<p>Chocoholic, I'm sure she was very impressive, and that's to her credit - the manager sounds like a horrible sort who should ever be in charge of people, ever. Actually, if that's how manager A handles people, she's going to get her employer into a lawsuit sooner or later. No one could have gotten anywhere with this manager - she sounds hopelessly uncouth and unprofessional and I'm very glad your daughter will not be working with her.</p>
<p>But there are always learning opportunities - one, if someone promises a job description (or any other formal document that they may not have a boiler plate at the ready), I'd recommend saying something like "may I save you some steps and prepare a draft and send it to you for approval"... etc. Instead of waiting for some document to arrive, see about helping to make it happen. The point is that the candidate/applicant can always choose to be a contributor and participant in the process, and that message is as appropriate for mid-career professionals as it is for young men and women in college and just beginning their entry into the workforce.</p>
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But there are always learning opportunities - one, if someone promises a job description (or any other formal document that they may not have a boiler plate at the ready), I'd recommend saying something like "may I save you some steps and prepare a draft and send it to you for approval"... etc.
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<p>LTS, you provide a lot of interesting ideas. Everything is food for thought. </p>
<p>I don't personally like the idea of saying "may I save you some steps etc." Perhaps in certain types of work environments that would work, but this is actually a small branch of a VERY high profile company. In fact I am shocked by the total lack of professional behavior from this person. I am calling her a manager, but really, she has a title that if mentioned here would give too much away.</p>
<p>My D has practically drafted a job description for herself, and sent it to the woman. She did it in quite a unique way, that I would not have thought of.</p>
<p>C, you can use any language you like; I wasn't writing a script. You can say "with your permission may i" or "may I make a suggestion" or "I have a draft available - would it be of help if I send it to you" or whatever works. The point is to get proactively involved, in a very positive, solution oriented manner, and in a way that considers the other person's needs and time constraints, and that shares the workload, and in a way that gets the business moving forward. I'm not shocked by the woman's behavior - I see it all the time and mostly in high profile companies - it seems that smaller companies and microbusinesses have to work much, much harder to compete with larger, more established enterprises and so the people are far more attentive to communications, internal and external. If someone who worked for me did that they would be fired on the spot. Actually, I'd fire them for taking seven weeks to execute the process of hiring an intern - we don't have seven weeks to play around with and it is not permissible to play games with other people's time. </p>
<p>As I said I think your daughter did an excellent job and while it's unfortunate she encountered this obnoxious manager, it's good for her to know there are people out there who behave this way - a few too many of them, actually, and, it's helpful to have some experience in dealing with them - better now than running into her first one a few years out when there's a mortgage to pay, etc.</p>
<p>I agree. Every experience adds to your knowledge base, and should be a lesson, good or bad. My D read out the email this person sent her, and it started out with the words " I told you..." !!!!!! No Dear Student or any salutation as I had originally posted!!! and ended with the words "Thank you for your interest" but not her own name at the end.</p>
<p>I only wish that the HR department and even the VP of the company could see this email.</p>
<p>Chocoholic: It's a rare occasion that I find myself disagreeing with LTS but that's where I find myself.</p>
<p>My advice to you and your D in a nutshell (a la Berurah): Forget about that manager and also about that company!!!<em>&%</em>. It's a waste of your time(s) to write any letters to anyone. No-one at a company is going to take any action based on a communication from a college student or from the parent of one (unless you have some clout with the company for some other reason).</p>
<p>Your D has lots of time ahead to get a position that is more in line with her interests (which probably will change from time to time anyway). Meanwhile, let her work for the summer in a pretty fine place,make some good money, and learn what she can from that. Whatever she learns is likely to be useful at some point in her life.</p>
<p>As for that manager, there's a fair chance that her behavior is already known to folks in the company (and if not, something else she does that's more important than hiring an intern will bring it to someone's attention). She either will be able to get away with that type of behavior because she compensates for it in other ways that are valuable to the company, or she'll be in a position where she'll either have to change her ways or get nowehere there. True, you and your D won't have the satisfaction of seeing that happen, so you ought to plan on finding satisfaction elsewhere.</p>
<p>If your D might ever want to work for this company at some time in the future, OR if she might ever find herself wanting to work with some of the same executives from this company who migrate over to another company (not the offending manager of course ;) ), I suggest you carefully consider DadofSam's advice.</p>
<p>The satisfaction which might come from outing the behavior of this manager will not be worth it in terms of any bridges it might burn to make an issue of this.</p>
<p>Oh, don't worry, I was never going to do what was suggested. I fully believe in never burning bridges......you never knows who you will encounter again.</p>
<p>On May 1st itself, D wrote a very nice letter to the manager, explaining (for the 3rd time) how her resume got sent to the HR dept., and that the facts could be verified very easily, that she was sorry that it was seen differently, and she is just a college student looking for a meaningful internship.</p>
<p>The manager replied, saying that she was still working on finalizing the internship !!!!!!!! like nothing ever happened!!!! </p>
<p>Can you say BIPOLAR.</p>
<p>And D said, "Thank you so much, but I have accepted another offer." <em>maybe in another life</em> </p>
<p>Unfortunately internship offers often come in when they come in. I recall S juggling a couple offers, trying to put one off waiting for the one he really wanted. You often don't have control over timing (at least at NYC financial firms).</p>
<p>Manager A sounds like a horse's ***, please forgive me if I say this though... I think sending an email, then sending another one the very next day, plus a phone call, could be construed as a bit much (no matter how nicely or how professionally they may be tendered) . I know how busy I get in my work, where I truly can't talk to anyone. And if they're persistent it's worse unless it's a real emergency. Unfortunately to manager A, the timing of your D's offers wasn't a top priority.</p>
<p>I think your D handled May 1 well. It's all a learning experience as we know and I do feel for her. Personally I wouldn't bother with any further communication with Manager A or that company.</p>
<p>chocoholic.....wow, that is pretty incredible that this person wrote back that she was finalizing the internship after telling your daughter bluntly in another letter, "thanks, but no thanks." I mean it is like she is two different people! As much as your D was interested in the position, I would question how enjoyable her time there might have been given how things have been handled. It is all a learning experience but she was treated rather crappily, in my opinion.</p>
<p>I didn't read every post here, but I agree with sax. She definitely dodged a bullet there. I'd say . . . run, don't walk, to the nearest next internship, or--even better-- the "highly lucrative" job offer. Whew. She's lucky she avoided that place and whatever their problems are.</p>
<p>I have a different take on this situation. </p>
<p>Manager A's response may have been a bit techy, but that's the downside of e-mail. People get annoyed; they fire something off. In writing it always sounds a lot harsher than it would in person. I must get a few dozen like that every day. Over the years they've ceased to rile me. Bad manners yes; unusual, no. Like Manager A, they usually cool off, and carry on with business as usual. Sometimes you get an apology, sometimes just the fact that they don't refer to their bad behavior is an implied apology. </p>
<p>Second, the relationship between managers and the HR department in most of the coroporations that I've been involved in is adversarial at best. Managers need staff and they view HR as a foot-dragging beauracracy that just impedes hiring. HR views managers as high paid manipulators who try to game the system and refuse to follow the rules. It's a classic power struggle.</p>
<p>The OPs daughter obviously had some savvy advice in that she originally wrote the the managers not HR. Now, she has inadvertently ended up in the middle of a tiff between two managers and HR. It happens all the time. One candidate two positions. The managers have to duke it out with HR as the referee. Of course, it's all couched in polite corporate speak so you have to look for clues, but people do get annoyed and politics do come into play.</p>
<p>So, I wouldn't write off this organization or this manager so fast, especially if it's a high stress field. Learning the politics of the corporation is the number one step in learning the job.</p>
<p>Since she's apparently already accepted another position, I wouldn't drag this on any longer, but I wouldn't burn any bridges with any on at this corporation. Write, say she's sorry things didn't work out, keep in touch for the future.</p>
<p>Dadofsam, you're right of course. I couldn't stop thinking about being the head of that company, and having a line manager write an email like that, and how it would reflect on the entire organization - I'd want to know about it ASAP if it were my company - because the person with be unemployed in sub-second speed. Larger companies have larger issues to consider though so...</p>
<p>Momrath....while I agree that some of this might be issues with the innerworkings of this organization...I still think Manager A did not act professionally in tone to this college student. She was harsh in chastising her using words like "poor reflection on you" and assumed that the girl had gone behind her back. Once the student wrote back to explain the misunderstanding that she had not gone behind her back to contact HR but that she was told by the other manager that her resume was already at HR, then Manager A could have been a little apologetic and saying she misunderstood or something. But her tone was simply NOT nice and in fact, she was mistaken in this instance to boot.</p>
<p>But THEN the icing on the cake is that she wrote: "we will not be needing you anymore." and NOW she is writing that she is still working out the internship.....Huh? I mean it is like she is not even recognizing that she told the student "see ya later" already. It may not be Manager A's fault that the hiring process is a bit mixed up or not going so smoothly but her manner in dealing with this student lacked professionalism. I don't think she treated the student well in tone at all and now to come back and say she is finalizing the internship when she already said she wouldn't need her, and without even saying, sorry....I was mistaken here and we are still considering you or something, is just not nice. I would not want to work with her. She was way too condescending, and particularly to a young person starting out in the field.</p>
<p>lateforschool, it's been my observation that if people are valuable to a company, rainmakers for example, they can get away with a lot more than treating an intern that way. I also agree, i've never seen a company where HR is not considered a nuisance. They do seem to like top HR consultants who do top executive golden handshakes however:)</p>
<p>Suze, you are a recent HS graduate, right? I'm impressed that you have seen so much about how companies and HR departments operate. Have you done a lot of internships already? You seem experienced and wise beyond your years. Have you had to deal with HR and have you had anything like this happen in your internships? I'm curious being that you are a young person, what your experience has been, given what you wrote above which implies you have observed this sort of thing before. I'd like to hear if this was rampant or not or what it has been like for you so far with internships.</p>
<p>You're all too quick to demonize manager A. I'm sure she isn't as bad as you all try to make her out to be.</p>
<p>This reminds me of an email I addressed to Mr. Blankity Blank for an internship. I got a reply back saying that I should have addressed him as Dr. Blankity Blank. When you're asking for an internship, you just have just try to appease the person. You really can't do much about it if something like this happens. I would not send a letter explaining the mix up because the manager isn't going to change her decision.</p>
<p>I have worked for 2 large investment banking firms in NYC with stints in Hong Kong and London, for a food manufacturer, for an organization that deploys tutors to China and for a college consultung firm based in Asia. Yup, I'm too young to have worked so much:)</p>
<p>For the job I had for the majority of my gap year they usually don't hire kids with no college. When my boss sent my paperwork through HR which has to be done for everyone, he attached a note that said he knew I hadn't attended college and asked that they please not call him about it and get the paperwork done. For the job before that, one of the MDs screamed at the head of HR in the hall because they delayed things for a hire and lost him.</p>
<p>Suze, you have done all of that between HS graduation and before entering college? These were internships? Good for you, if so. I wasn't even aware that investment banking firms took interns before they were in college, though I know college students doing such summer internships. You have done a lot of jobs between HS and college! Did you just send off your resume to these places or were these internships which you had heard about? It is interesting to learn how this process has developed with other students. I have a daughter in college who has an internship for this summer and so I like hearing what others have done and how the process of securing those jobs came about. Are you in Asia or NY now in an internship?</p>