It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Did I get offered a job because I can bake?
I recently applied for a job after not working for a few years due to looking after my children. As I started the interview, I could tell the interviewer was asking me questions very formulaically. The interview did not feel organic at all — he didn’t ask me about any specific experiences highlighted on my resume, projects I had worked on, etc. The questions were all very general — what can you bring to our workplace, what are your professional highlights, etc.
The final question was, “What are some hobbies you enjoy doing outside of work?” I said I enjoy baking and often do commissioned cakes and other treats for special occasions. This made him perk up and he asked, “Ooh! Do you bake stuff and bring it into work?” Taken aback, I politely said that I hadn’t really done that as baking became a hobby in my time spent out of the workforce. He then asked what my favorite thing to bake is. By this point I was already getting bad vibes about the job so I just answered the question. The interview ended shortly afterwards, and I did not get a chance to ask any questions myself.. I was disappointed. The company was not really interested in specific professional experiences I had had. It feels like they just use the same interview format for each person they interview.
A week later, I got a call saying I got the job. The phone call was pretty standard for a job offer, until the end when the person said, “We can’t wait to have your delicious baked food around the office!”
Is it just me, or does it sound like I got the job because I can bake stuff for the office? In every other way it’s a great job for me at this stage in my life — salary is good, flexibility for childcare, potential for promotion, and I could work from home. But that’s all stuff I had to seek out, as none was explained to me during the interview, nor did I have a chance to ask questions.
Truthfully, I don’t mind if they want me to bake for the office. It’s something I enjoy and do for my friends and family anyway. But I am disappointed because it seems like the interviewer was not actively listening to my qualifications and experience, and it feels like my expertise, skills, and references were not taken into consideration. It’s very demoralizing to get offered a job because I can bake a cake. I have a few days to make the decision but I’m really torn as to whether it is the right move for me. What would you do and how should I address this?
I would be very skeptical that you were offered the job because you like to bake. I mean, anything is possible. But it’s far more likely that you just had a bad interviewer who happened to perk up when you mentioned food. There are lots of bad interviewers out there. Also, if your sense is that he was using the same script with all candidates (which some organizations require their interviewers to do), then it’s not that surprising that he wasn’t asking about specific things on your resume; if he was tied to a rigid script, it’s possible he couldn’t.
Would you have accepted the job if everything else was the same (uninformative interview, disengaged interviewer, little interest expressed in your background) except baking was never mentioned? I’d assess it that way. But also — since you were never given the chance to ask questions, it’s fine to ask for a conversation with your would-be manager before you make a decision. Explain you have some questions that you didn’t get a chance to ask in the previous meeting, and ask if you can set up a phone call to cover them. That should give you a better sense of the job and the manager — and I can’t see making a decision without asking your own questions first anyway.
2. My coworkers’ kids make so much noise I can’t focus on conference calls
My company is still fully remote and likely will be until 2021. We are an international company with multiple locations, so even before COVID we often worked on video calls and the transition has been pretty smooth overall.
My question is regarding the interruptions and distractions that come with working from home, specifically young kids. I have one coworker who has two young children (preschool age), and they always seem to be having a melt down when he joins our calls. He’s mentioned that his parents are staying with him and his wife to help with the kids, and he’s made comments previously that “my wife is supposed to be getting off her call to handle the kids” (I don’t love the gendered overtones there but I don’t know enough about the situation to comment). When the kids aren’t crying/screaming, there is a lot of loud TV noise (think cartoon music and sound effects) in the background. It’s very difficult to focus when he is on our calls, and he is the person leading the calls so he can’t be on mute for long periods of time.
I understand working parents have it extremely tough right now, and I want to be sympathetic. If it were just a few noises here and there, I wouldn’t mind. But he’s made it known he has childcare options available to him, and I know he lives in a house and not an apartment, so I have to believe he has at least one room with a door he could go into for the 30 minutes during our call. He is senior to me at our company but I do not report to him. I don’t think I have the ability to mention this to him directly, but can I mention it to anyone? Is this level of distraction just something we need to deal with during the COVID age?
It’s hard to know what’s really going on — maybe he has a quieter spot available to him, but maybe he doesn’t. Maybe his parents aren’t helpful at all (some parents idea of “helping with the kids” is to sit on the couch and expect to be waited on). We don’t know, so I’d avoid speculating on what he should or shouldn’t be able to do. Whatever you think you can surmise about someone’s home life is often wrong.
What you do know for sure is that it’s hard to focus on conference calls with all that background noise. You’re right that you probably don’t have the standing to bring it up with him yourself since he’s senior to you — although if you truly can’t hear on a call, it’s fine to say, “I’m not able to hear over the background noise — is anyone else having trouble?”
But you can mention it to your boss and see if she has any insight or if this nudges her into raising it herself. Frame it as, “I’m having a lot of trouble focusing on calls with Bob because there’s so much background noise from his kids crying or yelling and the TV, and I wondered if you had any advice or if there’s just not much we can do.”
3. Asking about salary increases for a future relocation to a high cost-of-living area
My husband is currently interviewing for a new position he’s very excited about. The job would be based in a fairly small midwestern city, so the salary range currently being discussed is a great fit and would allow us to live very comfortably. However. The company has already indicated it plans to move operations to California eventually, maybe two to three years down the road. This excited us, as we have always wanted to live there. But during the interviews it has been mentioned that they would move to Palo Alto. This is one of the most expensive areas in the country! A quick cost of living comparison indicated he would need to be earning seven times as much living there as in the midwestern city. There is no way we could afford to make the move without a significant salary increase.
Is it appropriate to ask about how they plan to handle that during the interview process, wait until after an offer has been, or is it just too far into the future to expect them to provide a reasonable answer, and it would make him look bad to bring it up?
He should wait until he has an offer and can ask about it then. It’s unlikely they’re going to commit to a specific increase several years out, but he can find out if it’s even on their radar and how they’re thinking about it.
Do know, though, that it’s very unlikely that they’re going to increase people’s salaries by seven times when they move. (By “very unlikely,” I mean absolutely not going to happen.) So both of you should go into this with some skepticism about whether you’ll end up wanting to make the move with them whenever it happens.
4. People incorrectly call me Mr.
I have a problem that has plagued me for years and am looking for advice on how to handle it. I am a female mid-level manager in a large, global organization. I have a name that is typically used for men, so I am very often greeted with “Mr.” in correspondence from those who have never met or talked to me. The latest is from an intern I am overseeing for the summer. I have not corrected him yet and can’t decide whether to let it go, as he’ll figure it out the first time we talk, or correct him via email. I don’t want to embarrass him or make him feel bad. How do I handle these situations remotely?
Matter-of-factly and quickly! Correct someone after the first time it happens, and it’ll just be a quick oops. Correct them after the 20th time and they’ll be more embarrassed — and also will wonder why you didn’t say something earlier.
So the first time someone does it, when you reply back just include, “By the way, it’s Ms., not Mr.!” And with the intern, you could handle it that same way, even though it won’t be the first time he’s done it.
(But also, does everyone in your office use Mr./Ms. when addressing each other? If so, then carry on. But if not, you should teach your intern your norms around this — and at the same time you explain that you’re a Ms., let him know he should call you by your first name too.)
5. How to ask an interviewer about negative online reviews
I am currently job searching and wondered how I could ask about information (potentially negative) that I read in a job review on a job search website like LinkedIn or Indeed.
For example, I am doing a phone screen with a company that has decent online reviews but with a somewhat common theme: most people mentioned the workload being high, constant new work being added without support, etc. How would I ask about this in an interview to glean whether this is accurate?
My thought was to say, “When I was looking in to the company online I read some reviews from previous employees who mentioned higher than average workloads. Can you tell me what a typical day looks like in this role?” Should I mention the job review at all? I go back and forth.
I don’t think asking about a typical day will get you the info you’re really looking for, which is what workloads are like and whether they’re a chronic problem. You’re better off asking more directly with something like, “I noticed some reviews of the company online talk about workloads being high, and I wondered what your take was on that.”
You don’t want to put them on the defensive, so your tone should convey that you’re not assuming what you read is true and you know there might be more to the situation, but are curious and would like to learn more.
Then listen carefully to how they respond. Do they defensively deny that it’s a problem at all? Do they dismiss negative reviews as something that happens to every company? (It’s not.) Do they seem put off that you asked? Those are all red flags.
But unless they have an explanation that you find compelling (like “we’ve increased our staff by 20% and it’s improved greatly” or “it’s an acknowledged problem in the X department, but it hasn’t been an issue in the Y department you’d be working in, because of Z”), I’d put a lot of weight on those reviews. Generally with online reviews, if you see a theme pop up over and over, there’s some truth to it.
did I get offered a job because I can bake, kid noise on calls, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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