is it tacky to tell an employer I’m traveling to their town and they could meet me in person? by Alison Green on July 23, 2010 A reader writes: I’m doing an out of town job search and the recruiter from one of my target companies finally called me to schedule an interview. I am paying for my own plane ticket to get to the interview. This is a large hospital so they have applicant tracking software that allows you to […] Read the full article →
is it possible to send an interview thank-you note too quickly? by Alison Green on July 20, 2010 A reader writes: I have a question about thank-you letters after an interview. In today’s world of cell phones being able to do email, I can actually have the thank-you letter sent before I even leave the interviewer’s office. I literally just said thank-you and shook hands three minutes ago, and am sending the thank-you email […] Read the full article →
how can I warn job candidates about how awful this place is? by Alison Green on July 17, 2010 A reader writes: I’m finally coming to the end of my contract at an incredibly poisonous company, and I’ve been tasked to replace myself. We don’t have an HR department, and my own boss just split suddenly, leaving behind massive amounts of debt, so the parent company has tasked me to do this. My question […] Read the full article →
is a subpar employee better than no employee? by Alison Green on July 16, 2010 A reader writes: I work in an office where you’d have to set your desk on fire to get terminated around here. We have an employees who dinks around all day, dodging responsibilities, refusing to improve. Meanwhile, the rest of us run around like chickens trying to serve the clients. My boss admits that this person is a […] Read the full article →
how long should it take a new hire to get up to speed? by Alison Green on July 13, 2010 A reader writes: I’m a former academic mathematician who left academia, because…well…suffice it to say that I didn’t go to college for nine years to become a glorified babysitter. After a job offer from a Very Large Government Agency fell through, I found myself severely underemployed. While slowly crawling out of the deep, dark depression […] Read the full article →
companies that don’t announce when an employee is leaving by Alison Green on July 12, 2010 In response to my last post, on how to announce that an employee is leaving, a bunch of commenters mentioned that their companies don’t announce it at all. Instead, people just disappear — leaving coworkers to wonder what happened: Did they quit? Were they fired? Have they been abducted? And of course, this leaves huge […] Read the full article →
how to announce an employee is leaving by Alison Green on July 12, 2010 Every week, without fail, one of the most popular terms that people search for on this blog is “announcement of employee leaving company.” Just this past week, there were 20 separate searches done for that phrase. I am baffled by this. Are all these people trying to figure out how to announce that an employee […] Read the full article →
should I get a raise for taking on more work? by Alison Green on July 10, 2010 A reader writes: My coworker is leaving in two weeks, but my company has a hiring freeze and will not be able to hire anyone for some time, which the HR dept has not specified. The head of my department is planning to ask me to take on some of my coworker’s duties in addition […] Read the full article →
entry-level job search with boyfriend by Alison Green on July 10, 2010 A reader writes: I’m going into my last year in college, and I’m starting to look for a full-time position for after I graduate in May. My boyfriend is also graduating, and we want to try our hardest to be in the same city. Many of the companies that we are looking at have many […] Read the full article →
my boss and coworkers are chronically absent by Alison Green on July 8, 2010 A reader writes: Our department suffers from absenteeism and my boss is one of the biggest offenders. She just called in sick again today. Her habit of calling in sick regularly (not to mention coming in late and leaving early) means that the staff in our department feel entitled to do the same. This is […] Read the full article →