It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Is it worth spending hours on post-interview thank-you notes?
Both you and your commenters often say about thank-you notes, “Why not spend five minutes on something that could impact your chances?” or “There’s just no reason not to do this very small, very quick thing that could impact your chances” or “It’s ten minutes, so send the damn thing.”
What if they *don’t* take five (or ten) minutes? What if they take literally three hours? What if they are *not* “a quick thing”? Where is the line beyond which it is no longer worth a job-seeker’s time to be struggling to create a thank-you note?
(Written in a fit of frustration upon learning my Aspie husband has been spending three or more hours each just to end up with generic-sounding thank-you notes — interfering with family time, grocery shopping at the right time to avoid covid shortages, and even storm prep time. Also I’m now trying to help him with them, and though I’m not on the spectrum, I *am* an introvert with social anxiety, so trying to help him improve them also takes *me* way more than five minutes. It takes me more like 30 minutes each…after he’s spent the three hours.)
Oh my goodness, let’s release him (and you) from this torture! Thank-you notes are useful to do, but not if they mean agonizing for three hours. He should write one basic, generic note and just use it repeatedly for all interviews from this point forward. In fact, use one he’s already done as his model so there’s little left to do from here.
Yes, it’s better if these aren’t perfunctory and if they’re customized to the job. But it’s not the end of the world if he can’t do that. Are there advantages to writing customized thank-you’s that build on the interview conversation? Yes! There are also advantages to degrees from prestigious schools and to knowing the CEO’s kids. That doesn’t mean everyone must have those advantages; we each use what we’ve got, which won’t be everything.
If it were just taking him a little longer (like 20 or 30 minutes), I’d say it was still worth him doing. But three hours, no. That much agony, no.
And while sending a generic note isn’t ideal, it’s better than nothing — and it should satisfy the occasional manager who’s a thank-you note tyrant and penalizes people who don’t send them at all.
2. Employer has frozen our vacation time
I work for a higher education institution. As a cost-saving measure, my employer announced that we would not be accruing vacation for June and July. They just announced that this would be extended for the full 2020-2021 academic year. We can still accrue sick leave and use any previously accrued vacation, but we will not earn any additional vacation hours at this time. Am I crazy for thinking this is absolutely absurd? Is this legal?
Legal* but absurd. People need breaks from work. Even if your employer wants to be totally machiavellian about it, it’s in their best interests to give people time off because otherwise they’ll burn out — it will impact people’s productivity, work quality, initiative, and overall morale.
* In states that consider vacation time to be wages earned, they couldn’t do this retroactively, but they could do it going forward.
3. How can I “spread the wealth” of informational interviews?
I’m a mid-career woman in a somewhat specialized field. My boss is well-known and connected within our field, so she frequently gets asked to do informational interviews with young people aspiring to our field and she usually passes them on to me.
Here’s the thing: most of the young people who request informational interviews look … the same. Privileged backgrounds, fancy degrees, leaning heavily on parental professional networks to make connections (lots of emails that say “so-and-so from the XYZ Institute, a family friend, suggested that I contact you…”). Not always a white person, but definitely mostly white.
I want to make myself available for informational interviews to recent grads who don’t have the same resources. I feel like by doing these informational interviews just based on who knocks on our door I’m exacerbating a gap between the people who feel entitled to ask for one (or who have advisors or parents telling them to ask), and those who don’t. Any suggestions on how to make informational interviews more fair? Or make it known to more diverse candidates that I’d be happy to talk to them?
What about reaching out to historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and offering to talk to any students they have who are interested in your field? Also, a lot of schools now have offices of diversity and inclusion, and you could contact them as well. You also could also see if your boss would be up for including something on your website making it clear these conversations are available (so people aren’t just getting access to them if they know someone who knows someone). That could result in a much higher volume of interest than you can handle, but if that’s the case you could even do something like a monthly conference call that anyone who’s interested can sign up for.
Readers, what other suggestions do you have?
4. Can I change my mind about a job I said I wasn’t interested in?
I was laid off due to COVID from an accounting-adjacent job that I didn’t LOVE at a company that doesn’t really live up to its reputation in my field (hospitality). I had been planning on leaving to go back to working in restaurants to get closer to working more directly in the wine industry, my real passion. Last month, I found an accounting/finance job that is not totally what I had envisioned for my career, but with a corporate wine company I really admire. I was poking around on LinkedIn and after I viewed the profile of the director of product, she sent me a message asking me to email her with my resume and what I am interested in doing next. Great!
I went through my resume one last time, sent it out with a brief description of what I am looking for next — something like a junior product manager — and she asked for me to confirm that I wasn’t interested in the accounting job I had seen posted. I said no, but honestly, with the hospitality industry the way it is, I am interested now. I have some experience with accounting (internships, bookkeeping work at other jobs) and would now be happy to pivot to that kind of work.
Yesterday, I sent an email asking if there were any updates on other roles opening up, and it turns out the accounting job is still available. Is it at all possible for me to tell them that I would be interested in being considered for this job? My gut is telling me that this would be a total no-go in normal, not pandemic times. Would I be shooting myself in the foot if I told them that I changed my mind?
Do it. There’s some risk that they’ll think you’re not really interested in the accounting job or you would have said so originally, but that wouldn’t leave you worse off than not applying for it at all. You could explain you have accounting experience, are interested in their company, and would like to throw your hat in the ring for the role if they think it might be a good fit.
That said, there’s a chance that if they put you on that track, they won’t consider you as strongly for the product manager roles you’re more interested in, even if you make it clear you’re open to both. So you’ve got to factor that into your thinking, and there’s no perfect answer here, but given the state of the job market I’d still go for it.
5. Using my personal laptop while working from home
When work-from-home started in March, I volunteered to use my personal laptop for work. I didn’t want to have to go into the office to pick up firm-issued equipment. My manager was fine with this. Now that we’re still working from home with no end in sight, I’ve started to feel uncomfortable using my personal equipment for this long. I’m concerned about the wear and tear of it being used eight hours a day, five days a week.
I am nervous to bring this up to my manager for a few reasons: First, I volunteered to use my own equipment. Second, there have been massive budget cuts and I am concerned about layoffs. I don’t want to appear to not look like a team player and I don’t want to cost the firm money if they have to buy equipment for me. Frankly, I was surprised they allowed for me to use my own equipment since we’re a global law firm with very tight security on everything. Am I being stupid for not bringing it up?
You should bring it up. Just be straightforward and say, “Now that we’ve been working from home for a while, is it possible to get a work laptop to use? I’ve been using my personal laptop but prefer not to do that long-term because of the wear and tear of so much heavy use.”
After all, what would your office do if your personal laptop started to fail? They’d presumably need to get you a work computer at that point, not order you to personally buy yourself a new computer. (Some jobs do require you to use your own computer but it’s generally announced from the start.) In fact, if you’re concerned your manager won’t be reasonable about this, you might be better off just explaining that your personal laptop is showing signs of age and ask about a work-provided replacement “before this one fails.”
spending hours on thank-you notes, employer froze our vacation time, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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