It’s tiny answer Tuesday — six short answers to six short questions. Here we go.
1. Is this hiring practice normal?
My question is about online job hunting. When I apply to a posted job online through Indeed or Monster or wherever, I sometimes get back a response that ends with “The next step in the process would be to contact our office to discuss the potential of an interview. You can respond back by calling between the hours of 9:00 am and 3:00 pm to speak with myself or one of my associates.”
Is that normal practice? Seems to me they should call me. Or am I setting my expectations too high?
Doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. I assume it’s because they’d rather you call when it’s a good time for you, rather than having to play phone tag. Just call them. (That said, I’d bet these are employment agencies, if you can speak with just anyone there.)
2. As a new intern, can I apply for a full-time opening with my company?
I graduated in 2009 from a top university and have spent the last year living abroad on a research grant. Since moving back to the US, I’ve sent out a ton of resumes and interviewed for several positions, but nothing has worked out yet. Trying to be proactive, I recently accepted a part-time, unpaid internship at my dream company that will start in January. While I’m excited about the work I’ll be doing, the main reason I took the internship was with the hope of being offered a full-time position at the end of the internship. Honestly, sustaining the internship and a full-time job (in food service) is a stretch. I’ve still been looking at job listings, and today I saw that the company I’m interning for is hiring, in my department, for an entry-level position. I fit all of the qualifications that they’re looking for, and I’m obviously passionate about the work. How can I broach this subject? Is it appropriate to ask to be considered for the position even though I’ve accepted the internship or have I lost all leverage by committing to work for free? The job starts in February and my internship starts in January, so I’m tempted to suggest that I could intern for the month of January and basically step into the position well-trained. Or does the fact that no one suggested this initially signal that they’re not interested?
Ask about it. It’s easy to think “they would have approached me if they thought I was the right fit,” but what’s far more common on the hiring manager’s side is that she’s filled the internship slot and it’s now out of her mind and she’s on to the next role she has to fill … without stopping to think about whether you might be a good candidate for the latter. You’ve got to be your own advocate here, so if it interests you, speak up: “I saw you were hiring for an X, and while I’m incredibly excited about my internship in January, I’d love to be considered for the X job if you think it might be a good fit.”
3. Can my employer make me stay longer after initially telling me my shift was over?
I worked my 9-hour shift for the day and my boss told me I was no longer needed and could go home. While I was getting ready to leave and waiting for a coworker to give me a lift home, the boss comes and tells me that they have changed their mind and decided that they need me to stay longer. 20 minutes had passed between the time that they had initially told me I am done. Once you are dismissed for the day, are they allowed to tell you that they have changed their mind?
Sure. And if you don’t want to stay, you can always say that you can’t — that you have to be somewhere or whatever, since you were told your shift was ending at __. But keep in mind that in general people who are flexible are more prized than those who aren’t.
4. Should I re-submit an improved resume to a job I’ve already applied for?
I’ve just finished a complete remodel of my resume which expands on details of my previous work positions. Should I re-apply or contact company HR departments for positions I’ve already applied for so I can give them this improved resume? Or, would that be an annoyance and add confusion? In both cases, I have contact info for the HR contacts directly.
An annoyance. You should only apply once.
5. My resume is too long for LinkedIn
I just redid my resume from scratch to have more examples and specifics rather than job description bullet points. It’s now 2 pages, and I’m wondering what might be acceptable to post on my LinkedIn profile. I think if I put it all out there, it would be one long scroll. Do you think it’s best just to simply list your job titles, or should some level of description and detail be with each one?
LinkedIn is different than a resume — in tone, in format, and in use — so you don’t want to just copy and paste your resume into your profile. If you Google “LinkedIn resume difference,” you’ll find a ton of advice on how to use them differently. Which will let me stop typing here and still fit this into a short-answer post.
6. How can we convince our company to release the product we developed?
I work for a small business that does software development, among other things. A few of us have taken initiative on a project in our slower work time that took a few months to produce, and that we think is a great product that fits with our plan for growth. We’ve asked the owners of our company to meet about a product release plan, but they have ignored the request for six or seven months! It seems other client projects are always a higher priority. As a general trend, if the owners or outside clients didn’t initiate a project, it seems to be ignored. This project may be good enough to start a company based on it — but since we made this during work hours we don’t really own the IP.
The momentum for the project is not coming from the people who can make product release decisions. For the good of the company, I don’t want to see a potential revenue generating product disappear — how can we approach our managers with the request to release the product when they have ignored several such requests already? Should we just give up?
It’s hard to say without knowing the internal dynamics and players at your company. You can try to put together a business case for releasing the product, showing expected costs, revenues, etc. … and you can ask them what it would take to convince them that the idea is worth pursuing … but ultimately if it’s not a priority to them and you aren’t able to persuade them otherwise, that’s probably that.
