Speaker 1: My colleagues, We'll stop commenting on everything I get my
Speaker 1: assist at people and meeting. Why does my coworker keep
Speaker 1: taking credit for all my ideas? Have any wisdom for me? Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Alison Green. Welcome to the Aska Manager podcast, where
Speaker 1: I answer questions from listeners about life at work, everything
Speaker 1: from what to say if you're allergic to your coworkers
Speaker 1: perfume to what to do if you drink too much
Speaker 1: at the company party. Let's get started, Hi, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Last year, I did a couple of
Speaker 1: episodes that were all about tone. One was just generally
Speaker 1: about what kind of tone to use in tricky conversations
Speaker 1: at work, and one was about getting your tone right
Speaker 1: when you're a manager. Those were some of the most
Speaker 1: popular episodes of the show, and I've had requests to
Speaker 1: do more of them on tone and other specific work situations.
Speaker 1: So I thought that today we would talk about tone
Speaker 1: and job interviews, because that is an interesting situation where
Speaker 1: a lot of people feel like they're supposed to be
Speaker 1: pretty deferential, but where in fact you will usually come
Speaker 1: across better if you drop that deference. Now, to be clear,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that you should be aggressive or adversarial
Speaker 1: and job interviews you of course should not be, but
Speaker 1: you will usually come across as a more confident and
Speaker 1: a more appealing candidate if your tone is more matter
Speaker 1: of fact, more collaborative, something closer to peers. So I
Speaker 1: thought we could talk about the tone that you want
Speaker 1: to strike in job interviews in general, and then talk
Speaker 1: through some specific tricky situations that you might find yourself
Speaker 1: in when your job searching, and what an effective tone
Speaker 1: of voice will sound like. So let's first talk about
Speaker 1: tone and job interviews in general. Job interviews have really
Speaker 1: weird power dynamics in a lot of ways, more so
Speaker 1: than other work situations do. A lot of people go
Speaker 1: into interviews feeling like the interviewer has all the power
Speaker 1: and they have none, and they want something that the
Speaker 1: interviewer has a job, and so they feel like they
Speaker 1: need to be very deferential throughout the whole process, and
Speaker 1: that is not the right way to approach it. If
Speaker 1: you are a good candidate, you have some power in
Speaker 1: this situation too. This is not a situation where you're
Speaker 1: just waiting for someone to decide to pick you, like
Speaker 1: on the Bachelor. You should be evaluating your interviewer right
Speaker 1: back and thinking about whether this is a job that
Speaker 1: you want and a manager who you want to work with,
Speaker 1: and a company that you want to work for. You
Speaker 1: don't need to be really deferential, like you're a subject
Speaker 1: talking to the king or the queen. You need to
Speaker 1: be polite, of course, but that is different from deferential.
Speaker 1: The tone that you want to use is actually really
Speaker 1: similar to the tone that you would use in most
Speaker 1: other business meetings. Friendly, collaborative, and direct. Think of yourself
Speaker 1: as talking to a colleague you don't know very well,
Speaker 1: and where the two of you are thinking about working
Speaker 1: on a project together, because that actually is the situation here.
Speaker 1: You're both trying to decide, not just the interviewer. Both
Speaker 1: of you are trying to decide if it makes sense
Speaker 1: to work together. It's not just you waiting for the
Speaker 1: interviewer to pass judgment on you, which is the approach
Speaker 1: and the vibe that a lot of people take into
Speaker 1: an interview room with them. So that means things like
Speaker 1: you don't need to apologize excessively if you aren't available
Speaker 1: at the very first interview time an employer suggests, or
Speaker 1: you don't need to act like you're committing a major crime.
Speaker 1: If you decide to turn down a job, you're an
Speaker 1: equal partner in this conversation about whether or not to
Speaker 1: work together, even if you really really want this particular job.
Speaker 1: And it's important to remember that because it will lead
Speaker 1: you toward using the right tone and toward sounding like
Speaker 1: a confident equal. And that's a lot more appealing to
Speaker 1: good employers than sounding overly deferential. Is now, I should
Speaker 1: say there is actually an exception to that really bad employers,
Speaker 1: because really bad employers sometimes do screen for people who
Speaker 1: are overly deferential. Not deliberately, you know, it's not like
Speaker 1: they're in their hiring planning process meetings and they say,
Speaker 1: we really need to find someone who's going to cow
Speaker 1: tow to us. It's generally more unconscious than that, but
Speaker 1: at some level, bad employers often do screen for people
Speaker 1: who are very differential because they want to hire people
Speaker 1: who will accept very bad treatment as employees. So if
Speaker 1: you're ever talking to someone who does some hiring and
Speaker 1: they tell you, oh, no, I actually like to see
Speaker 1: defference from job candidates, you know, I like it when
Speaker 1: people really lean into the power dynamics of interviewing. That is,
Speaker 1: someone who is revealing to you that they are probably
Speaker 1: pretty terrible to work with. You want to screen them out,
Speaker 1: and it is a good thing to do that. Now,
Speaker 1: all that doesn't mean that there aren't still some power
Speaker 1: dynamics in interviews that you need to play along with.
Speaker 1: There are, and they usually show up as double stand
Speaker 1: words like it's okay for your interviewer to answer their
Speaker 1: phone in the middle of an interview, but it generally
Speaker 1: would not be thought okay for you, as the candidate,
Speaker 1: to do that same thing with being late. You know,
Speaker 1: your interviewer can get away with being a little late
Speaker 1: and you can't. And that is just how the conventions
Speaker 1: on this stuff are. But it doesn't translate into meaning
Speaker 1: that your whole tone and demeanor needs to be super deferential,
Speaker 1: because it doesn't. Okay, let's do some specific conversations that
Speaker 1: you might have while you're interviewing and what your tone
Speaker 1: should sound like. So let's say that you're sitting in
Speaker 1: the interview and you're asked a question that you're just
Speaker 1: completely stumped by. You have no idea how to answer it,
Speaker 1: So first, don't try to bluff your way through it,
Speaker 1: because they will probably be able to tell and that
Speaker 1: will make you look bad, far worse than if you're
Speaker 1: just honest about it. But what is being honest about
Speaker 1: it actually sound like? So it could be the say,
Speaker 1: you know, I actually don't know the answer to that.
Speaker 1: When I have encountered similar things in the past, I've
Speaker 1: done X and Y, and that usually gets me pointed
Speaker 1: in the right direction. So matter of fact and confident,
Speaker 1: your tone isn't conveying that you're mortified or that you're
Speaker 1: worrying that you've blewned the interview. Your tone is saying
Speaker 1: that you are a normal human, and normal humans don't
Speaker 1: always have answers to everything, and you're comfortable with that,
Speaker 1: and that's actually pretty appealing, and in fact, that will
Speaker 1: probably be very intuitive if you think about how you
Speaker 1: want coworkers to handle it when they don't know something.
Speaker 1: You don't want them to blow a bunch of hot air,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't want them to just bluff their
Speaker 1: way through it. You want them to give an answer
Speaker 1: that is is a matter of fact about the fact
Speaker 1: that they don't know, but also where they don't sound
Speaker 1: totally shaken that they don't know. Now, obviously, if the
Speaker 1: answer to that one question is very crucial to you
Speaker 1: getting hired. Then that's not great, but you know that
Speaker 1: was going to be the case no matter what you said,
Speaker 1: so you might as well sound pleasant and matter of
Speaker 1: fact and not freaked out by being imperfect. And for
Speaker 1: most situations where one single interview question isn't make or break,
Speaker 1: that's going to help you. Okay, let's make it a
Speaker 1: little more nerve racking. Let's say that as you're talking
Speaker 1: to your interviewer, one of you realizes there's a mistake
Speaker 1: on your resume. Maybe they point out that your resume
Speaker 1: says that you left your last job in two or
Speaker 1: something like that. You don't need to run out of
Speaker 1: the room and shame or beg forgiveness or let it
Speaker 1: throw you off your game. The rest of the time,
Speaker 1: you just say, oh, no, thank you for bringing that
Speaker 1: to my attention so I can fix it. I am
Speaker 1: normally a neurotic proof reader. So this is mortifying. Now.
Speaker 1: Remember how with the example just before about not knowing
Speaker 1: the answer to the question, I said you don't need
Speaker 1: to sound mortified, But here I am actually saying the
Speaker 1: words I'm mortified. And that is because in this case,
Speaker 1: you need to convey that a mistake on your resume,
Speaker 1: a document that is expected to be really polished is
Speaker 1: out of character for you. You need to sound like
Speaker 1: you take it seriously without sounding like you're gonna leave
Speaker 1: and throw yourself down the elevator shaft as penance. Let's
Speaker 1: do another one where you've messed up a bit. Let's
Speaker 1: say you're stuck in traffic and you're you're realizing that
Speaker 1: you're gonna be late to the interview. Now, ideally this
Speaker 1: won't happen because you've allowed yourself a buffer, but you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes it happens, and maybe it's your fault, maybe it's not,
Speaker 1: but either way, now you have to call the employer
Speaker 1: and tell them that you're running late, which no one
Speaker 1: wants to do for an interview. The thing here, kind
Speaker 1: of the same as with the resume mistake, is that
Speaker 1: the interviewer has no way of knowing if this is
Speaker 1: par for the course with you, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: someone who's always late and as cavalier about it. So
Speaker 1: you've got to convey with both your words and your
Speaker 1: tone that this is not your normal MMO. So you
Speaker 1: want to sound a little mortified, and you want to
Speaker 1: make it clear that you take it seriously and This
Speaker 1: is actually an example of one of those double standards
Speaker 1: I was talking about earlier, because it is true that
Speaker 1: your interviewer can stroll in twenty minutes late your interview
Speaker 1: and not sound mortified about it. But convention says you
Speaker 1: are supposed to be on time as the candidate. I
Speaker 1: don't want that to undercut my message at the start
Speaker 1: of the show about how your equals because you are.
Speaker 1: This is just about recognizing the convention around this type
Speaker 1: of thing. So when you call it sounds like this,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry about this. I had left with plenty
Speaker 1: of extra time, but there is a massive traffic jam
Speaker 1: on three that looks like it's going to make me
Speaker 1: about ten or fifteen minutes late, and I realized that
Speaker 1: is later than you had planned. Well, that's still work
Speaker 1: for your schedule. So the tone is concerned and taking
Speaker 1: it seriously, but also not you know, throwing yourself on
Speaker 1: their mercy. You're still an adult equal. Let's do a
Speaker 1: short break here. We'll come back with some examples where
Speaker 1: you are not the one messing up your interviewer is.
Speaker 1: Let's talk through more example of tone when you're interviewing.
Speaker 1: Let's say that your interviewer asks you an inappropriate question,
Speaker 1: like asking about your religion or your plans for having kids,
Speaker 1: or something else they shouldn't be asking about. Now, I
Speaker 1: do want to know that, despite widespread belief to the contrary,
Speaker 1: it's actually not illegal in the United States for an
Speaker 1: interviewer to ask you about those things. There's no law
Speaker 1: that says they can't ask about your religion, or your ethnicity,
Speaker 1: or whether you're married, or plans for kids. What is
Speaker 1: illegal is for them to make a hiring decision based
Speaker 1: on your answers to those questions. So the question itself legal,
Speaker 1: Doing anything at all with the information illegal, and so
Speaker 1: because of that, smart employers don't ask those questions. You know,
Speaker 1: it's opening the door for you to think later if
Speaker 1: they reject to you that maybe it was based on
Speaker 1: your answers to those questions, and that's asking for legal
Speaker 1: trouble um. You know. One exception to this I should
Speaker 1: note is actually disability. It is it is goal for
Speaker 1: them to ask direct questions about disability, But for the
Speaker 1: other categories that people tend to limp in, there no
Speaker 1: just using the info anyway. Some people will ask anyway,
Speaker 1: as in some cases it's because they're ignorant of the law,
Speaker 1: or they don't care about the law. But in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases, they're just making small talk without realizing
Speaker 1: that they're straying into dangerous territory. Like someone might ask
Speaker 1: you if you have kids because you've just moved to
Speaker 1: the area, and they're making small talk and they're going
Speaker 1: to offer some helpful advice on their local schools or something,
Speaker 1: and you're sitting there thinking, crap, are they weird about parents?
Speaker 1: And they were trying to figure out if I'm going
Speaker 1: to need to leave early for childcare pickup or something,
Speaker 1: So it's all very fraught. What do you do when
Speaker 1: you get asked one of these questions that you really
Speaker 1: shouldn't be asked. Honestly, if your sense is that the
Speaker 1: person really is just making small talk, they're just trying
Speaker 1: to be friendly, you will generally get a better outcome
Speaker 1: if you take it in spirit. But if you get
Speaker 1: the sense that something sketchier is going on, one option
Speaker 1: is to answer the question that you think they're really
Speaker 1: trying to get at, Like if you think they're asking
Speaker 1: if you have kids because they're worried that you won't
Speaker 1: be at work reliably, you can sidestep the question of
Speaker 1: kids and just say something like, oh, there's nothing in
Speaker 1: my personal life that would interfere with my ability to
Speaker 1: work the hours of the job and to make the
Speaker 1: work a top priority, so breazy speaking directly to the concern.
Speaker 1: If something is more overtly offensive, or if you just
Speaker 1: can't figure out what they're really getting at, you can
Speaker 1: always say why do you ask? The key here, though,
Speaker 1: is that you have to say it in a friendly,
Speaker 1: pleasant tone and just sound curious, not piste off. I
Speaker 1: mean you don't have to, of course, but if you're
Speaker 1: still interested in the job and you want to preserve rapport,
Speaker 1: why do you ask? Is a good way to respond
Speaker 1: that doesn't seem wildly adversarial. You could even say, I've
Speaker 1: never been asked that before in an interview. What makes
Speaker 1: you ask? So? Curious? Pleasant, not defensive? Just why do
Speaker 1: you ask that? Let's do another tricky one. Let's say
Speaker 1: that you're interviewing with a company and you found that
Speaker 1: they have really awful reviews on something like glass Door.
Speaker 1: Not like one or two bad reviews, because those can
Speaker 1: be outliers, but a real pattern of just terrible reviews
Speaker 1: from their employees. You can ask about that, and really
Speaker 1: you should ask about it because unless you're in a
Speaker 1: desperate position where you need to take just any job
Speaker 1: that's offered to you, you want to know what you're
Speaker 1: getting into and you want to see how they respond.
Speaker 1: Do they just give you some public relations fluff or
Speaker 1: do they engage with the topic in a serious way
Speaker 1: that sounds like they're making real changes. But you've got
Speaker 1: to ask about it in a way that doesn't sound accusatory.
Speaker 1: You don't want to make them feel defensive or like
Speaker 1: you're calling them out on something. You want to sound
Speaker 1: like you're saying, basically, hey, I saw this thing that
Speaker 1: concerned me. I know there might be more to it.
Speaker 1: What can you tell me about it? So that might
Speaker 1: sound like this, I've noticed that the company's reviews from
Speaker 1: employees on glassdoor include a lot of concerns about culture
Speaker 1: and work hours, and I'm curious what your take is
Speaker 1: on that and if it's something that the company is
Speaker 1: working to change. So inquisitive and curious, but not accusatory.
Speaker 1: And really, if someone reacts badly to that, that's going
Speaker 1: to tell you a lot. Okay, let's say that you're
Speaker 1: interviewing for a job and You're talking to a bunch
Speaker 1: of different people there, and as you do, you're hearing
Speaker 1: conflicting things about the job. One person tells you that
Speaker 1: the focus is X, and another person says, oh, X
Speaker 1: isn't as important as it used to be. Why is
Speaker 1: really where this person will will be focusing or whatever.
Speaker 1: But the idea is you're hearing different things from different people,
Speaker 1: and it's important enough that you want to get it
Speaker 1: clarified before you could comfortably take that job. So maybe
Speaker 1: you say something like this, I've noticed that I have
Speaker 1: her different perspectives on the job from Jane and Bob
Speaker 1: and Olivia, and it sounds like, on one hand, some
Speaker 1: people want to see the job focus on X, but
Speaker 1: other people really think it should be focusing on why.
Speaker 1: Can you help me get a better sense of how
Speaker 1: those are going to be balanced and whether there is
Speaker 1: internal alignment about what people want to see from the position.
Speaker 1: So again, the tone here, matter of fact, curious, here's
Speaker 1: this thing that I've noticed, can you just help me
Speaker 1: understand it better now? I took a look through some
Speaker 1: past letters at the Asking Manager website that we're asking
Speaker 1: questions about interviews where tone was especially important, and I
Speaker 1: thought we could talk through some of those two. One
Speaker 1: person wrote in about an interview that they had where
Speaker 1: their interviewers all seemed to have some kind of problem
Speaker 1: with the job itself, the job that she was interviewing for,
Speaker 1: and they kept saying things like, well, what do you
Speaker 1: think is missing from this job description? And what do
Speaker 1: you see as problematic about this job? And she, of
Speaker 1: course was wondering what is going on because it seems
Speaker 1: like a red flag, but she wasn't sure how to
Speaker 1: figure out what it was really about. So when something
Speaker 1: in an interview is confusing you, it is okay to
Speaker 1: ask about it. In a situation like that, you could
Speaker 1: say something that sounds like this, I'm curious about the
Speaker 1: questions that you're asking. It sounds like you might have
Speaker 1: some concerns about how the role is structured. Am I
Speaker 1: reading that correctly? Or maybe it's this I'm curious to
Speaker 1: hear your thoughts on that question too. Do you think
Speaker 1: there's something problematic about the role? You ought to be pleasant,
Speaker 1: your tonys to sound curious, not annoyed, But you're there
Speaker 1: to get information just as much as they are, and
Speaker 1: it's okay to ask about what you're hearing. If it's
Speaker 1: not clear to you. Another person wrote in asking if
Speaker 1: there was a way to ask if they would have
Speaker 1: to work much with one particular person. Apparently there was
Speaker 1: someone who was just like rude and horrible throughout the process,
Speaker 1: and they had heard bad things about them, and they
Speaker 1: were wondering, is there a way to say, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm interested in the job, but how closely would I
Speaker 1: be working with that guy? You can't say it like that,
Speaker 1: of course, but you could say something that sounds like this,
Speaker 1: I have so enjoyed getting the chance to learn more
Speaker 1: about the job. Can you give me a sense of
Speaker 1: how my role interacts with Bob? How closely would we
Speaker 1: end up working together? If at all? The tone here
Speaker 1: has got to be neutral the way I just did it.
Speaker 1: You don't want it to sound like you're saying I
Speaker 1: don't want to work with Bob. The person you're talking
Speaker 1: to is probably going to figure out why you're asking,
Speaker 1: but it's important that you do it in a way
Speaker 1: that sounds professional. Well, we are zipping through these examples,
Speaker 1: which is good because it means we can fit in
Speaker 1: a bunch more of them. Let's do a final break here,
Speaker 1: and then I want to come back with a whole
Speaker 1: bunch more, including how to talk to a hostile interviewer,
Speaker 1: and also how to talk about an especially sensitive topic
Speaker 1: being fired, and lots more. I sometimes get letters from
Speaker 1: people who encounter truly hostile interviewers, interviewers who are just jerks,
Speaker 1: and you figure out during the conversation that there is
Speaker 1: no way in hell that you would ever take a
Speaker 1: job working for this person. If you are in that situation,
Speaker 1: you don't need to stay and be abused. You are
Speaker 1: allowed to end the interview early, just like the interviewer
Speaker 1: is allowed to do that too. The most low key
Speaker 1: way to do it is to say something like this.
Speaker 1: You know, as we're talking, I'm getting the sense that
Speaker 1: the fit here wouldn't be right. I really appreciate your time,
Speaker 1: best of like filling the position, but I think we
Speaker 1: should probably wrap up here. And that's the tone, polite
Speaker 1: but matter of fact and firm. But if you want
Speaker 1: to be more direct about it, and sometimes you might
Speaker 1: want to, if you're not worried about burning a bridge,
Speaker 1: it could be something like this. I have to be honest,
Speaker 1: your tone is really throwing me here. I don't think
Speaker 1: we would work well together, so I don't think it
Speaker 1: makes sense to keep talking, but I appreciate your time
Speaker 1: meeting with me, and I wish you the best in
Speaker 1: filling the job. That's a or let's say you realize
Speaker 1: during the interview you definitely aren't going to take this job,
Speaker 1: but it's not because anyone's being a jerk. It's just
Speaker 1: clear to you that it's not the right job for you.
Speaker 1: In most of those cases, it does make sense to
Speaker 1: just stay and finish it out, because you know, who
Speaker 1: knows it's possible that they'll have an opening in the
Speaker 1: future that you do want, so you want to make
Speaker 1: a good impression. But if you're like in the middle
Speaker 1: of an all day interview, it doesn't make sense for
Speaker 1: you or for them to invest a bunch of hours
Speaker 1: when you already know you're not taking the job. So
Speaker 1: in that case, you can say something like this, you know,
Speaker 1: as we're talking, I'm realizing this probably isn't the right
Speaker 1: fit for me. I really appreciate the time you've spent
Speaker 1: talking to me, but I wouldn't feel right taking it
Speaker 1: more of your time now. Ideally, you would also say
Speaker 1: something brief if there's something you're comfortable with that explains
Speaker 1: what you're reasoning if you can capture it easily in
Speaker 1: a sentence or two. So it might be something like,
Speaker 1: you know, as we're talking, I'm realizing I'm looking for
Speaker 1: something that's more X oriented. Or I hadn't realized the
Speaker 1: job was so heavily focused on X, or it sounds
Speaker 1: like we're much farther apart on salary than I had realized.
Speaker 1: So again, matter of fact, pleasant, warm, but but direct
Speaker 1: about what you are thinking. Okay, let's say you have
Speaker 1: had multiple interviews with the company and they just keep
Speaker 1: asking for more. I'm not talking about two or three interviews.
Speaker 1: That's pretty normal, but some people end up with five
Speaker 1: or six or even more interviews for the same job.
Speaker 1: If that is happening and they have not clearly told
Speaker 1: you what remains in the process, you can ask about it.
Speaker 1: So it would sound like this, can you tell me
Speaker 1: more about what steps are still remaining in the process
Speaker 1: and what you're likely timeline is for a decision. Or
Speaker 1: you could even say, I'm so interested in this position,
Speaker 1: but it's becoming harder for me to take time of
Speaker 1: work for additional meetings. Is there any way we could
Speaker 1: consolidate some of the remaining steps so the tone there
Speaker 1: isn't demanding, but it's a sort of it's pleasant, but
Speaker 1: it's still as sort of. Now, let's say that you
Speaker 1: go through the interview process and you get the offer
Speaker 1: and you want to ask for some kind of perk,
Speaker 1: like let's say, working from home on Fridays. It helps
Speaker 1: to frame the request as would you be open to X?
Speaker 1: Or I'd like X because of why is that an
Speaker 1: option on your end? And that way you're being direct
Speaker 1: about what you want, but you're not demanding it. So
Speaker 1: if you want to ask about working from home, it
Speaker 1: could sound like this, my current job is very work
Speaker 1: from home friendly and I usually work from home a
Speaker 1: few times a month. Would you be open to me
Speaker 1: continuing to do that? So very matter of fact? Or
Speaker 1: you could even tie it to salary, like if they
Speaker 1: were not able to meet the salary that you asked for.
Speaker 1: Maybe you decide that you want to ask for one
Speaker 1: work from home to age week to make the offer
Speaker 1: more attractive to you. So it could be this, I
Speaker 1: do understand you can't go up to X. I would
Speaker 1: be willing to accept the job for why if I
Speaker 1: was able to work from home one day a week?
Speaker 1: Since there's real value to me and cutting back on
Speaker 1: my commute? Would that work on your end? So the
Speaker 1: tone here is pleasant, it's a matter of fact. It's
Speaker 1: not aggressive negotiating. It's not being very deferential and cow towing.
Speaker 1: You're just two business people seeing if you can figure
Speaker 1: out mutually agreeable terms. That's the tone. Speaking of salary,
Speaker 1: I think people really struggle with tone when they're talking
Speaker 1: about salary because mostly we're also freaked out by it.
Speaker 1: There's actually a whole separate episode of the show that
Speaker 1: is about what a salary negotiations should sound like, So
Speaker 1: you might want to check that out. It's the episode
Speaker 1: from April, and it's called what should Salary Negotiations Sound Like?
Speaker 1: So if you want to listen to that, do But
Speaker 1: I want to talk about a piece of salary discussions
Speaker 1: that didn't get talked about there, which is how to
Speaker 1: handle questions about what you have earned in the past. Now,
Speaker 1: to be clear, your salary history is no one's business
Speaker 1: but yours, and it's pretty ridiculous that employers, some employers
Speaker 1: still expect you to share it. In fact, it's so
Speaker 1: ridiculous that some states are actually making it illegal for
Speaker 1: employers to ask which is great. Those states, by the way,
Speaker 1: so you can see if you're in one of them, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: New York, Oregon, and Vermont. But in most of the US,
Speaker 1: it's still legal for them to ask, and it's legal
Speaker 1: for them to require an answer from you. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about what to do if that happens, assuming that
Speaker 1: you're not somewhere where it's legally prohibited. So if you
Speaker 1: are asked what you've been making in the past or
Speaker 1: what you're making currently, instead try just answering with what
Speaker 1: you're looking for. Like it could just be someone says,
Speaker 1: you know, what have you been earning in your most
Speaker 1: recent job and you say, oh, well, right now, I'm
Speaker 1: looking for something in the range of X to Y.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they will accept an answer and not push to
Speaker 1: know what you're making now. But if they do push,
Speaker 1: you can try saying, well, that's actually covered under my
Speaker 1: confidentiality agreement with my employer. We're not allowed to share
Speaker 1: the company salary structure outside the company, but I'm looking
Speaker 1: for X to Y because that is actually probably true.
Speaker 1: Take a look at your company manual and there is
Speaker 1: a very good chance that you will find that that
Speaker 1: is in there, or at least that it's an unofficial expectation.
Speaker 1: But what if you get an employer who's really pushing
Speaker 1: this and just won't drop it. And what if you
Speaker 1: know that you're underpaid and you don't want them to
Speaker 1: tie a salary offer to what you've been making. In
Speaker 1: that case, it could sound like this. Well, one of
Speaker 1: the main reasons that I am looking to change jobs
Speaker 1: is actually that I know I'm underpaid for the field
Speaker 1: I'm leaving in part to get my salary back in
Speaker 1: line with market rates, meaning X to Y for a
Speaker 1: job like this one. Very early on in my career,
Speaker 1: I is actually in this exact situation. I had been
Speaker 1: working for a nonprofit earning hardly anything, and I was
Speaker 1: interviewing for a job that would more than double my salary,
Speaker 1: and when they asked about it, I said it this way,
Speaker 1: let's see if I can recreate this. This was years ago.
Speaker 1: I said something like, I've really loved the work that
Speaker 1: I've been doing, and I was willing to do it
Speaker 1: for well below market rates because I was so personally
Speaker 1: invested in the organization and I was learning a huge
Speaker 1: amount that I wouldn't have had the chance to learn
Speaker 1: somewhere else. But now I'm ready to move on from
Speaker 1: that stage. And part of the reason that I'm leaving
Speaker 1: is because I want to be paid a normal market rate.
Speaker 1: And it worked, got the job, doubled my salary. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's do one more, and let's do when that. People
Speaker 1: get really nervous about how to talk about a past
Speaker 1: firing in an interview. If you get asked about why
Speaker 1: you left a job that you were fired from, the
Speaker 1: key to talking about it is to be calm, not defensive,
Speaker 1: and not better and actually not a move sal at
Speaker 1: all for that matter. And to be concise, you really
Speaker 1: just need a sentence or two here. I think sometimes
Speaker 1: people think they're supposed to give a really lengthy explanation
Speaker 1: new Your interviewer does not need or want all the details,
Speaker 1: just the upshot. So like, what are two sentences? Here's
Speaker 1: some examples of what it could sound like. Actually, I
Speaker 1: was let go. I reported to two different managers, and
Speaker 1: I got conflicting instructions from each of them, and I
Speaker 1: didn't speak up about it when I should have. I
Speaker 1: just tried to make it all work, and ultimately I
Speaker 1: dropped some balls. It taught me a ton about needing
Speaker 1: to speak up early on when priorities aren't clear so
Speaker 1: that it won't happen again. Or here's a different way
Speaker 1: you could say something like, you know, it ended up
Speaker 1: being a bad fit. They were looking for design expertise,
Speaker 1: and I'm really an editor, not a designer. So ultimately
Speaker 1: we agreed it didn't make sense for me to stay
Speaker 1: in that job. Okay, those were a lot of examples,
Speaker 1: and hopefully it helped to hear them out loud if
Speaker 1: they're is another topic where you want me to tackle
Speaker 1: tone right in and let me know. I'm at podcast
Speaker 1: at ask a Manager dot org. And also I don't
Speaker 1: normally make a big plug for my book on the show,
Speaker 1: but if you have found this kind of sample language useful,
Speaker 1: you might really like the Aska Manager book because it's
Speaker 1: filled with sample language for all sorts of situations that
Speaker 1: you might run into at work. And there's a whole
Speaker 1: section on talking to your interviewer. In fact, I took
Speaker 1: some of the examples today from the book, so if
Speaker 1: you want to check it out. It's called Ask a Manager,
Speaker 1: How to Navigate clueless colleagues, lunch stealing bosses, and the
Speaker 1: rest of your life at work. And you can order
Speaker 1: it on Amazon or anywhere books are sold. Okay, that
Speaker 1: is it for today. I will be back next week
Speaker 1: with our more traditional Q and A format. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to the Ask a Manager Podcast. If you'd like
Speaker 1: to come on the show to talk through your own question,
Speaker 1: email it to podcast at Asking manager dot org, or
Speaker 1: you can leave a recording of your question by calling
Speaker 1: eight five five four T six work. That's eight five
Speaker 1: five four two six nine seven five. To get more,
Speaker 1: ask a manager at ask a Manager dot org or
Speaker 1: in my book Ask a Manager How to Navigate clueless colleagues,
Speaker 1: lunch stealing bosses, and the rest of your life at work.
Speaker 1: The Ask a Manager Show is a partnership with How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works and is produced by Paul Deckett. If you
Speaker 1: liked what you heard, please take a minute to subscribe, rate,
Speaker 1: and review the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Play.
Speaker 1: I'm Alison Green and I'll be back next week with
Speaker 1: another one of your questions.