Tag Archives: work

Ministry Of Justice Ad Banned For ‘Reinforcing Negative Stereotypes About Black Men’

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The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has had one of its adverts banned, for being likely to cause “serious offence” by “reinforcing negative stereotypes about Black men”.

The ad for the MoJ’s Prison Jobs scheme, which ran this summer, featured an image of a white prison officer talking to a Black inmate, with superimposed text stating: “Become a prison officer. One career, many roles.”

A caption accompanying the image read: “We’re key workers, problem solvers, life changers. Join us to perform a vital role at HMP Wormwood Scrubs.”

A reader complained that the ad perpetuated negative ethnic stereotypes and was likely to cause serious offence.

The MoJ said the photographs used in the ad campaign featured real officers and prisoners, arguing that it did not therefore “portray” a Black man as a criminal but rather depicted a real person who had been convicted of an offence.

It said it was not therefore an inaccurate or unfair representation of the type of engagement that might have been seen between officers and prisoners.

The now-banned MoJ advert.
The now-banned MoJ advert.

The MoJ said the image formed “one small part” of the overall campaign – accounting for less than 5% of its spending on the ads – “which used a wide variety of images and showed officers of different ethnicities, interacting with each other”.

It added that none of the other images used in the Facebook part of the campaign showed white officers alongside ethnic minority prisoners.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) noted all this, but pointed out that viewers would be likely to see the advert in isolation on Facebook.

The ASA said: “The ad made reference to prison officers being ‘problem solvers’ and ‘life changers’, and we considered it drew a link between the officer depicted and those attributes. On the other hand, the Black prisoner was depicted as a criminal, without those positive attributes.

“We considered the ad did not suggest that all Black men were criminals or were more likely to be so than any other ethnic group.

“However, it showed an imbalanced power dynamic, with a smiling white prison officer, described as a ‘life changer’, and a Black, institutionalised prisoner.

“We considered the ad’s focus on the positive qualities of the white prison officer and negative casting of the Black prisoner was likely to be seen as perpetuating a negative racial stereotype.

“We concluded that the ad was likely to cause serious offence on the grounds of race by reinforcing negative stereotypes about Black men.”

The ASA ruled that the ad must not appear again, adding: “We told the Ministry of Justice to ensure they avoided causing serious offence on the grounds of race.”

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How To Maximise Your Annual Leave In 2023 For The Most Time Off Work

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Just like that, the last bank holiday of the season (until Christmas) has passed. Love Island has finished, we experienced two heatwaves, danced at Notting Hill Carnival and caught a tan at the beach. It looks like it’s time to slowly start putting your summer clothes away and get out your jumpers.

I know you don’t want to to think about winter just yet, so why don’t you use this time to start planning your holidays for next year?

It might feel too early, but if you start plotting your time now, you can get bag the best days and get 47 days off work by using only 19 days of annual leave. Imagine how you’d spend that time living your best life!

Want to find out how you can maximise your holidays next year? Keep reading.

Easter weekend 🐣

Easter Sunday falls on Sunday 9 April in 2023. If your employer closes on the weekends and bank holidays you can get a 10-day break using four days of annual leave.

Book off: April 3, 4, 5, 6

Get off: March 31 to April 10

May bank holiday 🌸

Ah, May how we love you for your multiple bank holidays. If you didn’t manage to get those days off in April then you’re in luck, because the May bank holiday is shortly after the Easter break. The first bank holiday is on May 1.

Book off: May 2, 3, 4, 5

Get off: April 31st to May 8th

The fun doesn’t stop there in May as we also have the late May bank holiday which falls on May 29.

Book off: May 30, 31, June 1, 2

Get off: May 29 to Sunday June 4

August bank holiday 🏖️

The August bank holiday is everyone’s favourite. It signifies the end of summer so we all want to make the most out of that weekend. And it’s the perfect time to book a little trip away. The 2023 August bank holiday falls on Monday 28.

Book off: August 29, 30, 31, September 1

Get off: August 26 to September 3

Christmas 🎄

Tis’ the season to be jolly by taking timing off to eat a dozen mince pies. Even those who don’t enjoy Christmas don’t want to work during that time. We’d all rather drink hot chocolate and snuggle up in bed. Christmas day falls on Monday 25 in 2023. You’ll also get a bank holiday on Boxing day (December 26) and New Year’s Day (January 1 2024)

Book off: December 27, 28, 29

Get off: December 23 to Tuesday January 2 2024

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This Is How Much Debt Maternity Leave Is Putting Women In

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Babies can come at the most surprising moments in life. And for many people, they arrive at a point where your personal finances aren’t at their strongest.

In fact, some women entering maternity leave are doing so without any savings at all.

Reduced pay during this time coupled with the costs of a newborn means many mums have to borrow money to get by. And some are being left in debt.

A study of parents by finance company Credit Karma found that a quarter of parents get into maternity leave without any money saved, while 26% of women get into debt while on their maternity leave.

The amount in borrowing has increased by £560 since 2018, the company says, taking the average borrowed per parent up to £2,800.

Those with student loans face the harshest outcomes as the interest rate on those loans remains seriously high while they are on leave and unable to pay it off.

Credit Karma said women with interest loans accrue an average of £1,770 loan interest in just six months of leave.

Given the cost of living crisis, which is seeing bills go up as never before, this paints a dire picture for new parents.

Akansha Nath, head of partnerships at Credit Karma UK said: “Women are often disadvantaged financially throughout their life, and the responsibility to give birth plays a huge role in this gender disparity.

“At a time when the cost of living is affecting most people, and every penny counts, it’s more important than ever that women take advantage of any support available to them.”

These debts, even if eventually paid off, can then follow women into life, affecting their credit score and therefore their ability to buy homes and other goods.

Credit Karma said maternity-affected credit scores can set women back an average £17,000 in interest over the course of their lifetimes.

If you are struggling with maternity debt, there are resources that can help.

Step Change has a benefit checker, as well as list of grants available to expectant parents. The website also offers free money management tools designed to help people with their finances, without judgement.

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What To Do When You Forget Someone’s Name

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We’ve all been there: upon walking into the office, an acquaintance cheerfully greets you by name and you pause, frantically searching your brain for theirs.

You don’t want to disrespect them by saying the wrong name, but just saying “hey” seems so generic. Do you come clean about your memory lapse?

Here’s how experts say you can address the conundrum strategically and still keep your relationships intact.

You may consider a subtle approach first

If you are at an event and you see someone you know but you can’t remember their name, introduce yourself first, because it often prompts that person to say their name too. That’s what Mary Abbajay, president of the leadership development consultancy Careerstone Group, recommends.

“That is a signal for you to say your name back,” Abbajay says. But don’t think you are being sly about your strategy. Many people will recognise that it means you don’t know their name, she says.

One other indirect approach is to discreetly ask someone else to tell you the other person’s name, Abbajay adds.

If you are in a conversation that will continue later, consider asking the person to put their contact information in your phone. Or if the conversation needs to move to email, try asking, “Can you tell me how to spell your name to get the email right?” suggests Perpetua Neo, a psychologist and executive coach.

Better yet, ask them directly and apologise.

Avoiding saying someone’s name every time you see them will only get you so far.

“I think people fake it too long, and then they meet that person three or four times, and then they are too embarrassed to ask their name,” Abbajay says. “The best thing is to nip that in the bud right away. The second time you meet them, say, ‘Remind me of your name again. Thank you so much.’”

Don’t minimise your actions and say, “Oh I do this all the time.” If this is your third or fourth time asking their name, that deserves a bigger mea culpa, Abbajay says. People’s names are important to them, and you want your apology to come across as sincere.

Don’t make it too big a deal, though, either.

“We feel an internal pressure to remember people’s names after they tell us once, but that’s not fair, and truly, most people understand that,” says Lawrese Brown, the founder of C-Track Training, a workplace education company. “Even if it’s a close colleague, some of us are better with names than others and some of us forget things easily in general.”

“The biggest mistake is to be overly apologetic like there is something wrong with you,” Neo says. “Being gracious and pleasant about it can be useful.”

Don’t get discouraged if it happens more than once. Learning names takes time, Brown says, but what pushes her to ask for name reminders is to remember there are worse alternatives: You can make the wrong guess and call that person by an incorrect name, or you can be impersonal and never say their name.

“In the short term, asking may feel embarrassing, but that’s a temporary feeling,” Brown says. “The feeling of letting someone know that you care enough to call them by their name is what they’ll remember.”

Write down names whenever possible and try saying a person’s name when you first meet them.

Brown says that writing down someone’s name is what works best for her as far as remembering them.

Research has shown that writing things down helps our brains really retain what is being said. A 2014 study in Psychological Science, for example, found that students who wrote notes down on paper had better comprehension and retention of what was being taught than students typing on their laptops.

If you don’t have access to a pen or paper, try using your voice. Here’s a pro tip: Use someone’s name within the first minutes of meeting someone.

Abbajay says that in meetings she facilitates, she will ask people to introduce themselves even if some people already know each other as a way to help her remember names. When people introduce themselves, she diagrams where they are sitting and what their names are.

That way, “When I’m in the meeting, I can start using people’s names. If you use somebody’s name quickly when you meet them, chances are you are going to remember their name,” she says.

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The Most Ridiculous Questions And Requests People Have Faced In Job Interviews

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You’re reading Life-Work Balance, a series aiming to redirect our total devotion to work into prioritising our personal lives.

“How would you fit a giraffe into a fridge?” An asinine question in most settings, but especially peculiar during a job interview.

And yet, these kinds of ‘quirky’ and arbitrary lines of questioning seem to be commonplace during the interview process.

In an attempt to make people think ‘outside the box’ or on their feet, hiring managers are coming up with increasingly difficult (and frustrating) tasks and questions for interviewees.

And to make matters worse, many are leaving the applicants hanging once it comes to feedback or finding out the results of the conversation.

So, what does it say about their work culture when recruiting staff act like this when imbued with such powers?

For starters, if you’re being put in a difficult and tricky situation at the earliest stage of the job, then it might not be the best indication of the company’s treatment of employees. And it also means they have no regard to the preparation that applicants may have completed in anticipation of a more traditional interview.

After all, how does anyone answer how they’d put a giraffe in the fridge, or what words they’d have on their tombstone, or how they’d fare if locked in a room and asked to complete a challenge (all real requests)?

Here are some of the most ridiculous requests people have received:

It’s understandable that companies would try get creative with their asks, and indeed some are known for tough brainteasers that showcase the best of people, but most of us can agree that some questions are just a bit bizarre and show nothing about the person.

That’s what Hannah Langford, 31, from the North West, felt when she went for a job in law in Manchester.

She tells HuffPost: “I had a training contract interview at a law firm about 10 years ago and was asked two bizarre questions: ‘Why don’t polar bears eat penguins?’ and ‘How much water does it take to fill St Paul’s Cathedral?’.

“These questions made me doubt myself and I felt confused as to what answer was expected (i.e., was I expected to give an actual answer to the water question or was my thought process what they were interested in?).”

Langford ended up pivoting to a different sector altogether, deciding to work in charity.

Ramla*, 26, from London, can relate to navigating random questions that don’t relate to the job. “A charity that had many interview stages (and didn’t even give feedback after despite saying it would) had some interesting questions,” she recalls.

“One was about who’s your most problematic friend and why you are still friends with them. Another was about the last time you lost your temper.

“I’m not sure how far these questions really test someone’s values. No matter what you say, they’d have to take it with a pinch of salt because it’s an interview, not a chat with your best friend.

“These questions felt a bit like an interrogation. Surely what I’ve achieved and the places in which I’ve created transformative change should speak for itself – or at the very least, they could ask me directly about that?”

Unfortunately, eccentric questioning seems to be commonplace in the job interview space, when that time could be far better utilised talking about the things that bring us joy, what we’re passionate about, what we look forward to.

Because, truly, no one knows how to fit a giraffe into a fridge. And nor should they.

Life-Work Balance questions the status quo of work culture, its mental and physical impacts, and radically reimagines how we can change it to work for us.

HuffPost UK/ Isabella Carapella

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How To Stop Obsessing Over A Mistake At Work

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Making mistakes happens to all of us in our careers. But some of us hold on to these mistakes longer than others.

Maybe you lie awake at night still feeling queasy and anxious over the way you frustrated a client by accidentally giving them the wrong information. Maybe you are avoiding co-workers on your team because you feel like they are all judging you for that error, even though it happened last week. If either of these scenarios sounds familiar, you may be prone to obsessing over mistakes.

What fuels these constant worries is the shame of feeling completely inadequate and fear of others discovering your lack of capabilities, says Tanisha Ranger, a Nevada-based clinical psychologist. Once you start obsessing over mistakes because of your shame, it can steamroll into bigger problems like perfectionism.

“Shame often gives way to perfectionism, and perfectionism makes mistakes feel monumental. Essentially, ‘If I don’t do everything perfectly right then I am a failure and everyone will see my defectiveness,’” she says. “I’ve had many clients who struggled with obsessing over mistakes at work. [They lay] awake at night ruminating and beating themselves up over a mistake, not an intentional or careless mess-up, but a mistake.”

There’s a better way to acknowledge a mistake while still letting it go. Here’s how:

1. Put the mistake in perspective

After you make an obvious mistake at work, you may want the ground to swallow you up to save you from the embarrassment, shame and anxiety of facing your co-workers again.

If these worries are keeping you up at night, challenge those thoughts by getting more realistic with your thinking, suggests Shannon Garcia, a psychotherapist at States of Wellness Counselling.

“Will the world end? Nope,” she says. “Will you get fired? Highly unlikely. Will you receive constructive feedback from your boss? Maybe. Will owning up to your mistake be uncomfortable? Probably. Have you survived past mistakes? Seems like it, if you’re reading this. Will you survive this one? Yes!”

Sometimes accidental oversights do hurt your job performance, but it’s important to not catastrophise what happened.

“Sure, it caused a delay. Yes, it may have cost the company some money. OK, it negatively impacted job performance. But is it actually the end of your career? Really? Likely not,” says Ranger. “Shrinking things down to their right size, not ignoring/suppressing and also not overblowing or exaggerating, is an important part of letting things go.”

If it helps, try putting yourself in the shoes of co-workers who have also made mistakes. Once you see the compassion and sympathy you hold for their slip-ups, you may be more inclined to be compassionate about your own.

“When a co-worker has made a mistake in the past, is it something you’ve judged them immensely for? Did you spend your day thinking endlessly about their mistake? No. People at work are likely reacting the same way,” Garcia says. “No one is thinking about this more than you are.”

2. Learn that you don’t have to beat yourself up as penance

To move past a mistake, you also need to rethink what it means to learn from a mistake. If you think turning over every angle of how an interaction with your boss could have gone better, for example, take a deep breath. Give yourself permission to release those thoughts, says organisational psychologist Laura Gallaher of the consulting firm Gallaher Edge.

People ruminate because they believe there are payoffs to worrying so much; they think “A conscientious person would worry about this,” Gallaher says.

“When you know that you can simultaneously be a conscientious person, and also forgive yourself to move forward, it will be easier to do so.”

What Garcia tells her clients the most is “be nice to yourself,” she says. Reframe your worries in a more positive light.

“The fact that you are anxious about it means you care. That’s what your boss, co-workers and customers care about the most,” Garcia says. “Try not to beat yourself up over it. Create an affirmation to repeat to yourself whenever those negative self-talk thoughts pop up: ‘I accept my mistake, I choose to learn from it, and I am moving forward.’”

If you are stuck in the world of “could’ve/should’ve” in regards to your error, be honest with yourself about what you did not know.

Ranger says she works with some clients by asking them to consider why they supposedly “should have known better.” “It’s always so enticing to impose our current knowledge and wisdom on a past version of ourselves that could not have known to make that decision with the information we had at that time,” she says.

3. Don’t hide the mistake. Own what happened, but don’t take on other people’s judgement, too

When you make a big blunder at work, you may instinctually want to shut down, repress it, and forget it ever happened.

If you feel the urge to withdraw, challenge yourself to do the opposite. Be the one to bring it up in conversation with co-workers or your boss.

“If it was something that inconvenienced them, apologise for it,” Garcia says. “Then it’s a conversation happening where you are involved, people are likely to be gracious, and everyone can move on from there.”

It may sound counterintuitive, but being transparent about your mistake and its impact can be healing. “It can feel like a cold shower – before you do it, you fear it and feel uneasy or anxious,” Gallaher explains. “In the moment of being open, it can feel unpleasant at first, but once it’s over, you actually feel more refreshed 99% of the time. Taking accountability without blaming anybody is the most healing.“

Once you model being open and accountable, it may encourage others to do so as well. “Most of the time, when you lead with self-accountability, that vulnerability is courageous, and courage is contagious: People usually respond with their own self-accountability as well,” Gallaher says.

Of course, sometimes being honest about a mistake can also inspire eye-rolling judgement and harsh criticism from mean-spirited colleagues. You should hold yourself accountable for your mistake, but the judgement of your peers is not something you need to take on, too.

“Let them know what you intend to do differently to try to prevent something like this from happening in the future, and then accept that they may move on or they may not. It is outside of your control,” Ranger advises. “Taking on other people’s emotions is detrimental to yourself and makes it difficult for you to treat yourself with the kindness and compassion you deserve from you.”

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Can We Ever Really Recover From Burnout?

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You’re reading Life-Work Balance, a series aiming to redirect our total devotion to work into prioritising our personal lives.

“I’ve had splinters on my feet, I’m physically exhausted, I’ve had breakdowns. All the detox time in the world doesn’t change how burned out I am.”

This is the experience of Anthony*, a tech worker, 34, from London. After being asked to work weekends, weeks of late shifts, only then to be swapped onto earlies without warning, Anthony’s job has left him totally drained. So much so he’s quit his job without securing another. “I just can’t take anymore of this.”

Anthony isn’t alone in this state of mind. By the end of 2021, burnout was affecting more than 79% of UK workers, according to research by the HR tech company Ceridian, with 35% of people reporting high or extreme levels.

Nearly half (49%) of those surveyed in research cited an increased workload as a cause. The ongoing pandemic, post-Covid recovery, and the so-called Great Resignation, have left employers squeezing more out of their workers than ever before. And it’s causing a physical and mental health crisis.

Is there a chance of recovery? How long does it take to get over burnout?

We’ve seen buzzwords like self-care, wellness weekends and digital detox become the norm, but they risk ignoring the broader picture – that short stints of respite or relaxation don’t counteract the strenuous, back-breaking and brain-fogging nature of work under capitalism.

So what can we do? The obvious solution – if the Great Resignation is anything to go by – is to leave workplaces, even professions, that are bad for our health.

It’s what Lana*, 26, a social services worker in New York City, had to do to get some relief from her burnout.

“I quit working in the most toxic field possible in which I was forced to travel all over the city to unsafe locations. I got no support while dealing with people in extreme suffering/people who are dying. So I decided to get out of the field,” she tells HuffPost.

“Now I do my job and come home. No travel, no dying, I don’t stay late and I don’t take work home with me.

“My burnout was affecting me and my clients. I had to take a good hard look at myself and give myself the freedom to breathe again.”

Lana says she appreciates not everyone can leave their job immediately, especially given how expensive the cost of living is right now.

But if you are experiencing burnout, she says, it pays to make a change, rather than attempting simply to work through it.

“Finding new work definitely isn’t the only way to get over burnout, but you have to know when it’s time to take a break or reevaluate,” she says. “I feel like we owe it to ourselves.”

And while you might not completely be able to get over this block, there are some things you can do to mitigate burnout.

Jo Davidson, a business strategist who predominantly mentors female entrepreneurs, says she sees burnout among her clients all too often.

Recognise when you’re being pushed too much, she says. “Acknowledge that burnout is a result of the body telling us to stop. But we choose to ignore it, and don’t listen,” she tells HuffPost. “Taking changes is important because going back into exactly the same situation will only ever delay the healing.”

So how long can you expect to take to recover? Well, there is no right answer as the journey isn’t so linear.

“Recovery from burnout is definitely affected by how long it has been going on and how the individual recognises they have it and how actively they want to overcome it. For some it may be 10-12 weeks, however for others it can take years.”

10 steps to dealing with burnout

Davidson says there are ways you can aid your own recovery, whether that ultimately means leaving a job – or not. Here are some of those steps:

1. Acknowledge that it exists
2. Track stress levels (use an app, journal)
3. Identify the stressors and step away from these situations
4. Seek professional help. This is a strength not a weakness
5. Create a work life balance that includes time to have fun and rest
6. Change jobs if it is really badly affecting your mental health
7. Be kinder to yourself and keep a gratitude journal
8. Own it and believe that you can change it
9. Create a healthy sleep schedule and diet
10. Set boundaries.

While these are ways as individuals that we can ameliorate our conditions, remember that setting personal boundaries may not change the demands of your job wholesale.

This requires a company-wide push, or if you’ve got enough seniority in your role, a persistence in demands to change the wider work culture. Work should be a complementary part of our lives, not the thing that makes it unliveable.

*Names have been changed and surnames omitted to offer anonymity.

Life-Work Balance questions the status quo of work culture, its mental and physical impacts, and radically reimagines how we can change it to work for us.

HuffPost UK/ Isabella Carapella

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How Soon Is Too Soon To Quit A New Job?

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The urge to quit a relatively new job can be an uncomfortable feeling, but it is not uncommon. According to a 2018 survey from the recruiting service Jobvite, 30% of new employees leave their jobs within the first 90 days of getting hired.

The top three reasons quitters gave were that the role did not meet expectations from the job interview process (43%), a one-time incident that made them want to leave (34%), and bad company culture (32%).

During the Great Resignation, more of us may be saying our farewells sooner. “Talent has a little bit more of an upper hand,” and old-school rules of sticking it out at a hard job may no longer apply in certain cases, said Mary Abbajay, president of the leadership development consultancy Careerstone Group and author of “Managing Up: How to Move Up, Win at Work, and Succeed with Any Type of Boss.”

But before you give notice and join the league of early quitters, consider why you want to leave so soon after starting. Sometimes it can take a few months to feel comfortable in a new role and with new colleagues. And if you’re at the beginning of your career, it’s helpful to know that first-job blues are typical.

“You want to make sure you are not leaving just because you don’t like working, as you are getting used to the difference to being in school and being at work,” Abbajay said. If it is indeed the first-job blues, she recommends sticking it out for a year to gain experience you can talk about in future interviews.

But you should also trust your gut if something feels off.

“We have to dispel this myth that we have to sit in agony if it’s not working out,” said career coach Jasmine Escalera, who does not subscribe to the “stick it out” mentality.

Here are three scenarios in which it is definitely not too soon to quit a job:

1. You find yourself in a toxic job.

Nothing drives people out quicker than a toxic work environment. According to a FlexJobs survey from February and March of more than 2,000 U.S. employees, “toxic company culture” was the top reason people cited who felt they had to quit their jobs in the past six months.

This is for good reason. A difficult boss like a micromanager can be annoying to deal with, but they can be managed. A toxic boss, on the other hand, will corrode your soul and is an active threat to your health.

Abbajay noted that a difficult boss “may be impulsive, they may be poor communicators. Their style of working just isn’t aligned with your style of working. A toxic boss is a boss that is dehumanizing, a boss that is abusive, a boss that is screamer, a shouter… [With] a toxic boss, you are going to start to feel less than, you are going to be consumed with the stress of dealing with this person.”

If you feel stuck with toxic bosses and colleagues, don’t linger. “Once you recognize the toxicity, or the organization’s toxicity, you should think about getting out,” Abbajay said.

Escalera agreed with this assessment. Having escaped a toxic work environment in the past, she finds that toxic work cultures cause trauma and make it impossible for you to be confident and capable in your professional life.

“The longer you are there, the deeper those cuts are going to be, and the harder it is going to be to leave, because you start to change the perspective of how you think about yourself,” she said.

2. The job is a radical mismatch with what you were promised in interviews.

You shouldn’t wait too long for circumstances to improve if the job you were sold by recruiters and hiring managers is radically different in reality. This likely means there’ll be no learning opportunities ahead, no internal mobility and no alignment with your planned career future.

If you believe a mismatch in roles is fixable, talk to your manager and colleagues about what you feel you deserve and what you need to see change, Escalera advised. But don’t put undue pressure on yourself to stay in a job that isn’t suitable.

Escalera said she experienced a mismatch when a leadership and mentorship role she interviewed for at a hospital turned out to be different than what was discussed. She tried to talk with her supervisor to get her responsibilities more aligned with the expectations she had from the interview process but was basically told, “‘This is what it is,’” she said.

She left the job within five months and has no regrets: “If I could’ve left in five days, I would have.”

3. You get a better offer that aligns with your goals.

If you get a dream job offer soon after you start a new job, you should reflect on whether the new opportunity is the better choice for your future career success, regardless of how short your current tenure is, Escalera said.

If the new opportunity is “going to get you to that end goal quicker and faster, you have to do what’s in best service to you,” she said.

Abbajay warned, however, that too many one-year-and-under stints on your resume can be a bad look to prospective employers. Your next potential employer may think, “Why should I invest in you if you’re not going to invest in me?” she said.

Still, there’s a way to positively spin this in job interviews. When Escalera was asked in interviews about her short stint in the mismatched hospital job, she was candid about how the role was different than promised and didn’t align with where she wanted to go. Her advice to job seekers is to be transparent about past mismatches, while also being clear that as a result of the experience, you now know that this new opportunity is the best role for you, she said.

“You have to be internally very strong and internally have a purpose to move your career in the direction that you want.”

– Jasmine Escalera, career coach

If you are wrestling with guilt about bailing on a relatively new job for something better, that’s normal. Escalera said she has experienced this guilt as a Latina who grew up in public housing and whose parents wanted safety and stability for her career.

“It puts a ceiling on what you believe is possible for you when you come from backgrounds like that. It makes you feel like, ‘If I got this, then I should just settle in it, and I should just keep it… because this is better than where I came from, this is better than even what my parents have at the age of 60 years old, and I am 40,’” she said. “You have to be internally very strong and internally have a purpose to move your career in the direction that you want, and you have to make decisions coming from that purpose, but that is really hard when there are really a lot of external voices.”

In the end, you are in the driver’s seat of your career — not your new boss, or your new company, or your family. If you have a gut feeling that a job is not going to be good for your well-being or future, you should listen to that feeling, regardless of whether the warning comes in the first few months of the job.

Often, there are times “when you knew something wasn’t right, and instead of connecting with that feeling, you tried to push that feeling down,” Escalera said, noting that’s a mode of thinking she has moved away from. “What I try to do now is entertain the feeling.”

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Never End A Job Interview Without Doing These 3 Things

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During a job interview, your nerves and adrenaline may be at an all-time high. That’s why it helps to be prepared.

Ideally, the actual experiences and skills that you share will help you stand out. But how you end the interview can leave a really critical last impression.

“If a candidate does a bad interview, nothing they can do at the end is going to save them,” said Daniel Space, a senior human resources business partner for large tech companies.

“I have seen a good interview get docked a little bit because of how badly the end went. … I have seen ‘medium’ interviews go really, really well if a candidate can make a last attempt [to stand out at the end].”

As the clock winds down to the end of your interview, there are key opportunities you can take to help solidify your position as a top finalist. Here’s what you need to remember to do:

1. DO come prepared with targeted questions that show you have done your research. But DON’T invite criticism.

After the hiring manager or panel asks you questions, there is usually a time toward the end of an interview where they will ask, “What questions do you have for me?”

Don’t say you have no questions and call it a day.

“I’ve had executive-level candidates sometimes, who at the end of the interview … they only ask one question,” said Laura Hunting, CEO of Found By Inc., a talent agency and executive search firm specializing in design. “That’s not a good sign. It signals a lack of interest, a lack of strategic ability, a lack of experience. So I think really coming prepared to interview with follow-up questions is important and can make or break the experience.”

The best questions to ask are those that come up after you do some reflection on what you want out of your next job and what you have heard from interviewers about the role.

Hunting recommends first getting crystal-clear about what core qualities you are looking for in your next job so that you leave an interview getting the information that you need to make a decision.

If you are job-hunting to escape uncommunicative, unhelpful bosses, for example, try asking questions about things that can be deal-breakers for you, such as, “How do you measure success? How will you know whether you hired the right person three months from now? What are the most successful team members doing differently from the average team member?”

If you are seeking more hands-on management, ask, “What does your onboarding process look like?”

“You learn right away whether you are going to be thrown to the wolves,” Watkins said.

If you want to make sure all the bases were covered in your interview, Hunting said you can ask, “Is there anything else that I can answer for you that would help you understand more about me and my skills and experience?”

“That really helps interviewers have one last chance to get a sign on anything that’s missing,” Watkins explained.

“Anytime that you can create as smooth an interview experience as possible … it makes that person on the other end feel that much better about how you can contribute.”

– Laura Hunting, CEO of a talent agency and executive search firm

Keep in mind that there are questions that can do more harm than good. Space warned against asking a question like “Do you have any reservations about me?” because he has seen firsthand how this question can backfire.

“What you are doing is asking this person to think about you in a negative light,” Space said. “And I’ve met so many managers who just feel incredibly awkward after being asked that. You are just going to get a boring basic answer: ‘I think you’ve answered all of my questions at this time.’ Is that really the impression you want to leave?”

2. DO thank people by name and make eye contact.

Thanking people for their time as you end the interview is one basic yet important way to show your professionalism. But if you want to go one step further, make a point to thank them by name.

“Most of the times when we are interviewing, we are so nervous, we are like ‘OK great, thanks,’” Space said, noting that for others, “There is a magic to hearing your name.”

Doing this can be as simple as saying the interviewer’s name and thanking them by title with language like, “‘As a VP of HR, I know you are really busy and I wanted to let you know I appreciate our conversation and I look forward to next steps,’” Space shared as an example. “Making sure you are leaving off with the best possible impression will do a lot of good for you when [interviewers] then go on to the debriefing.”

Hunting said candidates can forget the power of body language, such as eye contact, while thanking an interviewer and giving facial cues to show they are being an active listener. But she noted that these basic actions make job interviews, particularly remote video interviews, feel more organic and natural.

“For better or for worse, how people feel in an interview, it’s a bias,” Hunting said. “It’s going to skew them one way or the other. Anytime that you can create as smooth an interview experience as possible … it makes that person on the other end feel that much better about how you can contribute.”

3. DO clarify if a thank-you note is expected. And if yes, DO follow up with a personalized one to keep the conversation going.

Thanking people in a follow-up note can be helpful on a case-by-case basis. At some companies, interviewers may find it totally unnecessary for you to follow up, while at others, they may expect you to do so.

“There are so many managers that indicate they are a little bit uncomfortable with a thank-you note because they know they are getting a copy-and-pasted template that someone just looked for online, and they don’t know how to respond to it,” said Space, who finds a thank-you note to be an unnecessary administrative burden for job candidates.

When in doubt, Hunting recommends determining what the expectations may be regarding thank-you notes.

Watkins said if you are going to follow up by thanking those you spoke with, don’t just reply all; send individual messages. “If there are five people interviewing you, there are five opportunities to share something interesting, impactful after your interview,” Watkins said.

Make a point to ensure your message isn’t generic. Often, people write something like, “‘I really enjoyed talking to you about X/Y/Z position. If you have any questions about X position, let me know.’ Well, yeah, that’s obvious,” Watkins said. “What I would like to see people do is use that as an opportunity to sell themselves. You are your best marketer, regardless [of] what it is that you do.”

Watkins suggested that if you take notes during your interview, note key points each person has mentioned so you can personalize your thank-you messages.

“If you can tie that to a success that you have had … at some point in your career, the thank-you note is a great way to bring that up,” Watkins said.

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How To Cope When You’re The Only One Wearing A Mask At Work

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Under the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, more than half of the U.S. population lives in an area now considered to be low or medium risk for COVID, and residents there can go indoors without a mask. Many states have also loosened mask mandates, and a lot of workplaces no longer require employees to wear masks as a result.

If you’re still most comfortable with a mask on indoors in an office setting, you may suddenly find yourself to be in the minority. And when you are one of the only people with a face mask during meetings, it can feel socially awkward.

That’s why it can help to remember why masks are effective and to have a strategy in place if a colleague does inquire about your mask. Epidemiologists and other COVID experts weighed in on one-way masking benefits, and offered conversation strategies for mask-wearers:

1. Keep in mind that masks still work and we’re still in a pandemic.

If none of your co-workers are wearing masks, you may wonder if there’s a point to you wearing one. But well-constructed, tightly-fitting masks do offer protection, even when others are not wearing them, too.

“They do work. Somebody who is wearing a respirator in an office setting is going to get a fair degree of protection from doing that,” said Dr. Mark Rupp, chief of the Infectious Diseases Division at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

“Any mask is better than no mask,” said Jose-Luis Jimenez, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and an aerosols scientist. “To make up for the fact that other people are not masking, you should wear a high-quality mask.”

Jimenez described high-quality masks as ones that are breathable, with a good filter that prevents most aerosols from being inhaled, and with a secure fit that has no gaps on your face, such as an N95 mask.

“Have the strength of your convictions and realize you may be the smartest person in the room”

– Dr. Mark Rupp, chief of the Infectious Diseases Division at the University of Nebraska Medical Center

And keep in mind the public health stakes. “What you are doing is minimizing the chance that you inhale a respiratory disease. That’s the big reason to stay masked,” said Charlotte Baker, an epidemiologist in public health at Virginia Tech. Although cases are declining in the U.S., there is still plenty of COVID out there. Around 1,800 deaths continue to be announced most days.

“There is no need to feel embarrassed or apologetic for wearing a mask,” Rupp said. “In most communities in the United States today the level of transmission continues to be substantial. … It’s headed in the right direction, but there is still a lot of COVID that is being transmitted in our communities.”

2. Understand that wearing a mask for your job doesn’t have to be ‘always’ or ‘never.’

Rupp said masking should not be seen as a choice between never wearing your mask at work or always having to wear a mask at work. You should be open to changing your mind depending on individual circumstances.

“You may feel safe and not wear a mask going into a setting where there is a lot of room and few people and a short duration of time,” Rupp said. “Whereas you might feel very uncomfortable making that same decision in a smaller, crowded setting that you are going to have to be present for an hour.”

Rupp cited your community’s virus transmission rates, your building’s indoor ventilation, your colleagues’ vaccination status, and your own health risks as factors to consider before taking off your mask. Here’s the CDC tracker for checking out your county’s transmission rates.

Be open to putting a mask back on as we learn more about the latest COVID developments, too. “Six weeks from now, or three months from now as a new variant starts to be described, they may decide, ‘You know it’s time for me to put the mask back on,’” Rupp said.

3. Remember that social awkwardness around masks is real, but it helps to remember your original reason for wearing one.

“Social pressure is very real. We can be talked out of anything if enough people dissent to our point of view,” said clinical psychologist Ramani Durvasula.

She cited social psychologist Solomon Asch’s research on conformity, which found people were more likely to give a wrong answer when they heard other people give that wrong answer out of a motivation to avoid conflict.

Your decision to wear a mask is none of your colleague’s business. You don’t owe anyone an explanation of why you are masking indoors, but if sharing one helps you feel less awkward, keep it brief, Durvasula advised.

“Make it about yourself and don’t turn it into a polemic on public health and responsibility,“ she suggested. “If a person chooses to wear a mask that is their right, but it can turn difficult if the mask-wearer frames it as virtue.”

Whether you are doing so to protect the health of others or for your own personal risk tolerance, Durvasula advised not engaging too much about it in the workplace: “Don’t take the bait.”

Baker said if it makes you feel more comfortable, it’s alright to deflect to another topic if it comes up or “just be stern one time, and say, ‘Look I’m going to wear it, I don’t want to hear anything else about it. It has nothing to do with you.’”

Pep talks can also help when you feel peer pressure, too. Baker shared what she tells herself when she finds herself to be one of the only maskers in social settings.

“I’m immunocompromised, so I tell myself I don’t want to die,” she said. “Two is: ‘I’m doing this for my family.’ I want to see my nieces, I want to see my nephews. I want them to grow up in a healthy world. If I wear my mask, I get to go see them. And I’m also setting a good example. And third is: ‘My mom is senior … and I need to keep myself healthy so I don’t get her sick.’”

Baker noted that for people who have become numb to pandemic risks, external motivations like a vacation or a concert you want to be healthy to go to can also help. “Whatever that motivator needs to be for you, figure out what it is. Write it down, so you see it,” she said.

Once you know your why, remind yourself of it when you want to waver from your original decision to wear a mask. And if you need an affirmation, take it from Rupp.

“Have the strength of your convictions and realize you may be the smartest person in the room,” he said.

Experts are still learning about COVID-19. The information in this story is what was known or available as of publication, but guidance can change as scientists discover more about the virus. Please check the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the most updated recommendations.

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