Your interviewer knows what she’s doing. No one reads cover letters. Don’t bother job searching around the holidays.
Wrong!
There are a bunch of myths out there about job searching, and over at U.S. News & World Report, I’ve written about 10 of them. You can read it here.
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A reader writes:
I recently joined a new team and one of my colleagues seems to think she can boss me around/ tell me what to do. We have a lateral position and she has only been on the team for three months. How should I approach this? I am still new and would like to be collegial, yet feel that this needs to be addressed.
The first time I noticed it was when she began to ask me what I activities I had accomplished that day, if I have completed my trainings yet, etc. I updated her on what I had been doing. She apparently spoke with our manager and asked if she could be my “mentor.” My boss did not consult me, but just announced it at our team meeting. I am now concerned.
Well, just because your coworker is acting like she’s your manager doesn’t mean that you need to play into it. When she asks you what activities you’ve done that day, say, “Why do you ask?” or “I’ve got it under control, thanks!” You say this in a pleasant, upbeat way, but you set some boundaries.
And if you don’t want her as your “mentor,” then you tell her that: ”Hey, I really appreciate you offering to be my mentor, but I actually think I have things under control.”
Now, as for your boss … It wasn’t the greatest idea for her to simply announce this mentorship arrangement without talking with you first. After all, what if you hated the coworker or felt there was bad chemistry? And it would have been helpful for her to explain exactly what she thought you might get out of this mentorship. It’s possible, after all, that there are legitimately useful things that could come out of it — for instance, if the coworker has more experience in your industry than you do. But your boss should talk to you about that, not leaving you wondering.
So, in the best case scenario, your boss just wasn’t especially thoughtful about this. It’s not the worst crime in the world, but it could have been handled better. Or, a worse possibility, it could indicate that your boss is a pushover who simply said yes to your coworker’s request because her default mode is to say yes to things even if they’re not good ideas.
But the other possibility that you have to consider here is that your boss thinks you’re struggling and could use the coworker’s help. I’m absolutely not saying that this is what’s happening, but it’s worth considering that it’s possible that the reason your coworker is pushing help on you and the reason your boss was quick to agree to a mentoring system is because they perceive you as struggling with the work. Of course, if that’s the case, your boss should have told you that, but not all bosses are good ones.
Unless you’re 100% positive this isn’t the case, it might be worth asking your boss for some feedback about all of this. You could simply say, “I was wondering about your thinking behind asking Jane to mentor me. Are there areas you’d like to see me focusing on improving in?” See what she says. This conversation could also be a good opportunity to ask her how she thinks things are going overall. There’s never any harm in having that conversation.
But if she assures you that things are going fine, set some boundaries with the coworker and don’t be pressured into answering to her. Even if your boss has stuck you with this “mentoring” relationship now, mentoring you doesn’t mean managing you or expecting you to answer to her.
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A reader writes:
I love my job. I have been there for over 2 years and going into my 3rd year they were forced to cut my hours by nearly 40%, thus cutting my pay by nearly 40%. I would like to quit my job to stay home and babysit my adorable niece and nephew. My sister will pay me enough to make up for the 40% loss and I get to play with those babies.
Back to “I love my job.” I work with kids at an elementary school. When the district cut back my hours my boss was sympathetic to me and that situation. I think he will be very kind and understanding and even happy for me. My only question is, what exactly do I say to him when I ask to see him. Do I say “I need to quit,” “I’m giving my notice,” I don’t know what phrase to use. Do I need a letter of resignation? How much time do I need to give them?
Also, I will be crying. Remember I love my job. I also love the people I work with – they have become my best friends! I do not want to cry. How can I control my emotions?
Say something like this: ”I think you know that I really love my job here. But I’m unable to make it work with my hours cut this much, and so after a lot of thought, I’ve decided that I need to move on. I’d like to give notice that my last day will be ___.”
As for how much notice to give, that’s up to you. You want to give a minimum of two weeks, because that’s considered the professional standard, but some people give longer than that, depending on the norms in their workplace and the relationship they have with their boss.
And if you’re flexible about when your last day will be, say that. Tell your boss that you have flexibility but would like your last day to be sometime between __ and __, and ask what would make life easiest on her side.
You don’t need a written letter of resignation, unless they ask you for one. (Resignation letters are just a formality, and many people don’t use them at all. They’re really just there to document that you did in fact resign your job in case you later sue, or if you file for unemployment claiming you were laid off, or whatever.)
As for controlling your emotions, well, you can try remembering that you feel good about this decision, that leaving jobs is a normal part of life, and that you’re leaving on good terms. But you may cry anyway — people do. It’s not a disaster if you do. And it’s nice to have had a job that you enjoyed enough to cry when you leave — be glad you feel that way, rather than wanting to high-five your coworkers.
Good luck!
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I recently got into a debate in the comments section with a reader who argued that the boss should know how to do every job of all the people she manages. I think this is crazy — I don’t know how to do graphic design or computer programming, but I can manage people who do those things. It’s about agreeing on the right goals, being able to tell if those goals are being met, offering resources the team may need, and having a working BS detector. (The whole debate is here.)
Anyway, this is all a lead-in to say that I have a post up at the Intuit QuickBase blog about how to manage work that’s outside your areas of expertise. You can read it here. Please leave your comments over there!
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Please stop opening your cover letters with this sentence and all variations of it:
“I’m applying for this position because I’m the best candidate for the job.”
No, you’re not. The best candidate has the sense to know that she has no idea what the rest of the candidate pool looks like.
Somewhere along the way, someone told you to be confident and sell yourself in the job application process. But that means showing me what makes you the best candidate, not just telling me and expecting me to believe it. If you’re the best, your accomplishments are what will make that clear.
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You may think you want to be a manager, but do you know what you’d be signing up for? There are tons of things that suck about being the boss, and over at U.S. News & World Report today, I cry you a river about what they are … from being blamed when things go wrong to having to deliver bad news to having to fire people and much more.
You can read it here.
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Reader Kristin Van Dorn recently interviewed me for a class she’s taking, and she posted the interview here. We talked about how Ask a Manager started, writing style, and more.
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A reader writes:
My company has an annual meeting where all of our sales staff from across the country come together. People from marketing and a few other departments are also in attendance, as is the entire executive management team. Since people are flying in from across the country anyway, the meeting has typically been held at an all-inclusive resort hotel outside the country (e.g. Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and a couple other spots). The meeting is mandatory.
Plane travel arrangements are handled by our company’s travel coordinator. She books our tickets for us approximately 3-4 months in advance. When she sends us the information regarding our flights, there is always a note in her email stating something to the effect of: “If you resign prior to the trip, you will be responsible for reimbursing the company for the cost of the airline ticket. You will own the ticket and can change the ticket for your personal use. You will need to write a check for the cost of the ticket, or have the amount deducted from your final paycheck.”
I’m going to assume this is legal (since most of the time when people ask you that, your answer seems to be yes). However, I’m wondering if it is common? I have never encountered this at other companies, but in all of my past jobs I rarely traveled for work. Wondering what your thoughts are on this kind of policy, especially since my tickets for the upcoming trip have already been purchased, but I’m in the process of looking for another job.
I’m 99% sure this isn’t legal, actually. (Congratulations! That’s a rare answer around here.) I’m not a lawyer and I wasn’t able to turn up anything on this with a pretty extensive Google search, so I’m just going on semi-informed instinct here, but generally speaking, if you don’t agree to assume an expense that someone else has already paid for, that someone else has no standing to require you to reimburse them.
In other words, your company can’t just announce on their own that you’re responsible for reimbursing them for various employer-paid items if you leave; you’d need to agree to that arrangement, which you haven’t done. (Think, for instance, of programs where an employer pays for college classes but there’s a signed agreement that you’ll reimburse their costs if you leave before a certain amount of time is up. A signed agreement — because otherwise they’d have no standing to enforce it.)
Leaving the questionable legalities aside, no, this isn’t typical. Travel costs for work-related trips are a normal cost of doing business. The employer is requiring the trip, so they assume the risks — the risk that you might not be working there when the trip rolls around, the risk that you might be sick and unable to go, and the risk that the trip might be cancelled entirely for reasons that have nothing to do with you.
There are lots of costs that employers don’t like (for instance, the costs of preparing for a new employee who backs out of the job right before starting, or having to pay unemployment benefits for a fired employee who put in no effort), but they’re still normal costs of doing business.
This is also just a crappy thing to do — to require you to attend a work event outside the country and then try to stick you with the cost of an international plane ticket if you end up moving on before then (and not give you an out if you don’t want to agree to those terms).
In any case, I suspect it’s utterly unenforceable anyway, so if I were you, I’d just ignore it. If you happen to leave your job before this trip and they try to deduct the cost of the ticket from your final paycheck, let them know (nicely) that you never agreed to assume that expense and that they’re not authorized to deduct it from your paycheck. A letter from a lawyer could put some teeth behind that, but hopefully they’d be smart enough to consult their own lawyer as soon as you raise the issue. (And that lawyer should set them straight.)
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It’s fast answer Friday. Here we go…
1. Recent grad wants management job
I am a recent grad and my resume (in my opinion) is colorful and damn near great. I want to apply to management type jobs but don’t have the experience. What can I do? Should I get a management certificate from a community college or volunteer somewhere as a manager?(That’s a crazy assumption that people would allow this, haha.) Those are the only options I can come up with.
You usually need to work your way up into a management job, rather than starting off in one. I wouldn’t bother with a management certificate; no way in hell would I set a recent grad loose managing people based on a certificate. You need to get experience being managed first, and working, and managing projects and processes, and gradually easing into managing people (and anyone who hires you to manage without having that experience first should be suspect). Read this for advice on how to work your way up into a management role.
Totally separately, it makes me nervous that you say your resume is colorful. I hope that doesn’t mean gimmicky!
2. Should I check in with this employer?
I applied for an internship and received a reply from the contact for the position thanking me and stating that if I hadn’t heard from them by Nov. 30, I was to consider that a rejection. Having received this, I am not sure whether a follow-up phone call to ask them how the application process was progressing and if they needed anything else from me would show eagerness, or just annoy them, considering they’d already told me that they’d received my application and given me a response timeframe. What is the best procedure here?
Don’t ask them how the application process is progressing. That’s a weird question, and one they’re probably not going to bother answering. And it’s not what you mean anyway — what you really mean is that you want some indication of whether you’re still in the running. What you can do instead is to send a follow-up reiterating your strong interest and telling them that you hope to hear from them once they’re scheduling interviews. Personally, I’d prefer that you do this by email because phone calls are annoying.
3. Can I ask for time to review an employment contract before I sign it?
I’m in the final stages of negotiating a new job. I’ve been working for the organization as a temp since January, but I will have a new boss (the old one retired) and be hired as a full-time employee. It’s looking like the employment contract will be ready any day now. I was wondering whether it’s reasonable to ask for a day or two to review the contract before I sign it, or if the usual practice is to sign the contract at the meeting where it’s presented.
Absolutely you should ask for a day or so to look it over. Unless you’re having a lawyer look at it, you probably only need a day, but you definitely don’t need to sign it on the spot. Contracts tend to be complicated. (That’s assuming they’re really giving you a contract — are you sure they are? Most employees in the U.S. don’t have contracts, so I wonder if you’re actually talking about a written job offer. If it’s just a written offer, you can still ask for time to think it over, but in that case you’re probably thinking over the offer itself, not analyzing a contract.)
4. How can I make my staff respect me?
I was recently hired as assistant kitchen manager at an already established restaurant. Since all of the employees have been there for 1+ years and I have been there only a short time, they seem to think that they are above me and do not have to listen to what I say. They constantly try telling me what I need to do. They really have absolutly no respect for me. With that being said, the employees are very very good at what they do and they are valuable to the restaurant and firing them would do me more harm than good. There is another manager above me but he manages several locations so he really is not around much. I got the job because of my experience and education so I do not want to run straight to him with the problem because i feel like it will make me look bad and make him think I can’t handle the position. All of my previous experience as manager has been in restaurants where I was either hired as manager before it opened or I was hired to open the location, so going into an established restaurant is something I have never done. Is there any advice you can give me to help me fix the situation without having to start being really strict or running to manager above me?
Managers earn respect by being good at what they do, fair, and assertive without being jerks. So you’ve got to find ways to demonstrate that you’re all of those things. But part of “assertive without being a jerk” means that you need to set and maintain appropriate boundaries: If you ask someone to do something and they don’t do it, you need to find out why, and you need to make it clear that that can’t happen again. And you need to be willing to enforce consequences if it continues to happen after you talk about it … but you simultaneously should be demonstrating your own value, so that your employees respect you. Think about great managers you’ve seen in the past, particularly ones who came into an established team, and emulate them.
5. Who can I use for a reference when I’m still at my first job?
I’m a nurse currently employed full-time on a medical/surgical floor. I have an interview for an ICU position at a different hospital on Friday. I still work at my old job, they have no idea I’m planning on leaving, and if I don’t get the job at the other hospital, I’m planning on staying at the one I work at now. Who can I ask for a reference? I don’t think it is appropriate to ask my current manager… but I want to be able to give references from this job as it is my first nursing job since graduation.
It’s very, very normal for job-seekers to ask that their current employer not to be contacted for a reference, since in most cases the current employer doesn’t know the employee is looking. And since this if your first job, prospective employers are going to understand that you don’t have previous managers to refer them to, and they’re likely to work with you to find a solution that works on both sides. One option is to have them make any job offer contingent on a reference from your current boss, so that way she’s not called until you already have an offer. Another option is to use colleagues, if they’re willing to use those instead (they may or may not be).
6. Will my office let me spend my training budget on a career coach?
Our organization provides each employee with up to $1,000 a fiscal year for training. Our boss has asked that we propose a “budget” of how we’ll spend this money (he asked this mid-way into the fiscal year, but okay). Would it be appropriate for me to request that I spend this years budget on career coach services? I enjoy my position but want assistance in thinking more long-term about my career (something the current boss does not provide), but fear he’ll think that this is just about finding another job (which it is not). How do I pitch this appropriately?
If your boss is like most bosses, that money is supposed to be spent on professional development that your employer will benefit from you gaining — for instance, most commonly, it’s classes where you learn a new skill that you’ll use in your current job. Career coach services aren’t likely to benefit your employer, and in fact sound like they’re likely to lead to you leaving your employer. (The exception to this would be if the coaching is specifically focused on developing skills that you’ll use in your current role — for instance, working on running better meetings or developing leadership skills — but those aren’t typically things that people think about when they think about career coaching.) Basically, unless you can make a very strong argument that your employer will benefit from you receiving this coaching, it would be inappropriate to propose it.
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A reader writes:
Recently I had to fire one of my employees. There was a history of tardiness, no-call/no-show behavior, and lack of performance at work. All of this behavior was documented, and the employee was put on at least two action plans. I tried sharing tips from my own life (because I am a person whose internal clock runs five minutes late), writing notes when I saw a job well done, or heard a customer talk about how much my employee helped solve a difficult problem. I really wanted my employee to succeed. I knew that she was the sole provider for her family. Her son is very young, and her husband a stay-at-home Dad.
I feel that the firing was just, and quite frankly, the right thing to do. Her performance was starting to affect her co-workers. My co-managers and I did all that we could to modify the employee’s behavior before it came an issue. In the end, however, the employee choose not to change her behavior.
I am grieving for her. I know that her life has been made very difficult by this termination. I’m just wondering how long this feeling of being “bummed” will last. This is the first time I’ve had to fire an employee.
Firing someone sucks. It sucks even if the person has been warned repeatedly and had every chance to improve. It’s just a bad feeling to be the person who takes someone else’s job away from them. In fact, if it ever doesn’t suck to fire someone, it’s probably worth looking inward to figure out where your compassion went.
However, as hard as firing someone is, it’s also critically important to your job as a manager. Having the right people on your team makes an enormous difference in how effective you are and how much you achieve. And so holding a high bar and expecting people to meet it, warning them when they’re falling short, and taking action when that doesn’t change anything are some of your most basic and crucial responsibilities as a manager.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not hard. So you’ve got to remember that you didn’t fire this employee on a whim or without warning or for an unjust reason. It sounds like you clearly told her what she would need to change in order to keep her job, and she chose not to make those changes (changes that sound pretty simple to make).
You also need to remember that she’s an adult who makes her own choices, and those choices have consequences. Maybe this will be a wake-up call for her that will help her do better in the future. Or maybe it won’t. But again, you treated her fairly and honestly, and you made the right choice for your team, and that’s all you can do.
By the way, it’s worth noting that there are two different types of firings: There are firings like this one, where the person could have saved their job if they were motivated to but choose not to do what that would require (whether it’s coming in on time, or meeting deadlines, or following directions — i.e., things within their control). And then there are firings where the person is trying really hard and just can’t meet the bar you need.
The second type is a lot harder. As much as it sucks to fire anyone, it sucks a lot more to fire someone who tried as hard as they could to make it work. It sucks less to fire someone who, say, falsified a timesheet or blew off work.
So you’re actually kind of lucky that she made it so clear-cut for you. And she did make it clear-cut; her behavior sounds pretty damn far over the line. Not showing up to work and not bothering to call? That would have gotten her fired on the spot in a lot of places (and probably should have with you). She was being pretty flagrant in her disrespect for you and her coworkers. In fact, it sounds like you might be spending more time feeling bad about firing her than she spent thinking about her job in the first place.
All that said, it’s okay and normal to feel compassion. But please make sure that you’re also feeling good about looking out for the health of your team, holding people accountable for their own behavior, and enforcing fair and reasonable consequences. Because there are managers out there who don’t do those things, and believe me, they’re the ones who no one good wants to work for. So hard as this was, you’re a better manager for doing it.
And now hopefully you can give that job to someone who deserves it.
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