CAREERS NOW 06-04-08

How To Manage a Control Freak

DEAR JOYCE: My coworker on a number of projects is very hard to take. We're supposed to collaborate but she changes everything I suggest to make it "perfect." Despite her overbearing, condescending "partnering" style, don't suggest that I ask the manager for reassignment because I've already tried that. This woman is becoming a real pain. Help? - F.A.C.

People who are impatient, overbearing, micromanaging, condescending, untrusting of anyone but themselves, perfectionist and pushy and forceful are commonly called control freaks, according to Cheryl Cran, author of "The Control Freak Revolution: Make Your Most Maddening Behaviors Work for Your Company and to Your Advantage" (Career Press).

Cran suggests ways to manage control freaks, one of which I excerpt:

Stand up to controlling behavior with a three-step process: 1) Assert your position. 2) Reaffirm control freak's position. 3) State the action moving forward. Examples of each step:

-- Asserting: Jane, I am going to have to disagree with you on how this project is to be managed. With my strength in long-term planning, I believe we need to relook at our time lines and outcomes.

-- Reaffirming: I know you have tremendous skill in projects of this nature and have managed them for some time. I respect that, and I would like equal respect for my opinion of how to have us manage this project successfully for both of us.

-- Moving on: I have prepared a sample project management time line of my own to demonstrate the alternatives in moving forward with this. Let's discuss.

Need more help in managing your nemesis? Jump on a Web site devoted to the topic: controlfreak.net.

DEAR JOYCE: Putting together a career portfolio of one's major achievements, awards, letters of recommendation and examples of work is time-consuming. How valuable is a portfolio for a 45-year-old professional? - C.D.

Assuming you develop a custom and streamlined paper-based portfolio for the job you seek, eliminating extraneous or ancient material, a portfolio can be very effective as a show-and-tell device during a job interview.

Unless you are a model, architect, photographer or other visually dependent professional, an online portfolio used as a tool to attract recruiting attention is not effective because it's too time- consuming to review. That perception changes once a recruiter becomes interested in you as a candidate and wants to know a lot more about you. At that point, in an effort to confirm or dispel initial interest, recruiters are motivated to plow through items such as transcripts for new graduates, reports, plans and in-depth descriptions of skills and competencies.

DEAR JOYCE: I went to ask for a (retail)job for the summer and was given an application to fill out before they would interview me. I didn't have all my facts with me so I took it home and spilled a soda all over it. I don't want to go back and ask for another form. Would you go back? - E.V.

Of course I'd go back, unless I really didn't want the job. I advise teenagers to take applications home where they can use dictionaries. But dynamics change for adults after an interview. Adults are better served by having vital data handy to fill out applications at a company location, as Neil P. McNulty explains:

"If you have been given something to fill out or complete following an interview, such as an application, do it immediately," advises McNulty, an executive search consultant in Virginia Beach, Va. "The company is measuring how long it takes you to respond."

"After an interview, leave the filled-out paperwork in the lobby with the receptionist before you go. If that is not possible due to travel arrangements, fill it out the same day and return it to the company by courier so that it arrives the next day."

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