For those of you who have negotiated (or renegotiated) job perks and more, how do you think things have changed in the past few years? If you’re on the hiring side, what requests seem to be more common these days? (For the hiring peeps: Are there any common requests that always strike you as ridiculous?)

In the past we’ve talked about

• Negotiating a great salary and other benefits (as well as some other less common benefits, like a tech budget — it may also be helpful to know what vacation benefits others get).
• Negotiating flexible work arrangements, like reduced work hours and/or selling a reluctant boss on remote work (that last link was written a few years ago, though, so I’m guessing it’s much easier than it was!).
• How to save $10K a year by using job benefits (and which ones to look at when you’re negotiating).
• Whether you can negotiate future maternity leave (before you’re pregnant)

What other types of things are negotiating right now? Readers are having an interesting threadjack this morning about negotiating travel requirements (particularly in light of Dobbs); you may also be negotiating how much face time is required in the office, if at all.

Let’s hear from you guys — how do you think job negotiations have changed recently?

Stock photo via Stencil.

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I’m working on a monster post about what to wear to your office holiday party, and in the meantime found all these great articles about office holiday party etiquette, which we haven’t discussed in forever — so I thought we should discuss today, as a bit of a precursor to the “what to wear to your office holiday party” post. (Although of course feel free to share what you plan to wear to your party this year!)

{related: all our advice on holiday business etiquette}

The Rules for Office Holiday Party Etiquette

For my $.02, it comes down to some simple rules:

If it’s your first holiday party, don’t assume — talk to others so you know what to expect, because there can be a huge variation in office holiday parties. Some offices have a midday Santa hat+suit kind of luncheon; others have a Friday night affair at a hotel ballroom. (One of my old offices did the hotel ballroom for the low key affair, and another black tie ball in January just for attorneys.) 

If you can’t ask anyone, look for clues — if it’s a Friday night after work, odds are good that people are going to be still wearing their office clothes (with one small tweak like a party blazer or statement necklace).  If it starts at 5, it may be over by 7. Another way to gauge the formality: where the event is held. If it’s chosen for locality (the closest hotel ballroom, the closest restaurant, etc), odds are it’s going to be more low key than an event a bit further from the office.

Do not get tipsy, let alone drunk. Save it for the office after party or when you’re at an event that isn’t affiliated with work. (Many moons ago, we also talked about what your drink says about you at the office cocktail party.)

Make it about the people, not the food or drink. That’s a good hallmark of any party attendee, but it goes doubly here.

Talk to everyone. Fight the urge to huddle in the corner with your friends, or only try to network with the VIPs. It’s a great time to smile and laugh with your subordinates, as well as support staff. A corrollary:

Don’t just talk about work. If your boss comes over and needs to discuss a project, that’s one thing — but assume that people want to talk about anything but that. Politics and religion are still dicey topics, of course, but there are a ton of other party-appropriate conversation topics.

If the next day is a work day, it’s business as usual. 

Some General Tips on What to Wear to Your Office Holiday Party

Some Of Our Latest Favorite Statement Necklaces

Some Of Our Latest Favorite Work-Appropriate Holiday Tops

Note that regardless of how it’s shown on the model, you should a) not wear a sheer top to an office party, and you probably should not wear a crop top or anything that exposes your belly. Depending on the office environment you may want to keep a cardigan, shawl, or shrug with you if your top exposes a lot of your arms, such as with a halter top.

Some Of Our Latest Favorite Office Holiday Party Shoes

As of Nov. 2023, these are some of our latest favorite party shoes — also consider using shoe clips on some of your regular shoes if you’re on a budget! These under $50 ones are best sellers at Amazon…

Some Of Our Latest Favorite Festive Blazers

Hunting for festive blazers for 2023? Stay tuned for a bigger roundup, but on the affordable side we like J.Crew Factory and Loft — and this Eliza J one is almost always in stock. On the more expensive side, check Reiss, Paige, and L’Agence.

Some Of Our Latest Favorite Polished Party Pants

Stay tuned for our favorite party pants to wear to holiday office parties in 2023!

Office Holiday Party Etiquette, Further Reading:

• Holiday Parties and You: All the Basics You Need to Know [Above the Law; guestpost by me!]
• 23 Rules of the Office Holiday Party [WSJ] (amusing!)
• Office Holiday Party Etiquette [Boston Globe]
• Career Advice for your Office Holiday Party [HuffPo]
• Office Holiday Party Etiquette [Monster.com]
• 14 Survival Tips for the Office Holiday Party [Business Insider]

Ladies, what are your best etiquette tips for the office holiday party? Care to share any fun stories about misunderstandings of office holiday party etiquette? 

Pictured.

The post Office Holiday Party Etiquette appeared first on Corporette.com.

Here’s kind of an amorphous topic for today: When you look back over your life, what are the big periods or phases you’ve experienced? I read an article a while ago (I’m SO annoyed I can’t find it) that theorized that most people enter a new phase of life every 7 years. (Or maybe that there were 12 total phases that everyone entered in life? Hmn.) We discussed it in the parenting context last week at CorporetteMoms — I’m doing a lot of thinking about “how to reinvent myself as a mom” as we head into the golden years of parenting when the kids still like us but don’t need 100% supervision on nights and weekends — but this idea of phases/cycles is so true in general with life.

For my own $.02, my big phases of life have been:

• (all the K-12 phases)
• College and law school – focused on school, learning, big philosophical questions about “who I’ll be,” lots of very, very, very close friendships
• Post-college, pre-grad school — Baby phase since I was only out for about two years between undergrad/grad, but one that made an impact! Lots of “whoa” moments with adulting-type things, money, cooking, etc.
• Post-law school and early marriage (I’d say 25-34 or so!) — focused on my career and dating, a few close friendships, figuring out lifestyle questions like fitting exercise into life
• Early parenting – This phase was absolutely dominated by the kids and babies and being pregnant — but friendships changed so much around this time too because many of my friends were having kids and becoming less available for non-family things. I’ve always been close with my family, but in general I saw a huge resurgence of family in my friends’ lives around this time period. Because the kids needed so much supervision and energy, there really wasn’t a lot of time for hobbies beyond sleep/exercise/cooking.
• (Now we’re entering a new phase when the kids are Little People — some of the mom friends I made are falling away and I’m trying to reinvigorate older friendships — thinking about what hobbies I want for myself, how I want to define myself now.)
• (I can see how things will change hugely when we get to the Empty Nester phase, but my husband and I are still young(ish). I’m dreading the elder care issues that will probably be in full swing around this period, but maybe earlier.)
• (Retirement — maybe grandparenthood)
• (Declining health)

It’s not a strict “7 years,” but you can see how there are definitely huge periods when you’re on one path before a new path starts to come into view (or an old path disappears entirely).

In any event, I thought this would be an interesting topic to discuss, both because a) everyone’s life phases are going to be a bit different (particularly if you don’t have kids, or if grad school/new career came at a different place in your life, or if divorce/remarriage is part of your path) and b) we’re all at different points along the path.

What life phases can you see if you look at your life? For those of you who’ve been through many phases and now have the benefit of hindsight, what do you wish you’d learned in each phase of life?

(Aside, of course, from the usual lessons one learns through life, like the importance of flossing and wearing sunscreen and not putting up with people who treat you less than you deserve.)

Stock photo via Stencil.

The post Which Major Phases of Life Have You Been Through — and What Have You Learned? appeared first on Corporette.com.

Everyone who takes a new job finds there are unwritten rules in the office or workplace — let’s discuss them today!

I recently heard the phrase “invisible furniture” used to describe the unwritten rules in your office or workplace, in that you may be “bumping into a lot of it in your first few months on your job.”

It’s a great phrase, and it’s so true — every workplace definitely has its own unwritten rules! What are the unwritten rules in YOUR office — and in what ways do you see people bump into those rules when they’re new?

To back up a bit: There was a great Twitter thread recently with advice for new appointees in the Biden administration from Dr. Tamara Cofman Wittes, current senior fellow for the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings and the founder of The Leadership Council for Women in National Security. Her thread included some great advice, such as:

• Take your ethics undertakings seriously.
• “Your job is to help your team succeed. That means help your boss, help your peers, and help your employees. If they rise, you rise. If they fail, you have failed. So start by figuring out who they are, what they need, and what you can offer.”
• If you’re dealing with someone who is a bit “world-weary in the face of your enthusiasm… connect them to your mission & help them see how their work matters to policy & real-world outcomes.”

Such great advice! I was particularly interested in this tweet, where she noted:

Every workplace has unwritten rules, too: what I call “invisible furniture.” You will be bumping into a lot of it in your first months on the job. Make a point of learning it, & remember that it’s never dumb to admit what you don’t know—it’s the quickest way to learn.

So let’s discuss — what are some of the unwritten rules in the office that you’ve learned in your workplace?

For my $.02, some of these unwritten rules in my previous offices come to mind:

• access to colleagues and bosses — Several of my previous workplaces (especially in the magazine world, but the legal world also) have had a lot of unwritten rules around access to bosses. It was often considered an honor even to be CC:ed on an email involving the Big Boss, and certainly to be invited to a meeting, and there were a lot of unwritten rules about how to conduct yourself when you were invited.

• support staff priorities — In my law firm (where generally four lawyers shared one administrative assistant), there were absolutely unwritten rules about what order the assistant was expected to do things in. There were also unwritten etiquette rules around what work should be given to your administrative assistant versus work that should/could be given to another department (such as Steno).

• face time — This is a huge one that varies widely from office to office. At my law firm, they didn’t care if you showed up at noon and worked until midnight; as long as you had checked your email and voice mail in the morning, there was generally no requirement that you be in the office. Another boss took it as a grave sign of disrespect if I came in at 9:10.

• Similarly, lunch — one of my old offices had a culture of everyone eating lunch at around the same time, at the same conference table.
  
• the closed office door — Every office I’ve been in had unwritten rules about when your office door was allowed to be closed, or when you were allowed to or expected to or pushing it to take a conference room to work in by yourself.

Readers, how about you — what are the unwritten rules in your office? What did you learn the hard way, and in what way do you think new hires “bump into” that invisible furniture?

Stock photo (empty conference room) via Stencil.

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Here’s a fun question for today: What are your best tips for someone on what to wear on your first day at work? Do you play it very safe with your interview outfit? If it’s a business casual environment and a suit isn’t appropriate, what do you wear for your first-day outfit?

We’ve talked about how to make your first day on the job a GREAT one, as well as what to wear on your first day at a very casual law office, but it’s been a while — I can’t wait to hear what the readers say!

Here are some factors that I would consider when picking out what to wear on your first day at work:

Professionalism: I always tell people that it’s OK to wear your interview clothes to your first day — so if you interviewed in a suit, you should probably wear a suit on your first day. (It’s OK if it’s the same suit you interviewed in; odds are low your interviewer(s) will remember exactly what your suit looked like.)

This may be a pantsuit instead of a skirt suit, of course (and for my own $.02 would probably be my choice, for comfort reasons as laid out below), but may also be a sleeved sheath dress or something along those lines. (And to echo what commenters are saying: yes, absolutely expect to take your blazer off if you’re wearing a suit on your first day!)

Comfort: Of course, you always want to be comfortable, but I’m thinking of some particular situations where I might choose a more comfortable option over something else. For example, you may find yourself having to run around from one department to another, either for introductions or training — so wear comfortable shoes.

These are some of our favorite comfortable low heels for work as of 2023… also check out CK Calvin Klein, Trotters, Sam Edelman, and Sarah Flynt!

Furthermore, on the shoe point: During a normal workday there are often options to quickly kick off your heels under a desk or change to commuting shoes to run and grab lunch, whereas on your first day those options may not present themselves and you may be in your shoes for nine or ten hours straight.

If you’re wearing a skirt, I’d urge you to do the Mirror Test because on your first day you may often be sitting in someone’s visitor chair, across the desk from them, or (if you’re starting with several new workers at once, as in many BigLaw firms) in a group situation like an HR presentation or a packed conference room.

Office temperature: This can be something of an unknown, particularly if you’re starting work in a month like May or September, where the office A/C or heat may or may not be switched to the appropriate setting — so dress in intelligent layers! Don’t wear a sleeveless dress or shell as your base layer in case you end up sweltering in whatever you intended to wear on top (because if going sleeveless isn’t considered appropriate at your new office, you’re stuck). By the same token, if you wear something too lightweight you may be freezing all day, so it’s a good idea to add a cardigan or blazer to your ensemble so that you have something intentional to put on top.

For a more conservative office, a blazer can be a great topper:

Some of our favorite blazers to wear as separates include:

For a more casual office, a sweater jacket can be a great way to add polish:

Pockets: This can be a little like hunting for a unicorn, but if you’re between two options and one has pockets and the other does not, then go for pockets.

Stay tuned for a roundup of our all-time favorite business clothes with pockets! Note that a ton of Theory pants have pockets, though, as well as these popular “dress yoga pants” from Betabrand.

Psst: As of 2023, many of the best work dresses have pockets, including M.M.LaFleur, J.Crew, and Boden — Nordstrom also has a bunch!

Readers, what are your best tips for what to wear on your first day at work? Have you ever started a job and really regretted your outfit choices? Do you have any memories (good or bad) of what a work colleague wore for his or her first day at work?

Stock photo via Shutterstock / Dean Drobot.

The post What to Wear on Your First Day at Work appeared first on Corporette.com.

Which is more important — your salary or your title? Reader D wonders…

I would love to see a post on the relative merits of pursing a higher title or more compensation. Would readers be willing to be paid less (or the same amount) for a title bump? Or, would they demand that any title bump come with an increase in pay? Is title more important than money? Or, is money more important than title?

Interesting question. My first reaction was “money — duh” but I suppose there are situations where a title would be more important than money.

We’ve talked before about how job hopping isn’t the best idea, but in some professions (for example, magazines), historically, the way to get through all the bottom-rung positions (editorial assistant, assistant editor, junior editor, etc.) was to change jobs as frequently as possible.

The salary bumps were miniscule, and the job title was, generally, ceremonial — a junior editor still had to sort reader mail as much as an editorial assistant — but they helped you advance to the real editing much more quickly.

{related: how to find jobs with low hours and high pay}

So I suppose, in today’s environment — where more and more industries are taking the Hollywood “Harvard grads start in the mailroom” approach to hiring, and where people often take internship after internship because real jobs are scarce — well, maybe I would take the title over the money.

{related: salary negotiation tips}

However, sometimes bosses give a “title bump” in lieu of a raise. This could be for a number of reasons — chief among them, I think, is that the boss thinks you’ll accept it instead of money.

Each situation is different, and we are in a recession, but if it were me, I would demand a small raise if I were taking a new title — particularly if responsibilities are increasing! — even if it’s only 1% or 2%, and ask for a salary review on a more expedited timeline (such as six months instead of a year) to reassess.

Readers, how do you weigh salary versus title? Would you rather have a better title or a better salary?

Updated images (woman standing at window with men) via Shutterstock / Pavel L Photo and Video. Originally pictured: Up! originally uploaded to Flickr by Peter π.)  

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