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new hire wants to print everything, how can I make myself look less qualified, and more Ask a Manager

new hire wants to print everything, how can I make myself look less qualified, and more Ask a Manager


new hire wants to print everything, how can I make myself look less qualified, and more

Posted: 20 May 2018 09:03 PM PDT

It's five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. New hire wants to print everything and not use screens

I work for a digital creative agency, and we recently hired a contractor, Ann, who says she is unable to read anything on screens. She has to print everything — schedules, deliverable matrices, design outputs, emails — before she can review or give feedback. This is particularly challenging because half our internal team and our client are all located across several cities. We have to review all content, both internally and with our clients, via teleconference.

Ann has derailed pretty much every review meeting we’ve had, including with clients, because she has to check the screen against the materials she’s printed or because she has not had an opportunity to print the materials to be reviewed. She complains constantly about the fact that we’re creating and tracking all of our work digitally (five or six times in every meeting, plus another eight to 10 times throughout the rest of the day). And she has asked if she can schedule multiple trips across the country to work in person with people, because she has trouble doing the work via her laptop. While we have some budget for travel, it was not intended to be used as a prerequisite to complete our daily work, and I have concerns about her ability to be seen as trustworthy by the client if she shows up every other week complaining about having to work on a laptop, expecting them to work with her on a stack of disorganized papers instead.

This is not the only issue with her, but this is one I’ve never encountered before and am struggling to address. I want to make sure I’m being sensitive to any physical reasons she might not be able to the work and offer what accommodations I can (although from her comments to date, I think this is a preference, not a physical limitation), while also making it clear that part of the ability to succeed at this job is the ability to effectively telework with remote teams.

Be direct about what you expect and ask if there are any obstacles to her doing that. For example: "We do most of our work electronically here, especially since so many team members and the client are spread out across different cities. We don't typically work with many print-outs. I know you've mentioned that you prefer printing things out, but that isn't always practical or efficient with the way we work. While I know it's not your preference, is working mainly digitally something you're able to do?" The idea there is to spell out how you'd like her to operate and to give her a chance to tell you if there's a medical issue behind this.

If there is a medical issue in play, at that point you could brainstorm with her about how to accommodate that while minimizing the impact on the work and the client. Be clear about what you can't do (like flying her around the country to meet in person), and what she can't do (like complaining to the client or complaining throughout the day about your office's digital tracking systems).

But if it's just a preference, it's reasonable to say, "To succeed in this role, you need to get comfortable with working on screens. Is that something you can do?" … and then hold her to that.

2. How can I make myself look less qualified?

I'm guessing you don't get this question very often: how do I make myself look less qualified? I am a freelancer still working on building my client base. Until I get sufficient workflow to keep my bank account happy, I'd like to find part-time work, just for a regular paycheck. There are zero jobs in my field where I live—I held the one available job I could find, until I was laid off and the company closed—and I'm not in a position (nor do I want) to change fields into something more marketable around here (medical support, welding, industrial). So I'm hoping to find a simple, part-time office assistant position. I honestly want to just go to work, do my job, and go home.

My problem: I am seriously over-qualified. I have a master's degree in my field (publishing) and worked for almost a decade at a prestigious publisher in another city. I don't want employers in this small-city adjacent rural area (think small towns with lots of cows and corn in between them) to see my resume and roll their eyes or feel intimidated by my "big-city experience." I just want to show that I have office experience and can do the work. Is there a way to adjust my resume to deemphasize my positions as Managing Editor and Associate Editor for Prestigious Publisher, and demonstrate my experience with the mundane tasks of an office environment? Do I leave my master’s degree off my resume? I don't want to leave the job off, because eight years is a big gap; I left there about four years ago, though, so well within the time period normally covered by a resume.

You could leave your master's off, but I don't think you need to. The key here is going to be your cover letter, where you'll need to make a compelling case for why you want an assistant position and why you'd be great at it. Otherwise employers will see your resume, be confused about why you're applying (and figure that you're either resume-bombing and applying for everything you see, or that you'll leave as soon as something in your field comes along). So your challenge here is to address head-on, very explicitly, why you're applying despite your background and what's in it for them — i.e., why you'll be awesome at the job.

And remember that you're not necessarily overqualified … you're differently qualified! Someone with your background could be a kind of crappy assistant, after all, just like anyone could be — so you need to demonstrate that that's not the case with you, and in fact that you'd be great at it.

This is the kind of situation cover letters are made for!

3. Interviewing post-pregnancy when I still look pregnant

I have seven-month-old twins. I returned to my full-time job after maternity leave, and while it’s going ok, I’ve started to look for a new position with a shorter commute and more growth opportunities. I had a phone interview with a company I’m interested in and it seemed to go well.

Assuming I get called in for an in-person interview, there’s something I’m not sure how to handle. See, I still look a bit pregnant. Growing two human beings tends to really stretch you out and I also have some muscle separation that gives me a belly pooch that looks like a pregnant woman who’s recently started showing. I’m most certainly not pregnant and have no plans to become pregnant again any time soon, if at all. But I worry they’ll see me and assume I am, and not ask about it either out of politeness or because it’s illegal for them to ask about those things.

I feel like it would be a really weird thing to bring up. And I don’t usually bring up personal stuff in job interviews so trying to casually mention my twins so they can connect the dots seems inappropriate. But I don’t want to miss out on a job because they’d rather not hire someone they think is going to then go on leave in a few months. Which I know is actually illegal, but let’s be real, that 100% happens all the time.

Yep, I hate that you have to worry about it, but you're right that could be a thing in interviewers’ minds. Which sucks and is illegal and is still a thing anyway.

I think the easiest way to mention it would be to mention your maternity leave in past tense and drop it in organically when talking about your current job — something like, "Before I went on maternity leave last year, I did X — and blah blah blah project X."

4. Email signatures when you're changing your name

I’m just starting a FTM/gender queer transition and have been changing my name, but won’t be doing so legally, at least for now. I understand that there are situations where I will have to go by my old name, Cecilia: doing stuff with the government, HR, etc. However, I want to go by Clive in daily situations and with my peers. When I talk to people it is easy (albeit an anxiety type of easy) to say, “I go by Clive now.”

My question is about work email signatures, though. I’ve seen a lot of examples on how to use nicknames (haven’t been able to find advice related to preferred names) in signatures, and there are so many options.

Cecilia (Clive) LastName – Linkedin
Cecilia "Clive” LastName – random online articles
Cecilia LastName (Clive) – Facebook
Clive (Cecilia) LastName – random online articles

Any advice on using my preferred name in my work email signature would be so great.

You could do any of those! I think you’re finding conflicting answers because there really isn’t any one “right” way to do it, so I’d just go with the one you like best. That said, I think you’re better off going with one that has Clive first, since people are more likely to assume that whichever name you put first is the one you're going by.

Think of it sort of like how married women who changed their name will sometimes present their old last name at the end, like "Jane Warbleworth, née Bumbridge." You're not using "née," but the idea is the same in that you're present the name you now go by first.

5. How to explain an incomplete master's degree

So I have a bachelor’s in Computer Science. I decided to do grad school and go for a masters at the same school as my bachelors. I have a part-time retail job and live with my parents. During the second year of my master’s, my dad got sick, really sick. Hospitalized for several months. After he got out, I was basically the live-in caretaker for him for quite a while. So this threw a major monkey wrench into school. After he recovered enough to not need me as much, I did go back to my thesis, but my momentum and focus were destroyed and I burned out. The project also ended up being this beast of a thing that I think everyone underestimated the size of.

So now I’m probably looking at not being able to finish. I’m in the middle of year six after already having gotten an extension for two semesters. Let’s say the worst happens and I don’t complete my master's. What do I put on my resume and what do I tell prospective employers?

On your resume: "Coursework toward master's in X, (year) to (year)"

To interviewers: "I had intended to get my master's, but my plans were disrupted by a family health crisis, which ended up taking priority. I got a lot out of my program, but at this point, I'm itching to focus on full-time work."

That’s it! You’ll be fine.

new hire wants to print everything, how can I make myself look less qualified, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

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