The Year of the Counter Offer

When I meet a recruiter, I always ask how business is. This week at a local networking event I was surprised to learn 2016 is the year of the counter offer.

This recruiter, who works for a national placement agency, told me recruits are receiving and accepting the counter offer so often (more frequently this year than ever before) her firm has named 2016, “The year of the counter offer.” Seeking new employment as a way to force an employer to give you a raise is so popular this agency is calling it a trend.

She stated despite the great recession having ended a few years ago, many companies continue to be apprehensive about the economy, are reluctant to convert temporary employees to permanent and have not given employees a decent raise in years. Millennials who accepted jobs below normal starting salaries are tired of waiting for a fair wage and are using the counter offer as a salary negotiation tool. 

Companies are well aware of how much it costs to hire and train a new employee:

According to Zane Benefits:

Some studies (such as SHMR) predict that every time a business replaces a salaried employee, it costs 6 to 9 months’ salary on average. For a manager making $40,000 a year, that's $20,000 to $30,000 in recruiting and training expenses.

But others predict the cost is even more - that losing a salaried employee can cost as much as 2x their annual salary, especially for a high-earner or executive level employee.

I learned this the hard-way after one of my employees left last year. I now realize it is cheaper in the long run to figure out how to keep employees rather than having to endure the time and cost of recruiting and training someone new.

If you do threaten to leave your job be aware of the potential risks:
 
You may not receive a counter offer:
You or your position may not be as valuable to your employer as you think it is. Also, some employers think everyone is replaceable and have a policy to never give a counter-offer. 

Accepting the counter offer could hurt your reputation:
Most employers have good memories; from this day forward you may be known as the employee who resigned to get a raise.

My company has this employee – he actually accepted a counter offer on two separate occasions. When he was seeking a promotion last year he came very close to not getting it because of reservations as to whether he was management material. Similar to my friend who is known as the 4:00 and she's out of here employee, he is known as the counter offer employee. As he struggles to adapt to his new management role, several managers site his counter offer history as an ignored warning sign.

You are burning bridges:
I accepted the counter-offer when I was in my 20’s. Very similar to the scenario above both a co-worker and I accepted counter-offers after finding new jobs with the same placement firm I referenced above. We had both been warned of the disadvantages of accepting the counter-offer (if we are unhappy now, we will most likely be unhappy six months from now just better paid). We both had liked our jobs, but needed and thought we deserved more money. In both cases, our employer matched our new salary as an incentive to keep us. Unfortunately, a year later we were both out of a job when our entire department was relocated to Chicago. My co-worker regretted her counter-offer decision as she struggled to find another new job. I never regretted mine because I easily found a job on my own, but the agency I had worked with never worked with me again. I am sure there was a "don't work with" note attached to my file.

You may be fired in the future:
If our entire department had not been downsized, I wonder if our jobs would not have been in jeopardy in the future. Assistants were hired for both of us shortly after our counter-offers were put in place without our permission or request. My co-worker’s assistant didn’t work out and left a few months after she was hired. I struggled to keep mine busy (would you train an unwanted assistant to do your job). He was the first person to leave when the department lay-off was announced.

My recommendation:
My company’s economist projects 2016 as a year of slow but steady growth, but 2017 to be a year of contraction. My recommendation is instead of 2016 being the year of the counter-offer make it the year your find a great new job especially if you have a few years of experience. If you wait and are underpaid, underemployed or your company still hasn’t hired you permanently you may be stuck in an undesirable work situation for several years to come.

Have you ever accepted a counter offer? Was it a good decision?

Learning About Swagbucks From Angie of Angie's Angle

This month I joined Susannah Kellogg's blogging buddy match up called Solidarity Sisters. Susannah who blogs at Simple Moments Stick, pairs two like bloggers to connect and work together over a specified period to grow their blogs. I was paired with Angie of Angie's Angle. Angie is a full-time lifestyle blogger with many talents and interests. Immediately I noticed we had several things in common: dogs, food, health, gardening and books. Angie was also there to console me when I lost my beloved dog Buck to cancer earlier this month. She is no stranger to grief having lost her childhood fur baby Rascal at 17 1/2.

For our final challenge, a collaborative effort, we decided to swap posts. Angie is a member of Swag Bucks – something I’ve always wanted to know more about, so today she is sharing her insights into their program. Since I read a lot about nonfiction,  for my post Angie asked that I recommend some of my favorite histories or biographies. Head over to Angie's Angle to learn what biographies I recommended.

Here is Angie:

Today I am going to talk to you a bit about Swagbucks. 


What is Swagbucks:
For those that don't know, Swagbucks is a program online (no downloading required but can earn you a bit more points if done so) where you earn points towards gift cards completely free.

 

My husband and I now both do it on a daily basis.  Yes, you are allowed more than one account in the household, as long it's separate emails and they are the one working on it, not you working on both.  We mainly work towards getting our goal on a daily basis and each month we cash out for at least $25 a month in Amazon.  Most of the time we each get $50 but some months, it's only the $25.

 

How do you earn?

It's really easy but does take a bit of time each day.  

 

Search - use it as your regular search engine and you can randomly earn points for doing that.  I do believe most of the time you can earn up to three search wins a day.

 

Daily Poll - there is a daily poll each day that you can earn a point with, so really simple there.

NOSO - each day you go through their daily offers, just clicking more deals and hit the end where you put in a code and earn 2 points.  Again very simple.

 

Answer - you can go through and do surveys to also earn points on a daily basis.  You can earn 1 point for each survey you disqualify for up to five times as well. 

 

Games - you can earn 10 points a playing their very easy games, like Swagasaurus Run.  Get 2 points for every 2 games you play.  So play 10 times and you can earn your max 10 points for that.  Sometimes it takes a bit more than the 10 times to earn it, but still very simple way to earn those points.

 

Shop & Earn - you can also earn points just while doing your regular shopping online and going through Swagbucks to earn a bit of extra points back.  It does take 30 days I think it is to credit, but still worth it in my opinion.  

 

Mobile - there are some videos you can watch on your phone to earn extra points in your day.  Each of them you can earn 10 points a day on and there are 6 different programs to do so.

 

Discover - there are also various other ways you can earn, but it varies with the type and what  you are doing to earn it.  But just clicking around on Swagbucks itself will familiarize yourself with the ways you can earn and how.

 

Curious and want to hop on the Swagbucks train?  I swear to you it's totally legit and sometimes can be an enjoyable way to earn some extra for your household.  Join today through my referral link and I'll earn while you earn.  

 

Any questions?  I'd be happy to hop over to Savvy's blog and see if there and answer them to my best ability. Thanks for Savvy wanting me to tell you all & her about Swagbucks.

If you would like to participate in the Solidarity Sister's program click here to apply.

The Real Reason You Weren’t Invited Along on that Consulting Trip

Last month, The Savvy Reader Book Club, read Debora L. Spar’s book Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection. In an earlier post, I revealed a perfume commercial from the 70's was responsible for shaping my life’s vision. Then we discussed whether greater sexual freedom meant a loss of power for women and why women opt-out of their careers.

Today I want to tell you the real reason you weren't invited along on that consulting trip. In Wonder Women, Spar recounts a conversation she had with a senior executive who openly joked he would never take a woman on a consulting trip. 

"My wife would kill me!" (Pg. 238)

I wonder how many women were not invited to lunch, out for drinks or on overnight business trips because of what others may think. These missed opportunities result in another advancement strategy not available to women.

Spar recommends two thing that will prod the evolution along:

1. We need to get a larger critical mass of women into the organizations dealing with these tensions. The more women there are in an organization, the more openly gay men and women - the more diversity - the less potent the sexual pressures will be on everyone.

2. The senior men in any organization need to engage actively and professionally with the women around them. They need to bring them along on trips, take them to lunch, invite them for golf and to meet their wives.  If there is a hint of sexual attraction involved, so be it. Deal with it, and move on.   

In my position as accounting manager, I am almost never included in management meetings held off-site. For many years I was the only female manager at my company.  I had assumed I was required to stay back to manage the office while my boss was out, then one of my employees pointed out I should be at those meetings - all of the other departments seem to make it through the day with their manager absent. Also, by not attending these meetings I miss out on critical organizational information no one thinks to share with me not to mention the relationship building opportunities I miss out on. It is interesting to note my female predecessor was not invited to those meetings either.

I have a female friend who works in HR. In her first job she was regularly invited to lunch by her company’s CFO.  She often comments that she learned more about finance during those lunches than she ever did in the classroom. Unfortunately her co-workers spread rumors that the two of them were having an affair.

Then there is my former female co-worker who in the 80’s claimed she had been propositioned for sex while on a business trip with her boss. She refused.  Upon returning to work after the trip, working for him became so unbearable she had to leave.

Contradictory to Spar's advice, Anna Runyan in her book The Professional Woman's Guide to Managing Mensuggests:

Be aware of one-on-one meetings with the men you manage at restaurants and coffee shops. These can quickly turn into “date” types of situations.  Try to bring along another work colleague to these meetings. Try to hold the meeting in the office or where there will be a lot of people around.  If you need to leave the office, recommend breakfast or lunch meetings over happy hours and dinners.  You don’t want a business meeting to turn into an uncomfortable situation. (Pg. 38)

She then gives the following advice if a male employee makes an unwanted sexual advance:

The most important thing you can do is to catch this immediately before it turns into sexual harassment.  Try to resolve the situation right away with a conversation.  If you feel comfortable enough, you can use humor to try to keep the working relationship on a positive level and say something like, “Were you flirting with me? I hope not, I really like working with you.” If humor is not working, be clear and straightforward.  Tell him that you are not interested and your relationship needs to stay professional.  If he continues to hit on you, contact Human Resources. (Pg. 44) 

What is your experience? Are you or the women in your workplace given opportunities to network with men at lunch, on business trips or on the golf course? Were they positive or negative experiences?

*Part of Financially Savvy Saturdays on Femme Frugality and Savvy Working Gal*

The Professional Woman’s Guide to Managing Men Book Review and Giveaway

I first became acquainted with Anna Runyan, when she included my post 50 Books Every Young Woman Should Read in a Monday motivation roundup on her website ClassyCareerGirl.com. Since then I’ve participated in her networking challenge and watched her evolve into a successful leadership coach and now an author. It is only fitting that I would become part of the launch team for her new book The Professional Woman's Guide to Managing Men.

What is this book about?
Anna Runyan spent seven years working with and managing men as a consultant for the U.S. Navy.

She writes:

“I have managed men who were shocked to have a woman in charge, which wasn’t always easy. It took me a while to figure out how to best work with and manage men. There were many times that I had no idea what to do and tried many different things to see what worked. I treated men I managed in the same way I thought a man would treat them. That didn’t work. Then, I treated them how I treated other women. That didn’t work either. It wasn’t until I started to just be myself and lean on my own female leadership strengths that I began to successfully start gaining trust and respect from the men I managed.”

The Professional Woman's Guide to Managing Men is a compilation of what Anna has learned about managing men. It is written as a “how-to” guidebook and includes specific action steps you can take while reading.

The book is divided into five chapters:

Focus on you first
How to be a confident female manager
How to help the men on your team thrive
What not to do when managing men
Handling common management situations

Each chapter concludes with a self-evaluation.

My thoughts:
Anna Runyan has written a comprehensive, useful, well-written guide to working with and managing men. I’ve worked with men in male-dominated industries for over 20+ years. Many of the lessons Anna includes in this book I learned the hard way. In addition, I acquired several new insights and techniques from the book. For example, who knew having a sense of humor is an important factor in managing men. I even discovered a couple of new strategies to better manage my female staff. 

Bottom line:
I recommend reading this book if you are already in a career managing men, preparing yourself to work with men or work in a male-dominated industry. This book which warrants further discussion is a strong contender for a future Savvy Reader Book Club selection. 

Want to read it?
I have one eBook copy to give away. Simply share on Facebook, Twitter, G+ or Instagram and then post here on the blog that you did so. Feel free in include your biggest gripe of problem managing or working with men. Each share and comment gets you an entry. I’ll draw the name of the winner one week from today!

Please Note, I am an Amazon Affiliate

Why Women Opt-Out of Their Careers?

This month, The Savvy Reader Book Club, is discussing Debora L. Spar’s book Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection. In an earlier post, I revealed a perfume commercial from the 70's was responsible for shaping my life’s vision. Last week, we had an interesting discussion on whether greater sexual freedom meant a loss of power for women. 

Today I am sharing the reasons Spar feels career women continue to crash in to ceilings.

Spar begins by siting Management Women and the New Facts of Life, an article Felice Schwartz wrote for the Harvard Business Review in 1989:

The article argued that if corporations wanted to hire their best and brightest female employees, they needed to create a more flexible and family friendly workforce, one that offered young mothers a variety of ways to structure their working hours and their careers. High potential career women, Schwartz suggested fell naturally into two camps. In the first were “career primary women,” women who essentially behaved like men at work and were willing to undertake the same set of trade-offs. These women were almost certain to remain single or at least childless, Schwartz predicted, and to demand only that their employers “recognize them early, accept them, and clear artificial barriers from their path to the top.” In the second camp were career and family women,” women who wanted children and a career, and who, unlike both men and “career primary women,” were willing to trade some of the demands of promotion for the freedom to spend more time with their children. (Pg. 182)

Schwartz’s piece went viral and the term mommy-track was coined. Unfortunately, the mommy-track did not work out in practice:

Few organizations have found ways to carve their most important positions into anything other than full-time chunks. Today for example, more than twenty years after Schwartz published her article, there are still only eight scientists working part time at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Only 13 percent of women lawyers work part time, as do 2 percent of the female financial managers. It doesn’t seem that the human resource departments of any of these organizations are consciously choosing against part-time positions. But when it comes to putting actual bodies in actual jobs, full-timers simply tend to dominate. As a result, while the number of women who work part time is statistically quite high (roughly a quarter of all female workers), the vast majority of these part-timers are clustered at the lower end of the economic spectrum, working as cashiers, waitresses and sales assistants. (Pg. 183)

I found this to be interesting, since just last week I asked our CFO if I could hire a part-time person for our department. His answer – I would prefer everyone work a few hours of overtime each week rather than add an additional staff person.

I was also reminded of the seminar I had attended on hiring discrimination. The seminar was given by the HR Director of a major corporation in my area. I learned many managers continue to “profile” and discriminate when making hiring decisions. They prefer not to hire married women for IT consulting positions that involve travel – she recommended ladies take off their wedding rings before going on those types of interviews. Also, they tend not to hire or promote women who are in their child bearing years.

Then there are the women who opt-out. I have several friends and co-workers whose experiences mirrored the following:

Many women who have left the full-time workforce, of course, predict that their hiatuses will be brief. As Sylvia Ann Hewlett found in a 2005 study, most women who pull blithely into a career “off-ramp” find the road back far more treacherous than they anticipated. Positions disappear; salaries plummet; professional relationships grow stale. And at the end of the day, only 40 percent of women who try to return to full-time professional jobs actually manage to do so. The rest settle into early retirement or slower paced, lower-ranked jobs. (Pg. 183)

Women simply jump first:

When the choice is between compromising a job and compromising a family, women seem more inclined to focus on the family, men to stick with the job that pays the bills.

Opting-out is particularly high for women who didn’t like their careers that much to begin with or entered them haphazardly:

This mismatch between jobs and desires seems to vary not only with time and gender, but across industries as well. Specifically, there are some fields from which women seem to flee in droves: law, consulting, banking. And some fields in which they stay: medicine, academia, entrepreneurial ventures. Typically, the reasons cited to explain these patterns are the obvious ones – fields like consulting and corporate law, for example, are frequently described as being too demanding on young mothers time and too “male” in their knee-jerk behavior patterns. Commodity trading floors are still rough-edged, often raunchy, places. Would-be partners at major corporate law firms work insanely long hours. (Pg. 187)

Her advice:
Don’t go into a field without first understanding the rules of the game and considering deeply whether you want to play them.

I have mentioned many times before about the number of hours accountants are required to work. When I returned to college to major in accounting I was fully aware of this requirement. It never occurred to me while in my twenties this hour requirement would eventually become cumbersome and if I were to have had children impossible. At the time, my only focus was to enter a career where I’d earn a decent salary.

What rules do you wish you would have known about your chosen career prior to entering it?

The Adjunct Trap

This month The Savvy Reader Book Club is reading Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus's book Higher Education?: How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids---and What We Can Do About It. Today’s post is the first in a series of posts I will be writing this month inspired by this book.

The book begins by informing us that the American colleges and universities are bound by a caste system. At the top of the caste are 320,000 associate and full professors, most of whom have tenure or will soon receive that reward. Below them are about 170,000 assistant professors, of which most are on the “tenure track.” The third tier consists of instructors and lecturers who aren’t in line for promotion and who handle introductory sections at modest salaries and benefits. (A number are faculty spouses unable to find other employment). The fourth and fifth castes are made up of part-time adjuncts and graduate assistants. They are the contingent people of the campus - exploitable, disposable, and impoverished by low wages. They do the bulk of the undergraduate teaching at many universities. (Pg. 15)

What is an adjunct?
Adjuncts belong to a diverse group of teachers called contingents, who are hired to take on chores regular faculty members don’t want to do. They come from respected professions like lawyers and film producers who teach one evening course (largely because they enjoy it) or are among the gypsy scholars who commute among as many as four campuses in a single week. Pay rates are shamefully low. The American Federation of Teachers found the average is about $3,000 per course, which means many get less. And of course there are no benefits.

Here is an example of the huge inequality found in the adjunct/professor pay structure:

At Queens College, a branch of the City University of New York, the pay is better than average but the disparities are typical. When students walk into the gleaming building that is Powdermaker Hall, they might see one classroom where a full professor is explaining the economic ideas of the Nation’s founders. He’ll earn $116,000 for six classes taught over nine months-$17,000 per course. In the very next room is an adjunct teaching political theory to thirty bright-eyed freshmen. But she gets a flat fee of $4,600, admittedly higher than the national average, but so is the urban cost of living. Moreover, the professor has health insurance, sick days, sabbaticals, and a hefty TIAA-CREF pension. The adjunct’s benefits are akin to W.C. Field’s reward in The Bank Dick- “a hearty handshake.” (Pg. 48-49)

Adjuncts are not respected:
Many adjuncts are not respected by the salaried faculty members and administrators and are not perceived as part of the campus community.

Why is adjunct teaching a trap?
Many women think they can have families and stay in the game by adjuncting. They get trapped there. Age and time trap them. Vagabonding from job to job isn’t so terrible when you’re young, but it takes a toll on you as they get older. In another example sited, an adjunct teacher tried to cobble together a livelihood by teaching sixteen “distance” courses. Online teaching, she said, was tougher than face-to-face instruction, because if you do it seriously, “you never get a break from it. You almost sleep with your computer. (Pg. 54)

The sad fact is it is difficult to earn a living wage teaching as an adjunct even when you teach multiple classes.

What are the chances an adjuncts position will morph into full-time?
Many years of adjuncting wouldn’t count as valuable classroom experience. Rather, for most, it’s a black mark. This was borne out by an informal survey Angelo Gene Monaco, the vice president for human resources at the University of Akron, performed. Out of curiosity, he surveyed sixty heads of departments at a sample of Midwestern colleges. Only three told him they’d even consider hiring a contingent for a full-time post. Monaco created quite a stir at the 2008 meeting of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources when he declared: “We’ve helped create a highly educated part of the working poor.” (Pg. 53)

A real life example:
Which brings me to Kate; I’ve previously written about Kate’s disillusionment with her job after she was repeatedly passed over for promotion. Kate has since abandoned her dream of being a controller or CFO and refocused her energies on becoming a full-time teacher at a local college. She taught her first adjunct class last semester – an introductory business course.

Initially, Kate was extremely frustrated by the lack of support she received from the college. She had difficulty setting up her email, accessing the school’s intranet, and even getting a ‘teacher’s edition’ of the book. She earned $2,600 to teach the class which met once a week for four hours. She took a week of vacation from her day job to prepare and lost sleep fretting about whether to send emails to students who hadn't turned in their homework.

Next semester she is contracted to teach this class again along with a 12-week accounting class. Surprisingly, the 12-week class pays the same as the 6-week class; it too meets once a week, but for three and a half hours instead of four. I can’t imagine the accounting class taking any less time to prepare, so there goes another week of vacation.

Has Kate fallen for the adjunct trap?
Unfortunately, after reading this book I think she has.  I told her what I had learned from the book, but she refuses to listen. My experience has been when someone wants something badly they rarely listen to naysayers.

What do you think?  Is adjunct teaching a trap?

Please Note, I am an Amazon Affiliate

Is Taking an Administrative Role Career Suicide?

A reader writes:

My current role of accounting supervisor for a smaller company has been restructured and I'm looking at different opportunities. I was contacted by one of the global companies in my area for a position that has piqued my interest. The problem is it might be career suicide. The position is a hybrid of an executive admin and analyst. I think it weighs heavier on the admin side. Aside from it actually sounding interesting to me and paying well, I think it might be a good way to get my foot in the door. I don't know many admins that have turned into CFO's, which is my long-term goal. Any feedback on the possible impact it could have on my career is appreciated.

Before answering I contacted the reader and asked whether the company was in a growing or dying industry

She returned with:

The company has a lot of growth potential, but my concern is that this position might be too far out of the box.

Dear Reader,
Knowing this job is with a growing company, I wouldn't rule out the position. During the interview process ask how visible the position is, whether there will be opportunities to work on special projects and what if any professional development the company offers. Then evaluate whether this position will allow you to gain experience, learn new skills or make valuable contacts. All of the above is more valuable than being unemployed.  If you don't have another supervisory position in the works I'd recommend taking the position.

What do you think? Is taking an administration role career suicide?  Do you know of any CFO's that got their start in administration? 

What does “lean in” mean for you?

This month The Savvy Reader Book Club is reading Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. Today is the first in a series of posts I plan on writing though out the month inspired by the book.

What was Sheryl Sandburg's motivation behind Lean-In?

When Sheryl Sandburg graduated from college in 1991 and from business school in 1995 her entry-level colleagues were a balanced mix of male and female. She saw that her senior leaders were almost entirely male, but she thought that was due to historical discrimination against women. She thought it was only a matter of time before her generation took their fair share of leadership roles. But with each passing year fewer and fewer of her colleagues were women. More and more often she was the only woman in the room. 

She feels the problem is two-fold:

External barriers erected by society
Blatant and subtle sexism, discrimination and sexual harassment.
Too few workplaces offering flexibility and access to child care and parental leave.
Men having an easier time finding mentors and sponsors who are invaluable for career progression.  
Men are promoted based on potential while women are promoted based on past accomplishments.

Self-imposed internal barriers:
Lacking self-confidence.
Not raising our hands.
Pulling back when we should be leaning in.
Internalizing internal messages we get throughout our lives – the messages that say it’s wrong to be outspoken, aggressive, and more powerful than men.
We lower our expectations of what we can achieve.
We continue to do the majority of the housework and childcare.
We compromise our career goals to make room for partners and children who may not even exist yet.
Compared to our male colleagues, fewer of us aspire to senior positions.

Sheryl’s argument is that getting rid of the internal barriers is critical to gaining power.

In the introduction of Lean-in she writes:

I am writ­ing this book for any woman who wants to increase her chances of mak­ing it to the top of her field or pur­sue any goal vig­or­ously. This includes women at all stages of their lives and careers, from those who are just start­ing out to those who are tak­ing a break and may want to jump back in. 

This book makes the case for lean­ing in, for being ambi­tious, in any pursuit. (pgs. 9-10) 

She then promises to provide adjustments and differences we can make within ourselves to reduce self-imposed internal barriers in subsequent chapters.

I recently watched a news program where a group of women were talking about leaning-in. Every one of them felt they couldn’t possibly lean-in to their careers more than they currently were doing. They were completely tapped out. After reading most of this book I can’t help but wonder if they’d actually read the book themselves or if they were just responding to the hype. I also wonder if they had thought about what leaning-in actually means to them.

For me leaning-in no longer means doing whatever it takes to get the corner office. (Actually I have a corner office – it is kind of small though - but it does have a window with a view of our back parking lot.) I also make a decent salary, but am not paid nearly as much as a man would be paid in a similar position. At this stage of my life I don’t want to lean into my career. I want to lean-in to my life. I want to a second career that is more meaningful and less time consuming than the one I have now. 
 

The example from the book that resonated with me the most is the one where Larry Kanarek manager of the Washington D.C. office of McKinsey and Company gathered his employees together for a talk.

He explained that since he was running the office, employees came to him when they wanted to quit. Over time, he noticed that people quit for one reason only: they were burnt out, tired of working long hours and traveling. Larry said he could understand the complaint, but what he could not understand was that all the people who quit- every single one- had unused vacation time. Up until the day they left, they did everything McKinsey asked of them before deciding that is was too much.

Larry implored us to exert more control over our careers. He said McKinsey would never stop making demands on our time, so it was up to us to decide what we were willing to do. It was our responsibility to draw the line. We needed to determine how many hours we were willing to work in a day and how many nights we were willing to travel. If later on, the job did not work out, we would know that we had tried on our own terms.  

Counterintuitively, long-term success at work often depends on not trying to meet every demand placed on us. The best way to make room for both life and career is to make choices deliberately - to set limits and stick to them. (pg. 126)

Wow did that hit home. I am one of those people who doesn't use all of my vacation time. Even with my recent bunion surgery I worked from home four of the eight days I was out of the office. At the end of this year I will probably have at least two weeks of unused vacation – ouch. One of my fellow male managers called me out on this. He said I work so much that it is now expected. He strongly encouraged me to break this cycle and begin taking care of myself. He uses all of his four weeks of vacation each year, upper management complains when he is out of the office, but he does it anyway. He does make himself available for questions via phone and email while he is out, but he doesn’t actually sit down and work.

For me leaning-in has to involve setting limits and learning to stick to them without feeling guilty

Please Note, I am an Amazon Affiliate

Are you reading this book? What are your thoughts so far? What does “lean-in” mean for you?

Explaining why I was fired – and when to tell a potential employer I’m pregnant?

Dear Savvy,
I recently was let go from my job as a financial representative’s assistant. This was my first job out of college and not related to my major. I wasn’t told until after I was hired I needed to obtain both an insurance and series 6 license as a requirement of continued employment. I took the insurance classes, but was having difficulty passing the life exam. I then took several days off due to a family event and a vacation. When I returned my manager called me into his office to inform me I wasn’t working out. He needed an assistant who was certified. Since losing this job, I’ve had one phone interview for a position in my field of study. When asked why I was no longer working, I told the interviewer I had difficulty passing the insurance exam. I was nervous and rambled a bit giving the dates of my exams and the scores I received. I was not called back for a second interview. My parents think I shouldn’t have given so much detail about the exams and instead say I was not told during the interview process I needed to become a certified insurance agent nor given a drop dead date for accomplishing this. How do you think I should respond to the question, “Why did you leave your last job?”  

Also, I am pregnant. I am not showing yet do I need to tell potential employers I am pregnant? If so when?
Lindsay

Dear Lindsay,
I disagree with your parent’s advice. Do not tell interviewers you weren’t informed of the insurance license requirement during the interview process. Interviewers may think you are naïve, didn’t do your homework, weren’t listening or are lying. I did a quick search on a local company’s website and found the following listed as a requirement for a similar job:

- Series 6 or 7, 66 or 65 & 63, and Life Insurance license required

Also, do not go into detail about taking the exam. Instead say, “I was required to become licensed by such and such date and when I failed to do so I was let go. I now realize this job wasn’t for me. I went to school for X and this position did not utilize my talents which are ….” The closer your talents match the job you are applying for the better.

As to alerting potential employers you are pregnant, do not do so until you have a firm job offer.  I am reminded of the seminar I attended on hiring discrimination. The speaker, an HR hiring manager at a large company, told us hiring discrimination absolutely exists for women in their child-bearing years. When a manager at her company knows an interviewee is pregnant she is rarely (as in never) considered for hiring or promotion. Why - because someone, either the manager or other employees, have been covering this position since it became open. If they hire a pregnant person they know in a few months someone will once again need to cover this position while the employee is out on maternity leave. There is also the fear the employee will forget everything she learned and need to be retrained once she returns or at the very least will need to be brought up to speed on what occurred while she was out. Then there is the fear she may decide to stay home with her new baby and they will need to start the hiring process all over again.

Once hired you do need to inform your new employer you are pregnant as soon as possible, they will need to plan for it. After you receive a firm job offer in writing let them know you will be accepting the offer, but do need to inform them you are pregnant and the baby is due on…They will not be happy, but most likely will not rescind your job offer in fear of a discrimination law suit.
 
Have you ever been fired? How did you explain your firing in an interview?

Were you ever pregnant while searching for a job? At what point did you alert the interviewer you were pregnant? Were you still hired?

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How to Play Professional Matchmaker on Social Media

Have you ever had two contacts you met via social media you were sure would benefit from being introduced to each other? I recently had that experience. A connection I met through this blog asked if I’d promote her business by sending her current promotion to my contacts. I immediately thought of Anna Runyan. Anna is a career coach and the founder of Classycareergirl.com. She taught me the importance of networking in Why Networking is Important, a guest post she wrote for this blog. Also, last year I participated in Anna's Classy Career Girl's networking challenge.

I didn't think forwarding my friend’s email to Anna would really promote her business; most likely it would be deleted along with all the other spam-like emails. Thinking my friend’s business may benefit the members of Anna’s latest endeavor the Classy Career Girl Get Ahead Club I wanted the two of them to connect. Not knowing how to go about this I emailed Anna asking for her advice. Here is Anna's response.

Is she is on LinkedIn? I know you can introduce both of us there. Otherwise, I would just send an email with both of us CC'd and introduce us through email…Anna this is so and so and she does this…. Etc.

Since I blog anonymously, I obviously can’t introduce them through LinkedIn. Instead, I will go with Anna’s suggestion to introduce them via email.

I also asked Anna once an introduction has been made how should my contact go about networking with her? Should she ask for a few minutes of Anna’s time then give her elevator speech? Should she ask if Anna would promote her business to her contacts? Whether she should participate in the Classy Career Girl Get Ahead Club? Or should she ask something else entirely? Here is Anna’s response:

I would think differently about it. Like how can she help me so that I can help her because networking isn't only about having other people help you. So maybe she should say that she enjoys my blog and that she tweeted some articles just to show that she knows what I do and has helped spread the word. And then she can ask her question. Does that make sense? As far as what she should ask, that would really depend on what she wants?

Thank you Anna. Anna Runyan can be found at Classycareergirl.com. I highly recommend subscribing to the Classy Career Girl Newsletter where you will receive weekly career tips and my favorite - book reviews and recommendations. Also, check out the Classy Career Girl Get Ahead Club! You can read more about it here.

One more thing:
Before introducing two people who don’t know each other I would privately ask each of them if they are comfortable with the connection and give them the opportunity to opt out. You don't want to take either of them by surprise or put them in an awkward situation.

Have you ever played professional match maker on social media? How did it work out?

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Enjoy Mad Men check out Mad Women

I first heard of Jane Maas and her book Mad Women: The Other Side of Life on Madison Avenue in the '60s and Beyond when Kim Ukura included it on her list of Nonfiction for the Life and Times of Mad Men on Book Riot. Kim writes:

In this memoir, “real life Peggy Olson” Jane Maas writes about her time as a copywriter the world of advertising in New York. Maas started her career in 1964 at Ogilvy and Mather, eventually becoming the president of an agency in New York. Honestly, who doesn’t want to hear more about what life was like for the Peggy Olsons of the world?

I had recently begun watching Mad Men and was intrigued with show and the character of Peggy Olson. Sex at the office, three-martini lunches, constant cigarette smoking and women treated as second class citizens was this show accurate? Jane Maas using her own experiences along with interviews with her peers provides an insider’s view. I had to read this book.

Is the show accurate?
Mostly yes, though most people Jane knew didn’t drink in the mornings and those who smoke find the smoking on the show phony. Cigarette smokers know that smoking is a habit that smokers aren’t aware of.  The actors on the show make a big production of their smoking.  The details of the sets including the office and apartment furnishings and character attire are right-on except for Peggy; they get an accessory wrong.  I am not going to be a spoiler you will have to read the book to find out what it is.  The show's depiction of sex at the office and women being treated as second class citizens is accurate.

What about Jane? How did her real-life experiences compare with Peggy’s?

Jane confirms women didn’t make the same salary as a man with the same title, didn’t have equal space – the guys got offices with windows, women got cubicles.  There were also accounts women were not allowed to work on such as car advertising. Jane writes: 

Why should men take us seriously as advertising professionals? Women weren’t even taken seriously as consumers. (pg. 55)

Jane did have two advantages over Peggy and most other working women of the time:

She had a supportive, successful well-connected and liberal-minded husband. She also had Mabel her nanny and housekeeper who lived with the family Monday through Friday. Jane admits she would not have been able to devote her life to her career without Mabel who came to the family in 1963 and stayed for thirty-two years.*

Mad Women includes networking and career lessons.  I enjoyed the following:

Sit at the front of the room:
Jane who is short would always sit in the front-row at agency meetings.

It is a huge advantage, because in addition to seeing better, you are also seen. (pg. 35)

Priority setting from Mary Wells, president and founder of Wells Rich Green:

Early on I learned to focus and eliminate from my life anything that didn’t really matter because so much in my life did matter.  I pretty well eliminated a social life except with my clients.  They were as interesting to socialize with as anyone else I knew, so that was easy.  My life was simply my family, Wells Rich Greene, and my clients. (pg. 68)

On the importance of a “network:”
Jane receives an offer from Leona Helmsley, yes “the Queen of Mean” Leona Helmsley of Helmsley Hotels, to market the Helmsley motels. Jane would have her own advertising agency.  Leona offers to help Jane get lots of other clients. 

At home that night Jane asked her husband Michael what he thought.  He said what do you have to lose and she agreed.  End of discussion.  In hindsight:

Few men would make a big decision like changing jobs without checking with their Old Boy network.  Women still don’t have that instinctive reaction, nor do we have as good an Old Girl network.  We’re getting better, but we’re not there yet. (pg. 193)

Bottom Line:

I enjoyed this book especially its author Jane Maas.  Jane is warm, professional and likeable.  She seems honest.  She admits her book Adventures of an Advertising Women was a whitewashed memoir.  As president of a New York advertising agency she wrote the book to help attract new business.  In Mad Women she revisits clients and advertising campaigns mentioned in her previous book writing the truth this time.  She doesn’t come across as bitter even when describing the sexism and challenges she faced. Actually, she says she was having a wonderful time. 

If you watch Mad Men, are interested in advertising, life in the sixties, or successful career women, you may enjoy this book. I’ve left out Jane’s perspective on being a working mother and her take on where women are today, if interested you will have to read the book.

 *This is the third time I’ve read about career women getting help with their housekeeping. First Mary Kay Ash, then Lisa Bloom and now Jane Maas  I am beginning to believe them, a housekeeper is a necessity.

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How to get a promotion?

I feel as though many of the posts I’ve written recently have focused heavily on the obstacles women face in their careers. Take my post job disillusionment where I wrote about women feeling stuck and stalled in their careers. And in the comments of Feel Stuck in your Industry? Four Tips for Getting out Completely  where I wrote:

I attended a seminar last night covering what companies need to know about hiring discrimination and learned many managers continue to “profile” and discriminate when making hiring decisions. They prefer not to hire married women for IT consulting positions that involve travel, so ladies take off your wedding rings before going on these types of interviews. They tend not to hire or promote women who are in their child bearing years. Scariest of all, I learned the over-40 crowd is hugely discriminated against. Companies want to hire employees who are on the up-swing on the bell curve of their careers rather than the down-swing.

It is about time I celebrate a career success story around here. Drum roll....

Revanche of A Gai Shan Life received a promotion earlier this year:
Her new position comes with a new title, a higher level of seniority, more responsibility and visibility, a lot more travel and more money. It is important to note her original job offer with this company was on the low side.  Only after concluding a job, albeit a low paying one was better than no job at all Revanche accepted their offer.

Lesson #1 – You may have to accept a position that is not your dream job to gain experience and get your foot in the door.

Here are some of the things Revanche accomplished over the past year that attributed to her promotion:

She displayed a good attitude:
Revanche turned a negative into a positive. Instead of wallowing in disappointment over her low salary she developed an, "I’ll prove I'm worth it" attitude. Determined to earn a higher salary at her one-year salary review, she channeled all her energies and emotions into working at a high level. (She did receive a substantial increase at this review.)

She established credibility and was visible:
Revanche carried more than her weight and became the go-to person on several fronts. She also worked across departments and with upper management on a regular basis.

She didn’t listen to a naysayer:
One of the most motivating conversations of my career occurred when a co-worker told me I wouldn’t be able to handle taking college courses in addition to working full-time.  Revanche had a similar experience. Here is a phenomenal quote taken from her post Career Life: Taking the Castle, Part 2:

Someone once said to me, "They won't let women get anywhere near power in this place." I'd laughed and said something random to deflect but I very carefully filed that away. We have women directors aplenty, strong and outspoken, bright and introverted, if you have the eyes to see it. Never let anyone, male or female, faux-befriend and trick you into thinking that the patriarchy is the reason you can't grow and achieve. They may actually be the ones hoping to keep you down.

She understands and can operate within office politics:
This quote is also taken from her post A Career Life: Taking the Castle, Part 2:

Do great work. Enjoy what you do. Support good people. Find allies who love what they do. Mentor people who need mentoring and want to love what they do. Ask for mentoring from people who have integrity, strength, humor and sway. Find your joy and to quote my favorite bus driver: "don't let nobody take it away." It all adds up to something substantial.

A huge shout-out and congratulations to Revanche on a much deserved promotion. I highly recommend everyone head over to A Gai Shan Life and congratulate her. While there be sure to read her post's A Career Life: Securing the Battlements for Promotion and Career Life: Taking the Castle, Part 2 where she discusses her promotion’s interview process.

Recommended further reading:
To learn more about women and salary negotiations please see Women Don't Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation--and Positive Strategies for Change by Linda Babcock.

For a good resource on understanding office politics I like Lynn Cronin and Howard Fine's book Damned If She Does, Damned If She Doesn't: Rethinking the Rules of the Game That Keep Women from Succeeding in Business.

Do you have or know of a career success story? If so, I would love to hear about it.

SWG Coffee Social: Job Disillusionment

Now that March is over, the theme of the month seems to have been “Job Disillusionment.” It began with a night out with my 40-something girlfriends. Two of them work for the same manufacturing company. The topic of conversation quickly turned to job dissatisfaction. Kate, whom I previously wrote about here, was passed over for another promotion. Thinking she actually had a chance this time, she prepared a presentation highlighting her accomplishments. These accomplishments included working on the company budget, traveling to other company facilities to audit and upgrade their systems and acting as manager while the current controller was out on sick leave. She also has completed her MBA. She thought she had rocked in her interviews, so when she received word the promotion had gone to a (younger) male colleague whom she had trained she was extremely disappointed.

Why didn’t Kate receive the promotion?
She was told that when her name came up as a top contender, one of the senior officers said, “Isn’t she the one who is the eight to fiver.” Kate had previously received feedback that she did not put in enough face time.  When asked during the interviews about her willingness to work long hours if promoted she answered with, "I will work whatever hours are necessary to get the job done." Apparently this answer wasn’t good enough to overcome her reputation

Was Kate’s MBA a waste of time and money?
Kate feels earning her MBA has not improved her career one bit and in hindsight thinks it may have been a waste of time and money. Though, she does attribute her staled career somewhat to the down economy. I asked another friend, Leah, who also has earned her MBA for her thoughts. She too feels earning her MBA did not advance her career. She thinks an MBA is only worth it if you are on a career track in which an MBA is required prior to earning one.

Here are a couple of other “Job Disillusionment” stories from the month:

Employee forced to work on special project after co-worker's decline offer:
My second friend from above, Elaine, was pulled from her current position in accounting and assigned to work on the company’s computer conversion for the next nine months. Other employees including Kate were asked if they would like to work on the project and declined, Elaine was TOLD she had been assigned to the project. I imagine the company had no choice; someone has to work on the conversion so they stopped asking and started telling.

Companies continue to downsize:
Leah works for a large insurance company in our area. This insurance company has announced they plan to continue reducing their workforce in 2012 and that layoffs are possible. Leah was told her job was safe for NOW, but is nervous about her future with this company.

Required to reapply for their jobs:
It could be worse though, both a blogger I follow and her husband work for the same company. This company was sold and the purchasing company is closing the facility in their city. To maintain employment with their new company they have to apply for positions at the company’s headquarters in another state. During the interview process they do not know what positions they are applying for or what salaries these jobs will pay.

Unhappy Workers:
While attending my networking meeting at the end of the month, I made an effort to walk around and talk to my fellow members (remember I joined Classy Career Girl's Networking Challenge this month). As I made my way around the room I kept hearing the same phrase over and over, “I am so unhappy in my job.” The reasons alternated between bad bosses and too much work. All I can say is when this economy does turn around companies better be prepared for high employee turnover.

Here are some of my favorite posts/articles from around the web during the month of March:

I found Heidi Reddig's post Human Resources is neither "Human" nor "Resources" on the Collared Sheep to be both entertaining and true. My favorite line is:

HR’s job, as far as it concerns you, the intern or general variety underling, is to provide blank forms, collect forms that have been completed and then process them.

It has been so long since most of us have received a raise, I suggest we all read Ask a Manager's What not to say when you ask for a raise before doing so. Note, saying I just got my masters is on the list of things not to say.

I found it interesting that Syd at Retirement: A Full-Time Job recommends in More on Early Retirement that would be retirees have:

3 years worth of living expenses available in liquid assets so you don't have to be overly concerned about stock market gyrations.  (At least for those of us that will be living on our 401(k)'s rather than a pension.)

Speaking of networking in Solving the Gen Y Woman's Career Problem Rebecca of kontrary reminds us:

The number one thing you can do for career opportunities and advancement (read: dream jobs, meaningful work, more money, better titles) is to network, network, and network. Eighty percent of job openings are filled through networking (you know, actually talking to people).

In Ann Daly's interview with Rashi Biswas the author of Rash Decisions: Accept Where You Are, and Then...Be Amazing, Ann informs us Keith Ferrazzi's book Never Eat Alone (hmm a book about networking) is the best business book she has ever read.

And lastly, as if Ann has been listening to my stories of job disillusionment in the same interview she answers the question:

How do you feel about the current status of women in the workforce?

With:

Women's progress in the workplace has stalled. Thankfully, we're no longer insisting that things are better, or equal. Even younger women are recognizing sooner rather than later that power defaults to the men in the room. We have to remain vigilant about leveling the playing field.

How about you? Are you become disillusioned with your job? Do you have an MBA, if so do you feel it was worth the time and money you invested?

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