I was making a little less than I am now. It might still be worth it, but I feel I’m worth more, and I’d like to ask the employer for it. I asked the recruiter to negotiate on my behalf, but he said our only options are to accept the offer, or to decline it outright but say that I’d accept at the top end of my initial range (or some higher number, if we wanted to leave room for negotiation). I’d prefer not to jeopardize the offer by completely walking away, and to have a final chance to accept the low number. I’ve been considering emailing the hiring manager and asking if she’s open to a conversation, so I can let her know how excited I am about the job but that I’d like the higher salary she thought she could get me–but I don’t want to irreparably offend HR and the recruiter. This is tricky, because the recruiter might be absolutely right about how to proceed (based on his knowledge of the company and the hiring manager) and both he and the hiring manager could be irked if you try to go around the recruiter, or the recruiter might be totally off-base. If nothing else, though, I’d push the recruiter to accurately represent your position — which isn’t one of the limited options he suggested (reject or accept only if $X) but rather a very normal “let’s talk about the salary” stance. Any chance you have other questions for the hiring manager? People often do have the sorts of questions that really need to be answered by the hiring manager directly, and one option could be to arrange a conversation for those, and then end up covering salary during that discussion too. 4. Employer requires women to be escorted to their cars My employer requires that female, and only female, employees have a male employee escort them to their car after their shift is over. I am a 40-year-old woman and have been threatened with being terminated for leaving without an escort who is younger than my own children. I am often times required to wait up to 45 minutes after my shift ends (and off the clock) before I’m allowed to go home. I would think it should be my choice when I could leave work after I am off duty. Please advise? Whoa, no, that’s not legal. Your employer can’t discriminate by sex, which it’s doing in subjecting you to different rules than men, especially a rule that’s causing you to have to stay at work long (unpaid, no less!). Say this to your employer: “I don’t need an escort to my car, and I need to leave on time. Federal law prohibits us from treating women differently than men, and I know we don’t want to violate the law, so I’m leaving now.” If they push back, the EEOC might like to hear from you. 5. Using a professor as a reference At what point should you stop using a college professor as a reference? In my case, I have used for several years a trusted mentor and former professor as a reference. I’m not looking for a new job anytime soon but when the time comes, at what point in your career/age does that become something that looks odd to a reference checker? I find professor references pretty useless — I really want to talk to managers. You might have been a great student who made thoughtful contributions to class discussion and wrote insightful papers, but that doesn’t tell me much about what you’re like at work. I can understand students or new grads including professors on their reference lists if they don’t have many other options, but as soon as you do have options, you should use those instead. (The exception to this might be if you work in academia, although I’m just guessing there.) You may also like:another salary negotiation success storycan you negotiate a raise if your boss knows you won't leave if you don't get it?should you always ask for the top of the salary range? { 430 comments }
weekend free-for-all – February 27-28, 2016 by Alison Green on February 27, 2016 Eve is a bat. This comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand. (This one is truly no work and no school. If you have a work question, you can email it to me or post it in the work-related open thread on Fridays.) Book recommendation of the week: The Martian, by Andy Weir. I loved the movie and wasn’t sure if the book would be too sci-fi for me, but it’s not. I’m mid-way through and it’s making me want to watch the movie nightly. * I make a commission if you use that Amazon link. You may also like:what to say if an interviewer asks about your favorite books or moviesyes, you are awkward ... and yes, it's okaythe Ask a Manager book is on sale at Amazon { 911 comments }
coworkers keep trying to get me to do things that aren’t my job, when to ask for a promotion, and more by Alison Green on February 27, 2016 It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. Coworkers keep trying to get me to do things that aren’t my job I just got out of a frustrating meeting and my heart is pounding – so I’m writing angrily. How can I handle it when coworkers endlessly ask me to fix/weigh in on things that aren’t my realm of responsibility? One of today’s many issues was that the designers (including the design director) wanted to know if we have an inventory of all the supplies. Well, I’m in a sales/marketing/processing-paperwork-for-funders position, so why would I have the inventory? We have Jane, the operations director, who’s supposedly in charge of supplies. Why not call her and ask, “Jane, do we have an inventory?” Nope, instead of calling her and asking, the designers cornered me and insisted that I see if it’s any of our funder reports. One of them vaguely remembered something that made her think maybe it was in a report – and if it’s in a report somewhere then it’s my job to be in charge of it, apparently! Today I tried saying, “Well, that’s in Jane’s area, so you should ask her” to end the conversation, but the designers insisted that I needed to look into it (right now!) and refused to contact Jane. The designers also like to go on and on, so it dragged out forever. I wanted to just call Jane up, tell them to ask her, and leave the room (thank goodness I didn’t blow up that way, though I did get very snappy). I want to get my coworkers to stop thinking that I’m the problem, and point out that Jane is the one they need to ask. My boss recognizes this recurring problem, and supports that it’s between their two departments to solve and not our department’s issue, but she’s can’t attend every meeting with me. Overall, how do I get out of conversations where they keep insisting it’s my problem but it’s really a different department’s area to address? Since your boss has your back, then problem solved: “Lucinda has made it clear that I shouldn’t be doing work in that area. But Jane has the info you need.” If they keep pushing: “Lucinda has stated multiple times that this is something you need to go to Jane about. I can’t help.” And if it continues after that, your boss really needs to tell their boss to get them to cut it out. Read an update to this letter here. 2. When is too early to ask for a promotion? I started my job 11 months ago, and was looking forward to conversations about a promotion from X to Senior X at my one-year mark. This timing would not be absurd, as some people with my degree start out as Senior X at other companies. However, this morning (near my 11-month mark) I was surprised with a bonus, 5% merit raise, and stock options. Although I’m thrilled, I’m a bit disappointed that this closes the door to my conversation about a promotion. Although I appreciate the extra cash, I think a title upgrade is more important at this early stage of my career. Was 1 year too soon to ask for a promotion anyway? At this point, should I wait for my 1.5-year mark to bring it up? In most fields, even 1.5 years would be way too early! There are some fields where this is more normal, but if you’re not in one, you risk sounding really, really tone-deaf/naive. So the thing to do here is to figure out what’s normal for your field (the fact that other people are hired at a higher title doesn’t necessarily tell you what’s standard for promotions) and in your particular organization. If it’s not immediately clear by looking around and watching other people, one option is to talk to people who are one or two levels up from you and get their advice. Read an update to this letter here. 3. I want to take a week off in between jobs I work in hospitality and am considering an offer for a position at another hotel in pre-opening (they open in May). I’d like to give two weeks notice at my current position and also take a week off after that before starting the new position because I can afford to do that and so I’m coming into the new job refreshed. Will that request seem out of line or lazy? And if not, what is the appropriate way to bring it up? Nope, totally fine and normal to do. When you accept the offer and are discussing start date, just say, “Would (date) work for you?” If they ask if you can start earlier, say, “I of course need to give my current job two weeks notice, and I’d like to take off a week before starting so that I’m able to start with you refreshed.” It’s a really, really common thing to do. It does not look lazy or out of line in any way. 4. Should I agree to a work project a few months off when I’m job searching? I am actively applying to new jobs, but I have no idea how long that will take. There is also a real possibility that things may improve at my current job and I may decide to stay. (We are going through a transition, and they are exploring a possible new role for me.) In the meantime, a supervisor asked whether I could speak at a major conference in two months. It wasn’t an order, it was just an ask, but I also don’t think it would look good to say no when I can’t provide a good reason. I don’t want to leave them hanging if I change jobs in the meantime — I don’t think anyone else could easily fill in on this event — but I also don’t want them to know I’m looking for other jobs. What do you recommend I do? Proceed as if you’re staying at your job until you have definite plans to leave it. You said yourself that there’s a real possibility that you may decide to stay. Even if you don’t, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be at a new job in two months. In fact, that would be a pretty fast job search — it would mean you’d need to get an offer sometimes in the next six weeks, which could certainly happen, but many searches take a lot long than that. So assume you’ll still be there in two months, until and unless something happens that makes it more certain that you won’t be. If it does turn out that you’ll be gone by the time the conference comes around, your employer will deal with that. People leave jobs, it’s often at inopportune times, and employers make do. You may also like:is it ethical not to ask for more work when you have room to do more?my coworker accidentally fractured my armmy best employee is disappointed that I'm not dealing with a bad employee { 99 comments }