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Are you in a nightmare job scenario? Are you looking for a job and feeling hopeless? Does your boss make you cringe? Look no further. Lilit Marcus is here to the rescue. The sage editor of our sibling site TheGloss has a new book coming out called Save The Assistants: A Guide To Surviving and Thriving In the Workplace, inspired by her blog of the same name.
She always has great advice, so we asked her to answer some of your questions. Enjoy!
Q. I feel hopeless about finding a job, especially in this economy. Should I take whatever job I can get that pays the bills or wait until I find something emotionally satisfying (while living under my parents’ roof)?
A. I’d love to tell you that you should hold out for your dream job, but you know what? For many people, me included, that wasn’t an option. My suggestion would be to find a gig that pays the bills and in the meantime while your basic needs are being met start looking for a job that you find more fulfilling. One thing I really stress on my site and in the book is that there’s a huge difference between “job” and “career.” Just because you take a short-term job to pay the bills doesn’t mean you’re destined to be at that job forever. So, unless you’re planning to live off of your savings or have some other way of supporting yourself, you can’t be snobby about what kind of job you take when you’re broke. Just remember never to lose sight of what you really want to do, and don’t stop sending out resumes and checking job boards. It’s way easier to land your dream job when you already have a job somewhere else – that gives you the ability to play coy and negotiate a better salary for yourself.
Q. My boss is a workaholic. How do I have a life and keep up with his go-go-go pace?
A. Here’s the thing. Your boss may be a workaholic who only eats lunch at his desk and stays so late at work every night he has to take a car service home, but it really helps him that the company pays for his lunches and his car services. They probably don’t do that for you. While I’m certainly not suggesting you should be a slacker, you do not need to kill yourself working if you’re barely earning enough money to stay afloat. Do what’s required of you, but staying at your desk and waiting around at 8 p.m. simply because your boss hasn’t left yet is absurd. What I would tell you to do is set boundaries as soon as you can. For example, “Hi there [boss] – I was planning to head out by 6:00 tonight because my parents are in town. What are the most important things you absolutely need me to accomplish before I leave?” Make it clear that you aren’t lazy and that you care about your job and getting important tasks done, but that you’re also a normal human being with a life outside of work. Here’s one of the hardest but most important lessons I’ve learned about the workplace: if people can take advantage of you, they will. Make sure your boss knows that you are happy to stay late when the occasion calls for it, but that if you’re going to be consistently working 60-hour weeks you’d appreciate some leeway (overtime pay, taking longer lunch breaks so you have time to run personal errands during the day, etc).
If you’re intimidated by standing up to your boss, you can try this trick. At one assistant job I had, my boss regularly stayed until 10 every night. Even though he didn’t say anything about my hours, I felt like office culture dictated that I spend as much time at work as my boss did. Finally, I walked right up to him and said: “You’re here until 10 every night, and I know you’d like to get home and spend time with your family. Is there some way I can help you better so that we’re both leaving the office at a reasonable time?” In this case, I was the first assistant my boss had ever had, and he was still getting used to delegating and asking other people to do things he’d always done himself. Me asking him that question helped him to figure out both our workloads and prioritize tasks. The phrasing of the question made it clear that I wanted to help and that I wanted to make his life easier. What boss doesn’t like that?
Q. I feel like you have to KNOW someone to get your foot in the door and land your dream job. I have no connections! What do you suggest, networking-wise? Should I go request informational interviews?
A. Truthfully, I hate informational interviews. I don’t really know anyone who does them anymore. Unless you already know someone at a company personally – and considering what you wrote in this question, you don’t – informational interviews won’t get you anywhere.
What I might suggest you do is reach out to people at a given company or industry where you’d like to work, but not the executives – the assistants. Here’s why: one, they have jobs comparable to the one you’ll be starting out in, so their experiences are more relevant to your current needs; two, they’ll be super flattered that anyone cares what they think; and three, they’re more likely to be honest with you. If you can get contact information for a lower or mid-level employee at a place where you’d love to work, email that person something like this: “Hi, my name is so-and-so. I’d love to break into [industry] and was hoping to meet with some people in the field. If it wouldn’t be too weird, could I take you out for a cup of coffee later this week and pick your brain?” Most lower-level employees, who are the ones sucking up instead of being the ones sucked up to, will probably be flattered. Never flat out ask someone to get you a job if they don’t know you – just try to ask a lot of questions, learn as much as you can, and then remain in touch with the person and ask them to keep you in the loop about open positions at the company. Ideally, you’ll impress them so much with your smarts that they’ll be happy to help, especially if their company has a “finder’s fee” for new hires. At the very least, you can ask this person to give you a heads up about networking events, industry publications, and other stuff that can help you out.
Follow Lilit at Save The Assistants, TheGloss and on Twitter.
