Asking a relative for a job

DanS1

My aunt is a practice manager at a dentist in my local town. She's the manager of around 15 nursing and admin staff. I now have some experience of office work but currently out of work and would love to work in admin side of things again. Plus I ideally need to be working at least 25 hours. If I approached her to ask for a position would I be successful? With her being family I may feel a little awkward.

68ComebackSpecial

DanS1 said:

My aunt is a practice manager at a dentist in my local town. She's the manager of around 15 nursing and admin staff. I now have some experience of office work but currently out of work and would love to work in admin side of things again. Plus I ideally need to be working at least 25 hours. If I approached her to ask for a position would I be successful? With her being family I may feel a little awkward.

To be blunt, based upon the details from your other threads and posts, no you shouldn't as you don't have either the skills or experience necessary and are seemingly averse to working with others or being customer-facing due to anxiety. You would do far better to work with your GP to deal with your anxiety and depression and, when you feel more capable, apply for entry level admin roles to develop your skills.

74jax

DanS1 said:

My aunt is a practice manager at a dentist in my local town. She's the manager of around 15 nursing and admin staff. I now have some experience of office work but currently out of work and would love to work in admin side of things again. Plus I ideally need to be working at least 25 hours. If I approached her to ask for a position would I be successful? With her being family I may feel a little awkward.

You say in previous posts you are an introvert and don't like dealing with the public.

I'm not sure how this role will fit?

Are you happy to answer the phone to the public, enquire why calling, make appointments, take messages, pass on messages to staff, take repeat information. 
Greet the public, take their information, check them in, keep an eye on over run appointments, deal with highly upset, scared, annoyed or abusive patients.
Call patients to cancel their appointments and rearrange. 
Multitask (phone ringing, patients in front of you, staff needing you). 
Liaise with staff to ensure the building is tidy, any stock you have ordered is put away.

It's a very friendly, personable, fast placed and challenging environment. 

Look at the job description, detail experience you have of each item and apply.

Drop into conversation the next time you are speaking with your relation 'I applied for a job with you' so they are aware. (don't message out of the blue obviously).

Jillanddy

Even if you seemed to be suitable for a role like this, which your previous posts suggest you are not, I think it is a huge no to asking a relative for a job that they don't actually have. She cannot make a job just for you, and even if she had a job, you should apply for it and get it (if you get it) based on your skills, experience and expertise - not on who you are related to. If you obtained a job in that way then your aunt would be exceptionally unprofessional, and you would be hated by your colleagues who would all know that the job was given based on who you are and not what you know. I would anticipate that your aunt would start to find her trusted and capable staff leaving for employers with more professional approaches. Nobody likes nepotism, and it destroys workplaces very quickly. 

And if I was your aunt I would be mortified to be asked to give a relative a job simply because they are related to me. 

TELLIT01

DanS1 said:

My aunt is a practice manager at a dentist in my local town. She's the manager of around 15 nursing and admin staff. I now have some experience of office work but currently out of work and would love to work in admin side of things again. Plus I ideally need to be working at least 25 hours. If I approached her to ask for a position would I be successful? With her being family I may feel a little awkward.

As a manager within a large practice I would expect her to treat you in exactly the same way as she would treat anybody else.  If there are vacancies tell you to apply, process the application in the same way as all the others, if you are the best suited for the role then give you the job, if you are not then you get the same 'Thank you but sorry' letter.

I don't see an issue with asking if there are any vacancies and what the application process would be.  In the event of getting an interview she may absent herself from the interview/decision making process.

TBagpuss

If your aunt is professional, she won't give you a job just because you are related to her.

Many organisations have policies which expressly prevent people managing others whom they have a personal relationship with (e.g. spouse/partner/ parent/ child) (For example, where I work, there would not be a total ban on employing someone who was the child or niece or nephew of an existing employee, but they would not be employed in a role where the existing employee was managing them or reporting to them) 

I think at most you could tell your aunt that you are looking for a job, but you should be honest with her and be clear that you are not looking for anything customer facing (I would expect this to rule out a job in a dental surgery as I would expect the office staff to be dealing with patients a lot of the time) and ask her to let you know if she hears of anything suitable.

If a job comes up at the surgery then of course you can apply, but I would expect you to be considered solely n your merits and qualifications as an applicant, not on the basis that you are a relative.

Sandtree

DanS1 said:

If I approached her to ask for a position would I be successful? With her being family I may feel a little awkward.

How do we know better than you what sort of woman your Aunty is? 

Nepotism is alive and well in many organisations particularly when you are talking more distant relatives than spouse/sibling/parent. Many large corporations do have policies to attempt to prevent it but I've worked with too many nieces and nephews of colleagues over the years for it to be pure coincidence.

If you approach her appropriately the worst she can say is that she wouldn't feel comfortable with it because of the risk of accusations of nepotism and so wouldn't consider you for any roles available.

Sncjw

You need to be proactive in a job like this and I don't think you are. Plus you would have to go through the normal hiring process  just because your auntie is the practice manager doesn't mean she can give you a job just like that.. 
They will not pay for a someone to do a job if its not needed. 

Manxman_in_exile

Jillanddy said:

..., I think it is a huge no to asking a relative for a job that they don't actually have. She cannot make a job just for you, and even if she had a job, you should apply for it and get it (if you get it) based on your skills, experience and expertise - not on who you are related to... 

Exactly this.