Here are some important insights into the world of work:
A good answer: If you’re at a loss when potential employers ask frustrating and invasive questions during the job interview, you’re not alone. Jim Walsh, an electrical engineer in St. Paul, has had the same problem. And he’s come up with a killer answer to at least one of them.
“After 30 years of pursuing various job opportunities and always being asked, `Why do you want to leave your present employer?’ I reply that my present employer `isn’t paying his bills.”‘ Walsh adds that “the answer, which I’ve used two or three times now, seems to stop them in their tracks and they immediately move on to something else.”
In other words, it has the desired effect.
Well-articulated advice: I recently wrote about the unfair judgments hiring officers make when they hear what are called “regional” accents. Kirsten D’Aurelio, a speech consultant and president of VoiceScape Inc., in Chicago, agrees that regional accents can make a difference in whether you get the job “because there is so much voice-to-voice business being done, people are being increasingly judged by how they sound.”
Even dropping the “g” off words ending in “ing” can open you up to “all kinds of judgments about intelligence levels and competence,” D’Aurelio warns. The consultant emphasizes that these judgments “aren’t fair,” but she also stresses the importance of having a “vocal dress code” for the workplace. And I have first-hand proof D’Aurelio knows what she’s talking about: When she heard my voice on the telephone she asked, “Are you from Philadelphia?”
The answer, of course, is yes.
Valuable insight on vacations: I pointed out in a recent column that there’s an ocean of difference between the amount of employer-paid vacations the average American gets and the legally mandated ones European workers enjoy.
Lesley Stuart, a quality-assurance manager in Bellevue, Wash., agrees. “Two weeks of vacation does not even come close to being a fair deal when you consider that most salaried people give that back to employers just by working through lunch every day,” Stuart said. “More paid leave would actually allow them to regenerate their interest in work instead of burning them out.”
She adds: “As a working mother in the computer industry, all I can look forward to is retirement to get the rest I need! And that is a national shame.”
Helpful legal insight: Jeffrey M. Bernback, an attorney specializing in employment discrimination and author of “Job Discrimination: How to Fight and How to Win” (Voir Dire Press, $15), tells a dirty little insider secret: “In today’s world, employers may believe from a dollars-and-cents viewpoint that employment discrimination can be good business,” Bernback writes. He gives as examples illegal policies to get rid of disabled workers and new parents.
“If this is so,” the lawyer adds, “the only way to take the profit out of workplace discrimination is for more employees to pursue legal actions and for courts and juries to impose the maximum cost on guilty employers.”
My advice: Fight back!
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Carol Kleiman’s column also appears in Tuesday’s Business section. Watch her Career Coach segments Sunday and Tuesday mornings on CLTV. Send e-mail to ckleiman@tribune.com.
