Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

How to Break Up with Your Boss

In their January/February issue, Details Magazine has a provocative article on how to break up with a boss who’s holding you back.  The article tells the story of Michael Rogers:

"Michael Rogers had lunch or cocktails a couple of times a week with the CEO of the New York public-relations firm where he worked. They’d split a plate of french fries or a carafe of sake and his boss would give him advice about how to be a better manager. Rogers, 30, had started at the firm as an account supervisor a couple of years earlier and had since been promoted to senior vice president.

Soon, though, Rogers had the itch to abandon his role as protégé and seek new challenges. Unsure of how to break up with the man who’d recently toasted him after they signed a new client together, Rogers went with a white lie. He told his boss he was overworked and stressed out and wanted to head to Los Angeles to regroup. The CEO hugged him and wished him luck.  About a month later, after he announced the opening of his own firm, Rogers got an e-mail from his old boss’s assistant. It was a succinct message reminding him that he’d signed a non-compete clause and the firm would file a lawsuit against him if he poached any of its clients or staff.”

The article offers some good tips for distancing yourself from a mentor who is becoming a liability, such as tapering off interactions gradually and handling the process as delicately as you possibly can.  It’s decent advice, and that’s why I’m surprised that the writer would lead with Rogers, who obviously didn’t go about this the right way.

It sounds as if Rogers’ CEO went out of his way to provide guidance and rapid career advancement to a promising subordinate.  This generous man was owed gratitude and honesty, not this sneakiness.  Don’t get me wrong.  If Rogers wanted to start his own firm, more power to him, but he should have been upfront with his boss about it.  For those of us who believe in karma, this is the kind of thing that comes back to bite you.

Summer Intern Needed: Learn How a Published Book is Researched and Written

Do you want to learn how a nonfiction business/career book is researched and written?  As my summer intern, you will be responsible for screening interview candidates, soliciting questionnaires, and setting up phone discussions with the people who will be profiled in my new book on career changers to be published by Random House in September 2009.  Other possibilities for your work include writing interview summaries and assisting with the promotion of my existing books.

My intern should be self-motivated, personable, articulate, and able to work independently. He or she may live anywhere in the country but must be able to devote 5-10 business hours a week from June-August/September.  High-speed Internet and long distance phone access, which I will in part subsidize, are essential.  Other compensation is not financial.  You will receive a letter of recommendation, an acknowledgement in the published book, and help crafting a resume that strongly highlights the value of the internship.

If you’re interested, please send your resume and a cover e-mail (to [email protected], before 2/15) detailing why you think this internship would be a good experience. Thanks – I’m looking forward to hearing from you!

The Unbreakable Corporate Ceiling

The Washington Post reports that most diversity training efforts at American companies are ineffective and even counterproductive in increasing the number of women and minorities in managerial positions.

A comprehensive review of 31 years of data from 830 mid-size to large U.S. workplaces by the University of Arizona found that the kind of diversity training exercises offered at most firms were followed by a 7.5 percent drop in the number of women in management. The number of black, female managers fell by 10 percent, and the number of black men in top positions fell by 12 percent. Similar effects were seen for Latinos and Asians.

So what’s the problem?  It seems that it’s the mandatory programs, often undertaken mainly with an eye to avoiding liability in discrimination lawsuits. When diversity training is voluntary and undertaken to advance a company's business goals, it was associated with increased diversity in management. The research found is that programs work best when they focus on specific organizational skills, such as establishing mentoring relationships and giving women and minorities a chance to prove their worth in high-profile roles.

Frank Dobbin, co-author of the study, also made the interesting point that women and minorities often fail to get ahead because people tend to form social groups with others who are like themselves, and many managers are simply unaware of the talent in their own organizations. Policies that require or explicitly encourage managers to meet with subordinates in different departments can alert managers to talented employees with different social and ethnic backgrounds and help younger employees figure out what they need to do to get ahead.

The impact of this research has yet to be seen, but at least it’s opening up people’s eyes to the fact that some corporate ceilings are still pretty unbreakable.

Recruitment Spotlight: Can Candidates Find Your Jobs?

In the coming months, I’m going to be focusing some of Water Cooler Wisdom’s content around employee recruitment and retention techniques.  Let’s start with the obvious: the e-advertisements that you, as a manager or HR rep, might be perennially posting on major online job boards.  You know that these boards receive tons of traffic, but do you know where this traffic comes from?  The fact is, millions of job related searches are performed on the top search engines – Google, Yahoo!, and MSN – every day. 

In order to recruit candidates effectively online, you must leverage the search engines appropriately, making it easy for you to find the best people and for the best people to find you.  Many of you probably already know that search engine algorithms follow a specific path for indexing relevant content.  For example, the closer your e-advertisement for a technical architect in Jacksonville, Florida follows this format, the higher your content will rank when the perfect candidate does a search for this specific job.

If you don’t know where to start, you’re not alone.  Fortunately, some job boards that host e-advertisements, like our very own Getthejob.com, are offering specific features that target search engine visibility, like OptiJob.  OptiJob helps you organize job content, including e-advertisements, RSS feeds, and website URLs, in a way that will make it most palatable to the search engines so that you’re getting noticed ahead of your competition.

It doesn’t do any good to spend your precious recruiting dollars on e-advertisements that no one ever sees.  If you’re going to write them and post them, make sure your candidates read them!

3 Ways to Back-Up Your Life

Since everyone’s been bemoaning the sorry state of the economy lately, I thought Lifehack’s recent post on how to “back-up” your life was particularly insightful.  Author AJ West says that you should never assume that what you plan today will work for you tomorrow.  Some of her suggestions include:

Back-up your career. Layoffs often seem to come out of nowhere, so find something you can do in lieu of your current job. Whenever you finish a big project, switch jobs or get a new title, update your resume right away. Not only will it save you time later, but it is always good to have it updated for spur of the moment career opportunities.  Have at least two months of salary in the bank in the event of a layoff, firing, or medical crisis.

Back-up your finances.  Plan for your eventual retirement with a savings account and or 401K or Roth IRA.  This is especially important for those earning a living in the blue collar or hospitality industry with companies that do not offer you retirement benefits.  Insure valuable items you have in your possession, and if you’re married, secure at least a small amount of financial independence in the event that you lose your spouse or things don’t work out between you.  Maintain a separate savings account and your own credit card. 

Back-up your personal records.  In the unfortunate event of a fire or technology malfunction, plan a day each month to back up your files on your personal PC, laptop and work computer.  Purchase an external hard drive, and then scan in and save important documents such as birth certificates, tax records, and work files. 

As West says, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. You may never use your back-up plans, but like the flood insurance you purchased, it’s always nice to know you have it…just in case.

New Episode: 30/20 Vision Radio Show

A new episode of the 30/20 Vision Radio Show will air live on January 22, 2008 at BlogTalkRadio at 8PM ET.  As I reminder, I host this monthly radio show with my fellow authors Christine Hassler (20-Something, 20-Everything) and Lindsey Pollak (Getting from College to Career), and our goal is to provide "big sister" advice to men and women in their twenties. This episode will focus on our tips for setting effective goals. Hope some of you will listen live, but please feel free to check out the podcast afterwards and let us know what you think.

Are You Really a Workaholic?

Marketing guru Seth Godin has just set a bunch of us wondering if we really and truly are workaholics.

I always thought I was.  After all, I’m driven to work 50+ hours a week.  It’s not enough just to be in the office, I actually have to be contributing something.  If I spend an entire day that’s completely unproductive, I feel uncomfortable and restless.  The prospect of spending three months of maternity leave doing absolutely nothing but caring for a new baby makes me a little, well, nauseous. 

But Seth suggests that true workaholics live on fear, and that it’s this that drives them to show up all the time.  In the twenty-first century, a new class of workers is emerging – people who work out of passion and curiosity, not fear.

Says Seth:  “The passionate worker doesn't show up because she's afraid of getting in trouble, she shows up because it's a hobby that pays. The passionate worker is busy blogging on vacation because posting that thought and seeing the feedback it generates is actually more fun than sitting on the beach for another hour. The passionate worker tweaks a site design after dinner because, hey, it's a lot more fun than watching TV.”

Well, go figure.  This describes me – and my job as an author and career expert – perfectly.  I guess I’m not really a workaholic, but rather a passion-holic.  I will have to tell this to my husband next time he grumbles that I’m burning the midnight oil in front of the computer yet again!

Being Good is Only One Piece of the Puzzle

My good friend from college, Phil Saken, recently switched careers. How he pulled this off actually makes a pretty remarkable story, which I’ll be sharing in more detail next week.  But anyway, he had decided that his job as an evening news producer for a top network in Columbus, OH, wasn’t floating his boat anymore. Phil is naturally a passionate person, and when he began to dread going to work and found himself counting the minutes until his next day off, he knew something was wrong.

So Phil looked for an accepted a new job that leveraged his existing skills in communication, organization, and writing and took advantage of his nose for news and his interest in politics. He became the Director of Communications for the Ohio House Democratic Caucus.  In his new role, Phil manages the message and image of the 46 Democrats in the Ohio House of Representatives.  He is loving every minute of it.

Then, something interesting happened. Phil received an Emmy for his evening newscast at the Midwestern Regional Emmy Awards. If you can believe it, this is actually Phil’s SECOND Emmy for news excellence.

Some people might question why Phil left a career he was so clearly successful in. And the answer is that just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you should spend your life doing it. The key to happiness in a career is to find a path that combines your natural skills – or skills you can develop – with genuine interest and enthusiasm. Kudos to Phil for having the strength to walk away from a field that was rewarding him professionally but not personally, in order to seek out one that does both.

The Value of Planning Ahead

I am expecting my first child in March. My husband and I can’t wait to meet our little boy, but are a bit apprehensive of having our lives turned upside down.  While starting and nurturing our own family unit is a high priority for us, we maintain two busy careers.  And to further complicate matters, I am giving birth to more than just a human baby this spring.  I also have two new books coming out.

When it comes to book promotion, and all of the things that go with it (i.e. doing media outreach, planning personal appearances, building a website, and writing articles and blog posts), the best time to start is two weeks prior to the release date.  This happens to coincide perfectly with my baby’s due date.

If I think about this too much, I get a headache.  And I know that if I waited to do all of these things until my son enters the world, I would be one basketcase of a new mom.  So instead, I’ve decided to plan ahead.  Though we’re more than two months out from launch, I’m already talking to my publicists and learning what exactly will be expected of me and when.  I’ve started creating written materials and putting promotional vehicles in place so that when the time comes, I can simply push a button to send them live. 

No one is telling me to finish these things now, so I’m not making anyone else feel better by getting them done early.  Plain and simple, it makes ME feel less stressed out and overwhelmed.  And so I suppose the takeaway point is: if you have a massive project with a crazy schedule on the horizon, don’t put off thinking about it until it’s too late to manage it effectively.  Procrastination may be tempting, but it’s more important to come out of the situation with your sanity intact!

A Wolf of a Job Offer in Sheep’s Clothing

Employment Digest has posted a brilliant article on job offers that aren’t actually as good as they look at first.  Writer Carole Martin tells the story of Nicholas, who received an on-the-spot offer and was so thrilled he accepted right away. Nicholas was offered $55,000 per year, with a hiring bonus of $5,000 – a $10,000 raise from his last job.

But when Nicholas looked over the benefits package, he discovered that he would now have to pay the insurance premiums for his dependents. His last employer had paid the premiums for the entire family. -$350.00/per month - $4200 per year.  His new vacation package offered two weeks time off, accrued over the next twelve months. His former package included three weeks vacation. -$962.00 one week's vacation pay.

Nicholas was receiving a 6.5% yearly bonus, based on company earnings in his last position. His new company does not have a planned bonus as part of the salary. Bonuses are earned based on performance, and given as judged appropriate. -$3250.00 per year - lost bonus.  His former employer matched 50 cents for every dollar contributed up to 6% on his 401K account. This company does not match funds. -$1500.00 per year.

His calculations showed a minus of $10,000 a year from his new offer, based on cost of insurance premiums, lost bonus, and lost matching 401K contributions. He wasn't quite so thrilled with the offer anymore.

At least he got that $5000 hiring bonus, which will cushion the fall.  But even that'll be affected - Nicholas didn't expect the higher tax rate on “special” checks that was deducted from the bonus money. These higher rate taxes can run as high as 41.5%.

Remember: once you sign the offer letter, you've essentially signed a contract. It is too late to go back and negotiate. Never accept an on-the-spot offer, unless it is completely out-of-this-world.  It is generally wise to do the math in order to accurately evaluate what you’re gaining and losing.