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Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

• vacri 9y ago
  > Jessica Derkis started her career earning $8 per hour ($16,640 annual salary) as the YMCA’s marketing manager. Over 10 years, she’s changed employers five times to ultimately earn $72,000 per year at her most recent marketing position. Amazing, thanks Forbes. I never knew that if you started out on minimum wage and then moved into a mundane professional role, you'd earn considerably more!
  • ct520 9y ago
  • cakedoggie 9y ago
    Why the hostility? Are people not allowed to talk about events happening now? I mean, do you make a similar comment on all the articles you read? "Oh thanks a lot ENCODE for telling us that 80 percent of the genome had a biochemical function. I didn't know we were going to repeat stuff that everybody new in 2012."??
    • vacri 9y ago
      The hostility is because it's ridiculously obvious that moving from a minimum-wage job to a run-of-the-mill professional job is going to net you an incredible percentage increase in salary, especially in the US where the minimum wage is a joke. And where is the 'events happening now' in what I said? Job-hopping? Not exactly a new thing. > I mean, do you make a similar comment on all the articles you read? So... I can't be rhetorical to call out bad behaviour, but it's okay for you to do so. Nice work.
      • jpatokal 9y ago
        The person was working as a marketing manager in her first job, so it was a "a run-of-the-mill professional job" from day one, and she's still in marketing, only with 5x more salary. Then again, her first job was at YMCA, and non-profits tend to have low salaries.
        • lostboys67 9y ago
          But 8$ an hour is burger flipper wages and by definition professional jobs are salaried not hourly paid
        • vacri 9y ago
          Since when is an $8/hour professional job 'run-of-the-mill'? Are you seriously saying that that is a typical example of a professional?
      • justadeveloper2 9y ago
        It was a dumb example, that's all. In 2005, I went from being a state employee to a contractor and doubled my pay that year. Is that relevant, though?
    • throwanem 9y ago
      Don't take ENCODE's word for it: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/23431001/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/23431001/
• nextstep 9y ago
  From 2014, but still relevant. Unfortunately, the best negotiating tactic is to bring a competing offer and essentially threaten to quit. Or just switch firms every ~18 months like the post suggests.
  • mahyarm 9y ago
    For software I feel like you will start to max out from switching alone once you reach sr software engineer from FAAMG. Past that you have to make real changes such as improving your skills to become something worthy of staff or become some sort of manager.
    • chrisbennet 9y ago
      FAAMG?
      • toomuchtodo 9y ago
        Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google
        • chrisbennet 9y ago
          Thanks!
        • santaclaus 9y ago
          > Apple, Amazon I was under the impression that Apple and Amazon tended to fall lower on the compensation scales.
          • deleted 9y ago
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          • mahyarm 9y ago
            Apple tends to match after you work there for about 2-3 years or your a 'special position'. So it's a good place to be an intern and go up since the differences are minor.
• johan_larson 9y ago
  It's a bit strange that this sort of job-hopping isn't a red flag to employers. You'd think managers would be reluctant to hire an employee who has jumped ship many times before, just as they were becoming useful.
  • taneq 9y ago
    I think it's a bit strange that employers don't consider a fully trained employee to be worth more than a fresh recruit, and compensate them accordingly.
    • chrisbennet 9y ago
      Fully trained employees are worth more to the company. They just don't want to pay for extra value unless they have to. To get new recruits, they have to. Most employees don't want to change jobs if they can help it and employers use that "static friction" to pay them less than market.
      • Retric 9y ago
        Depends on the company. Some will hand out 30%+ annual pay increases to keep people at market rates. But, many companies are happy to have high turnover in exchange for lower pay.
        • ryandrake 9y ago
          The only company I know of that publicly makes this (bringing existing people up to market rate) is Netflix. Can you name other companies that actually do this?
          • ryanbrunner 9y ago
            I've worked for companies that do this, although it's not publicized so I can't point you to a press release or something. Usually a very strong indicator is to look for companies who publish salaries, either publicly or to all employees. It's almost impossible for a company to underpay people when everyone knows everyone else's salary.
• usmannk 9y ago
  I'm reluctant to apply this mindset to the tech, or at least SV tech, industry. While it's common practice to hop jobs every 2-5 years, it seems to be more for new or different opportunities (Different sized company, a new domain, new technical challenges, etc.) than it is for a more competitive offer. Internal promotion, both in compensation and position, seems to be the relative norm.
  • Leilani99 9y ago
    @Loise, you make $27h thats great going girl good for you! My story is that I quit working at shoprite to work online, seriously I couldn't be happier I work when I want and where I want. And with a little effort I easily bring in $35h and sometimes even as much as $85h…heres a good example of what i'm doing, visit the website---->>>> ----------------->>http://www.joinmate2.com http://www.joinmate2.com
  • angersock 9y ago
    > Internal promotion, both in compensation and position, seems to be the relative norm. My experience and observation suggests exactly the opposite. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  • justadeveloper2 9y ago
    I'm at the point where I think developers should bid on specific projects and not be full time employees, ever.
• anon4728 9y ago
  There's this management mythology that: - Worker bees will stay because they're clueless and don't have the initiative to keep moving. - Pressure from on high to fudge performance reviews downwards to "save the company money." (At where my mom worked, a middle manager blanket reduced all subordinate reviews down because BS: "people are overly generous.") If you want least turnover / most morale / most productivity, pick people whom can grow the most and grow them until they no longer can keep up or find something else. Develop people (training, mentoring, promotions, bonuses, raises, perks, etc.), don't just consume them as static widgets to fill a hole.
• fizl 9y ago
  This is a really poor article, and I'm surprised Forbes would publish it. As far as I can tell, there's absolutely no data behind any of the assertions in the article, and the title is just conjecture by the author based on a whole lot of assumptions.
  • usmannk 9y ago
    > I'm surprised Forbes would publish it Unfortunately much of Forbes has become nothing but a fancy blog, very much akin to Business Insider. With the amount of "contributors" posting to the site nowadays the Forbes name in the URL isn't exactly a positive indicator, if not a warning sign.
    • gruez 9y ago
      basically, forbes.com/sites/... = trash
    • josephjrobison 9y ago
      Was Forbes ever a respectable publication though? I ask with all sincerity. It seems their volume is super high and that's about it, so they get name recognition from repetition, not sure what else from.
      • vpribish 9y ago
        yeah, it used to be. It's literally 100 years old. As recently as in the 80's/90's it was a medium weight business magazine. Some time in the last 5 or so years it hollowed out and is just a republishing platform. They have a lot of algorithmically-generated articles on the stock market - this made me start blocking them. They are worthless trash now.
      • coliveira 9y ago
        Opinions vary, but I never though of Forbes as respectable. They are in the "business porn" industry, i.e., uncritically presenting the latest and greatest business moves so the masses will dream about what the rich are doing.
• needlessly 9y ago
  I don't get people who say, "Well I would never hire someone who has never worked more than 5 years at a single place!!!" I would never have increased my from $68k to $115k in 5 years.I probably would've been somewhere at like $80k right now at best if I was didn't switch jobs twice. If it means some hiring manager is going say some snarky opinion, then yes I'll take my extra money.
  • dsacco 9y ago
    Do you mind sharing what region you're in? You may have found it was easy to significantly increase your compensation because you were significantly underpaid, instead of just because you were frequently changing jobs.
    • djloche 9y ago
      I think in the past 5 years there's been a ton of realization from non SF/NYC/VC-tech companies in the fact that they are competing from the same pool of talent and thus have to offer competitive salaries on a national basis, not just competitive for their area/city. There is still a ton of progress to be made in this regard, but it is changing. for example, a hypothetical newly graduated programmer with some skills and experience should be able to land a starting position for at least ~$80k+. companies that would have previously been trying to pay ~$40k in their area are now realizing that by offering a competitive dollar amount, the actual cost of living makes their offer the most compelling one. Whereas before, they'd offer the $40k and say, well, our offer is lower because it's cheaper to live here. The right attitude is matching the ballpark competition in dollar amounts, and saying, you should accept our offer because your money goes further here.
      • draw_down 9y ago
        Hmm, a lot of young people have the mentality that they'll learn more and go farther in their careers if they go to SF/SV to start, even if their adjusted salary is lower. I can't say whether they're right for sure, but it sounds right to me. I think my career has "suffered" for never having lived there. (I'm still doing just fine.)
• hughperkins 9y ago
  Correlation != causation. Seems perfectly plausible to me that the more confident candidates are more likely to be poached by other companies, for example.
  • sonium 9y ago
    I was thinking the same. An attractive offer that leads to a change of employer is usually rounded off with a sallary boost.
• sidlls 9y ago
  There is a plateau as one reaches senior positions. As I went from "no" experience to my current position my job switches (every ~2 years) always were for 10%-25% (in one case, 100%, but that was Midwest to Bay Area so other factors are at play). I never got more than 5% merit increases otherwise. Most of my friends who have been at the same place for >10 years in engineering (not software) are just now reaching parity with my base salary (CoL-adjusted) and they didn't spend 6 years in academia before transitioning to industry. Two year tenures isn't job hopping. It's a reflection of how this industry works. Very few companies offer sufficient breadth and depth of product complexity, career advancement, or other similar things to make it worthwhile. I'd say the sweet spot is 2-4 years, except at very large companies (e.g. Google) (EDIT:) or companies which are developing complicated products with physical engineering or regulatory factors complicating development. Anything longer, especially if there is a lot of long-term stasis on a resume (e.g. "tech lead on product X" for more than a year or two), is an indication to me of someone who either isn't capable of stretching himself or doesn't want to. Anything less, especially if more than one project per job exists, indicates an inability to see a project through to maintenance or someone who is easily bored.
  • methodover 9y ago
    > Anything longer, especially if there is a lot of long-term stasis on a resume (e.g. "tech lead on product X" for more than a year or two), is an indication to me of someone who either isn't capable of stretching himself or doesn't want to. That's insane. Someone who is the technical leader of a project for more than two years doesn't "stretch himself"? I see no reason to believe that's true. If anything, it takes years for you to realize design flaws in components of the earliest-developed systems. The extent to which you can learn about how to design well-designed systems is going to be quite limited if just peace out after a year or two, as you suggest.
    • gaius 9y ago
      That's insane. It is insane, but this is how this market operates. Do you feel strongly enough to not play along, at considerable cost to yourself? I'd love to stay and grow somewhere for 10+ years - haven't managed it yet...
• jryan49 9y ago
  If the article was even based on actual facts and figures, wouldn't survivorship bias be a huge factor here? Maybe the bottom of the barrel are bringing the average down because they are stuck with jobs with no mobility and aren't valuable enough to get the raises.
• manicdee 9y ago
  My contrary opinion is that people who job hop every two years are the ones who come in, make enough progress that management thinknthey are pretty nifty, then leave before they have to domany maintenance on the technical debt they left behind. Sure, it is good to be highly paid, but the situation just reinforces the idea that people who wear suits are paid far too much. Though I find myself i the situation of wanting to earn more, so I am seriously considering switching to SAP. Sell my soul, buy a house, live with my conscience formthe rest of my life?
  • deleted 9y ago
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  • flukus 9y ago
    What about people that job hop because of that left behind technical debt? Often it's the long term employees that don't realize how much technical debt and other craziness they have, it's a kind of stockholm syndrome. The can also be woefully out of date on the industry and have likely reinvented many wheels out of ignorance.
    • ryanbrunner 9y ago
      If you've done this once or twice, sure, I think it's reasonable that the companies you worked for were exceptionally bad at keeping up with the times and ignoring technical debt. By the fourth or fifth time that you've moved jobs for this reason though, I start to question your judgement. Every company is going to have some degree of technical debt, and the speed that trends come and go in this industry means that any company older than a few years is going to have some technology that isn't the latest and greatest. A skilled developer isn't someone who refuses to accept any technical debt whatsoever, it's someone who knows how to manage it appropriately and balance it with the ability to execute.
      • flukus 9y ago
        Problem is that the companies with the biggest issues are the one that need to hire the most and the ones hiring you are often the most oblivious to it because they've stuck around so long. You don't find out how bad the code is until you start the job and you don't find out how the company really intends to handle it for some time, possibly months. What we really need is corporate code reviews when interviewing. They give me code tests for my competence, I should be able to do the same for the hiring organisation. Then I could at least ask about specific issues and ask how and when they intend to deal with them.
• deleted 9y ago
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• sergers 9y ago
  Depending on size of company, there may be some distinct departments. I stayed on the same team, 6 years, but multiple promotions. Only 20+k in salary different. Jumped teams twice in next 3 years, +20k. Now I have doubled my salary I started with. Been with company 10 years. The only thing I regret is not jumping teams earliar.. a few years max. Great learning experience through different roles on my original department... But didn't help me financially
• jurassic 9y ago
  Maybe I'm more conservative than others here, but anything less than 2 years tenure at a company seems suspicious to me. The people I've known who bounced after ~18 months or less were often the ones I would've wanted to quit anyway, who weren't cutting the mustard and weren't on track for promotion. For them, talking a big game at interview time every two years probably is income-maximizing because the longer they stick in the same job without promotions the more obvious their stagnancy is on the resume.
  • shados 9y ago
    In the big tech hubs, 2 years is pretty much the norm, for a variety of reasons (what's talked about in this article, but also just the sheer amount of opportunities). It's not a great thing, but thats simply the reality. It's not too uncommon to see a company open an office outside of SF/SV/NYC/Boston/Whatever with the primary goal being to attract employees that will stay longer.
  • therealdrag0 9y ago
    You only have my word for it, but I've had the highest marks from both co-workers and managers at reviews and have gotten higher than average raises. But my last job was for a consulting company and we finished the job in 10 months and it wasn't that clear what other gig I would be moved to so I accepted a job with someone who I had worked with before and was now a technical manager (another point that I'm not someone you wouldn't want to work with). My job before that I finished a project in 18 months and was transitioning into maintenance mode. I was bored and under paid, so I took another job offer also with someone I had worked with before. Each of these were 10-15% raises, so that was incentive too. So your intuition might fit some cases, but definitely not all.
• sverhagen 9y ago
  Sad, I am. I think I'm perfectly capable to sell myself to the next job. But I like what I'm doing, I like the goals that are still ahead and being worked towards, great team, all good. And whether you read the article with a bit (or a lot) of skepticism, it seems common knowledge that the biggest steps in salary are made when going to that next job. So... where's the silver lining for loyal dogs? Should I just pick up a book on negotiating, and take it up with my VP of People?
  • therealdrag0 9y ago
    It doesn't hurt to ask! It can be nerve racking but I've done it and it went over well. It can be a simple conversation, plenty of articles on how to do it genially.
• known 9y ago
  Employees != IT Employees
• trentmb 9y ago
  I just hit my two year mark. Guess it's time to start job hunting. My current employer 401k contributions vest at 3.5 years- would I be out of line insisting that my 'next' employer make a one time contribution equal to what I sacrifice?
  • peripitea 9y ago
    Absolutely not, and I think you should. They may still say no, but it can be a valuable tool in your salary negotiation. I've done this before when switching jobs -- "you want me to start in March, but I have $X in options that vest in July; to switch I would need you to add $X to my signing bonus". Both times they've agreed to do so. Recruiters seem to generally have more leeway with signing bonuses than salaries. (And of course on top of this you should be aggressively negotiating your salary etc.)
• nilkn 9y ago
  I think it's important to understand that there's a significant amount of selection bias possible here. In general, folks who switch jobs every two years are the folks who are not getting offered big raises by their current companies. The ones who are getting offered big raises may still choose to leave due to other reasons, but they often will choose to stay instead. And they won't be making a big fuss about it online. There's another phenomenon here. Almost by definition, average developers are not going to get big raises. They'll get average raises. The average developer raise is probably 3-5%, which is not big but it's more than the average raise across all professions, at least in the US. This leads to an interesting question: why can the average developer get a big raise by switching jobs? I think at least part of the answer is that companies simply have more information about employees who've been around for at least a few years than they do about potential hires still on the market. It's a lot easier for a company to realize an employee is about average once that person has been on the job for 12+ months than it is during the interview phase, where the questions are heavily sandboxed and generally focused on basic problem solving ability rather than the candidate's ability to convert that into business value. Finally, in general people who are average but think they're above average really do not like to confront the fact that they're average. So average developers with big egos being offered average raises will often very vehemently argue that the problem is all with the companies they've worked at and never with themselves. --- Another point worth focusing on here is that raises are really determined by the business value that you're producing, not your raw intelligence or passion for coding. Very smart coders may or may not be any good at converting that talent into lots of value for the company. It may even be that sometimes a less talented coder gets offered a much bigger raise because other skills allowed them to create significant value. I think this explains why so many folks are average but think they're above average. It's because they might indeed be above average in some metrics, but not the metrics that matter to their employer.
  • sverhagen 9y ago
    Great analysis. Small addition, it highlights that being a developer is such a different skill than interviewing well. It all makes me feel so much better. /me gonna dig up them yearly salary letters and checking some percentages.
• blazespin 9y ago
  This might be corrupted because people who switch are willing to move geographically.
• animex 9y ago
  Ha, this is funny. I rarely ever stay longer than 2 years at a company and every time I jumped, my salary went up significantly i.e. >10%+ HOWEVER, I've seen guys who have stayed with a company earning less for years, ending up as the VP/Presdient of the company eventually and their pay going way up.
  • eeZah7Ux 9y ago
    Survivor bias much? Obviously SOME people will become VP/President by sticking to the company. 99% of long-term employees will not.
  • ryanbrunner 9y ago
    I think this is a risky strategy. For one, the only way to succeed this way is to be the best (or at least last the longest). Second place on the VP promotion doesn't mean anything. Secondly, if your plan is to advance significantly up the management track at your company, take a close look the makeup of the current VPs / leadership team. I've worked in many companies where the CEO almost exclusively brought in outside talent for the VP level, and never promoted up. In those sort of situations, you're probably always going to be looked at as rank and file, even if you get into middle management positions.
• elnygren 9y ago
  Best way to increase salary at current workplace? Get offers from other companies & ask for a meeting with your boss (or whoever decides your pay, so HR etc.). Bring up the offers, discuss what you'd get from there and also go through the potential career you could build at those companies. For example: Consultancy X would pay me $k/mo and every 6months it will go up the ladder if I perform well. With this kind of discussion you should be able to get a raise that brings your pay even above the competing offers. Treat your current as one of the options you can make that day; make your employer fight for you every 6-12 months. And remember it's not personal, it's just business. Your employer would let you go and throw you under the bus if it made business sense. tldr; don't get too emotionally attached to job; that's when they get you.
  • calafrax 9y ago
    This attitude is horrible just like the Forbes article. This situation is only happening because of bubble cash and a lot of inexperienced leadership with too much money on their hands. Once the bubble pops you will see all of these people with a resumes full of 6-12 month stints and outrageous salary expectations working at Starbucks (if they are lucky) and everyone who puts in years for reasonable salaries still employed at profitable companies. Enjoy it while it lasts.
    • drchickensalad 9y ago
      To play devil's advocate, what makes them unemployable in that scenario? Is it just that employers are so picky as to commonly choose people who stay at a company longer over all other factors? Also saying they have to work at Starbucks implies they can't get ANY software job, which I'm not sure I see the reason for.
      • calafrax 9y ago
        Not unemployable but less likely to be employed. Long term employment is very important to increasing productivity as a software engineer. The first 6 months is just learning existing systems, so from 6 months to 12 months doubling productivity is normal. As you work longer you build more infrastructure that supports future productivity gains so from 12 months to 24 months you should be able to double your productivity again. After 24 months your productivity is so much higher than newer employees that you can continually invest time in developing tools and infrastructure to enhance your productivity so your productivity continues to grow. When there is a recession there will be unemployment for software engineers so a certain percentage will not be able to find work. These job hoppers are the lowest skilled since they have never learned how to develop their productivity over the long term and they will be demanding the highest salaries based on their past experience so they are the least likely to be employed.
• jondubois 9y ago
  Yes that never made sense to me. Employees who have been around for a couple of years are much more efficient and know their way around - They are worth more, and yet they always get paid much less than 3-month or 6-month contractors or even new full-time employees in many cases. Also if they say that they want to leave a company, usually employers let them go relatively easily without making any significant counter-offer. It means that employers don't even see the value there; they actually think that every employee is 100% replaceable and don't account for the massive efficiency loss incurred.
  • Xylakant 9y ago
    > yet they always get paid much less than 3-month or 6-month contractors I'd be careful comparing the salaries of fixed employees to contractors. The math works significantly different for contractors: They need to spend time on job acquisition, billing, ... etc. They don't get any of the benefits that an employee gets - PTO, potentially health insurance, retirement plan, whatever, ... They're also the first to let go when things turn sour.
    • pas 9y ago
      A friend of mine has a small dev shop, he likes recessions. Why? Because when things look up for big corps, they hire like mad, no outsourcing, yes insourcing! But when life gets harder, it's easier to start with a small company, just order an app, a website redesign, and maybe just provisionally start a project about that new backend feature, you don't have to sign a 1 year employment agreement and so on. (This is mostly EU, so no fire at will going on.)
    • jondubois 9y ago
      Not really, there are plenty of 12-months and indefinite rolling contracts. I've met a few engineers who made $800 USD per day for several years and many (including myself) who earned at least $650 per day doing rolling contracts... You can stay as long as you want - The main problem is boredom that kicks in after 3 to 6 months. I don't usually have any gap between jobs. On two occasions, companies offered me to work for them for two weeks because I had a 2-week gap before starting at a different company. If you plan correctly, have a broad enough skillset and you know your value, there should be no gap; on the contrary, there should be a queue.
• zelos 9y ago
  Yet large companies still launch investigations into why retention is so bad and have employees fill out surveys to try to figure out why people are leaving. Multiple-choice surveys, of course, with no questions about compensation.
  • stephengillie 9y ago
    They do this amongst mergers and spin-offs and contingency staffing plans, oh my!
• abalashov 9y ago
  I have been self-employed since age 22, but from 18 to 22 I had 6 jobs at 5 companies in 3.5 years. I started out in tech support at a small local ISP, hopped, came back as a sysadmin, then became primary sysadmin, and really cut my early career teeth there (and am ever grateful for the experience!). But it was a small college-town operation that ran on student-type labour; at my peak, I think I topped out at $16/hr. The next job hop was a move to Atlanta, where I commanded a $55k salary (about double my peak hourly earnings at NEGIA) and ultimately reached $70k at 21 — not terrible for a 21 year-old in Atlanta in 2007. It's easy to place big gains when moving up from entry level, especially if you entered into an employment bargain that presumed being paid vastly below market for doing fairly sophisticated and diverse things in exchange for having a diamond-in-the-rough skill set. I learned more at the small company than I have ever learned in my life, and more quickly, and was able to effectively parlay that into big-boy corporate jobs in Atlanta. In one sense, this validates the thesis. But it's important to remember that it does plateau. When moving up from entry level and early-career pay, you're flying close to the ground and it feels like you're going fast. The ground rushes past you, and it's intoxicating. Minimum-wage checkout clerk to full-time salaried assistant store manager? Zoom! The momentum doesn't last. Had I continued in W-2 employment, I would have likely hit low to low-mid $100k by now, after ten years, but no more.
• hdi 9y ago
  That's been my experience as well. But it didn't happen because I was on the lookout for a fat paycheck. It happened because the companies I worked at the time couldn't provide the stimulation, technical capabilities, working environment and personal development I was looking for. Then I realised very few of them do where I am, so now I do 6-12 month contracts and it's helped with saving a bit of my soul and getting paid a bit more.
• richardknop 9y ago
  This is unfortunately true in our industry, from my experience. The only way to make substantial raise for top performers is to have a new job offer with +20-30%. Otherwise the HR department will give you X reasons why you asking for such big raise is inappropriate. This is part of free market economy, companies are trying to minimize their costs and maximize profits so it makes sense not to waste money giving big raises. This is why you need to play the free market game and force their hand. Once you get a much better competing offer, your current employer will probably offer to match it. But at that time why stay anyways if you had to force them to consider a substantial raise by going for interviews and getting a better offer? Also, there is an old advice which says to never accept a counter offer. I do think there is a ceiling for this approach. You can probably do it 4-5 times and get to quite high salary (150-200k). After that this tactic does not work as well anymore so staying at one place for a long time and earning an internal promotion becomes better option.
• k__ 9y ago
  Sure, I mean who gives you more than a 20% raise? When you change jobs, you can renegotiate everything. More money, more holidays, less hours, etc. Last time I changed jobs, I worked less hours and got 20% more money, my last boss would have laughed at me if I wanted this.
  • Sleeep 9y ago
    Um... I've gotten a 20%+ raise before, I also have several weeks more vacation than I started with. If you prove yourself as valuable and ask for compensation to match, your employer may be more flexible than you realize. You can renegotiate your current employment at any time as well. You have to actually prove yourself as valuable first though.
• epynonymous 9y ago
  a few comments, this article seems to want to incite people to jump ship which is fine, but fwiw, i have been with the same company for about 14 years and i dont think i'm getting paid less than my peers, rather i think i'm way above most with similar experience and titles. part of it maybe that this article generalizes and doesnt segment the different industries, i work in software and my company has done a lot to make certain that they're competitive and do not lose key people. i met a guy at google, he has been there since 2004, i doubt he's making less than his peers, there are certainly benefits, say restricted stocks (please look at goog from 5 years ago and you'll understand). this article is probably grouping everyone who works the counter at mcdonalds to investment bankers, nice work forbes. also, i think working for the same company does give you more opportunites to understand different parts of a company that you certainly would miss out on if you jumped ship every two years. also note that as a hiring manager, i look down on candidates that jump ship too frequently, no matter how strong his/her skill.
• conanbatt 9y ago
  The single most important change that should happen to change things like this is having salaries being public. The day that happens, salaries statistics will very likely take a huge jump.
  • a_lifters_life 9y ago
    I believe they already are? Glassdoor
    • conanbatt 9y ago
      Hardly. Glassdoor shows that people really want to consume that information, but the one glassdoor provides has bias, is insufficient, and lacks precision.
• syntaxing 9y ago
  I wish these studies would incorporate the value of benefits. Benefits are a huge reason (especially for people with families) why people stay at jobs. Imagine having a job for $60K with four weeks of vacation and good 401K matching compared with $80k with one week vacation and horrible health insurance.
  • apexalpha 9y ago
    I wonder if it would be the same in Europe since most benefits are mandatory and at big companies salaries and yearly increase are negotiated collectively between employees and employers. But if this proofs anything you should keep your options open and, even if you don't want to change companies, use outside offers as ammo for your yearly negotiation.
• Steeeve 9y ago
  Job hopping works. But the more you do it, the more you can expect to see skepticism from hiring managers. Software development is a little bit different because right now there is more demand for workers than there are good developers. It hasn't always been that way and it won't always be that way. When you're working for the right employer at the right salary, an extra 25-50% isn't going to be enough to lure you away. That and at some places stock options are worth something and vesting schedules actually play into the decision process.
  • UK-AL 9y ago
    "extra 25-50%" - That's really bad financial mangament on the employees part. 20-50% per annum extra, invested and compounded is A LOT of money. Literally for some people that could be an extra million at retirement.
    • Steeeve 9y ago
      Working for the right people has benefits beyond monetary ones. Knowing the right person can be helpful to getting your kid in the right school, or in to see the right doctor. Being vocally appreciated in a field where that is not particularly common helps you sleep better at night. Being given a certain level of autonomy can be more rewarding for some people, being given a constant stream of tasks can be more rewarding for others. Money is a big factor with employment. It's not the only one.
• pc86 9y ago
  (2014)
• mustafabisic1 9y ago
  Also a great way to increase your salary is to Take the lowest pay possible at first. Here is what I mean https://medium.com/the-mission/take-the-lowest-pay-possible-af59a0d4bd7a https://medium.com/the-mission/take-the-lowest-pay-possible-... And this is not my article and I don't have any affiliations with it :)
  • Djvacto 9y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong (I read the article, but am a little confused), but shouldn't the message of that article be "Take the lower pay, assuming that also corresponds with a higher level of [Job Satisfaction, Growth Potential, Work-Life Balance, etc]"? I don't have much experience, but my initial instinct is that some of that article is not universally true.
    • mustafabisic1 9y ago
      I agree that you should choose your job wisely. The author claims that it's best to be open to a lower pay in the first 10 years of your career. It's similar to everything actually. You gain your reference experiences and build up your image within your world and then expect higher pay. Nobody will give it to you just like that.
• dsmithatx 9y ago
  I keep seeing articles like this that fail to point out an important fact. The economy has been strong for a long time and it is a workers market. Once there is another downturn it will be an employers market. Job hoppers will be lucky to land interviews, much less command high salaries. That is unless you are in the top % of your skill level or have some skill like Oracle DBA that is highly sought after. I worry about younger people shaping their world view and career around the last 10 years. I did that an in 2002 when I was laid off it was a painful few years of realization not finding work.
  • jazzyk 9y ago
    Two points: - 2% GDP growth is not exactly what I would call "strong economy": http://www.multpl.com/us-real-gdp-growth-rate http://www.multpl.com/us-real-gdp-growth-rate - it is not a workers market - if it had been, incomes would not have stagnated I do agree with the rest of your post, though. Things will get even tougher.
    • PeterisP 9y ago
      The technology growth and the technology labor market is quite different from the rest of the economy; we're seeing a much higher GDP growth in this sector, much lower unemployment than the average of all industries, and incomes haven't really stagnated in our domain.
    • s73ver 9y ago
      "- it is not a workers market - if it had been, incomes would not have stagnated" In general, no. But in terms of software engineering, it very much is.
      • jazzyk 9y ago
        There are a few pockets of good markets, I am sure. But the whole shortage myth is created by companies (often startups) posting "Magician" ads. Example of a "Magician" ad: "Looking for a PhD + min 10 years of experience in a very narrow domain we are trying to provide a solution for (Big Data experience in Scala required). The hire will need to do his/her magic to get us out of the s... we are in, because we don't quite know what we are doing. We pay $60K/year in Boston."
• EADGBE 9y ago
  When I started in this industry, my father, who also works in this industry gave me this advice. Something along the lines of "if you want a raise, go somewhere else, that's the only way to move up quickly". He was right, three times in the last 4-5 years.
• georgeburdell 9y ago
  How much does this apply to senior employees? I have a PhD, started out at the "Senior" level as a new grad, and I just recently got my first promotion to "Staff" Engineer, which represents roughly the 85th-90th percentile for pay in my company.
• nfriedly 9y ago
  I wonder how strongly this holds after you're into the higher end of the salary range? My best increase ever was going from my highschool/college web dev job to freelance, where I more than tripped my hourly rate from $12.50/hr to $45/hr. (It probably wasn't quite 3x after accounting for taxes and healthcare and such, but it was still a good jump, and brought more flexible hours too.) Since then, I've gotten 20-25% increases a couple of times, topping out at $120k. I was switching more like every 3-5 years, so a 5%/year raise actually ends up being in the same ballpark, if not slightly better. Every two years might be better from a pure cash perspective, but I didn't feel like I was "done" with my roles until the 3-5 year mark - I think I learned more delivered more value, and achieved a better sense of accomplishment doing it my way. I also live in Ohio, with the exception of one year I spent in SF. I imagine I could double my current salary moving back to SF or over to NYC, but I'm happier here. (And $100k+ goes a bit farther here...)
  • theandrewbailey 9y ago
    > I also live in Ohio, with the exception of one year I spent in SF. I imagine I could double my current salary moving back to SF or over to NYC, but I'm happier here. I once joked to a recruiter in SF that California dollars aren't worth much. He understood. Have you tried/considered charging SF/NYC rates to companies that are based there?
    • nfriedly 9y ago
      > Have you tried/considered charging SF/NYC rates to companies that are based there? Yep, that's basically what I do :D Moving to SF and then moving back was one of the biggest boosts - both in the immediate pay raise, and in giving me the sense of self-worth to ask for more in future roles. I'm now at $126k base + bonuses and retirement and such. I know that's on the low end for SF/NYC, but I've definitely seen jobs there offer less. I lease a small office that's a 6-min bike ride from home for $250/month and work from there most days. All told, I'm pretty happy. ($60-80k is upper end around here. Elsevier once offered me $100k to work on site in Dayton - apparently they have trouble finding smart people who don't hate them - but I was already up to $120k and working from home at the time.) My rate when I quit freelancing full-time was $125/hr, mostly working for companies in bigger cities. I'd charge more than that today, and probably switch to a daily or weekly rate.
• bitexploder 9y ago
  This article flies in the face of what I have been reading for years. This article is taking some simple data "employees that change jobs get X% raise" and extrapolating it to a whole lot of wrong. It does vary by organization. For example if you are at an organization where you are basically the most senior employee already and you can take on a new role at a larger organization with new responsibilities or skill growth a job change can make sense. If you are just bouncing around between say Amazon, Google, and Facebook this can often be a dud strategy in the long term. Take this with a grain of salt, since I don't have time to dig up citations, but I have read that the long term compensation is actually higher for individuals that don't switch jobs so often. I guess the career employee is a bit of a legend in IT these days so we could have a lively discussion about the selection and difference in a big tech firm and a more traditional F500, but I think in the long run these things will normalize because they are basic human nature and organizational structure problems and nothing is intrinsically special about technology companies. They are the special darlings of the era, so they get to break the rules a bit. Maybe it really will foment a long term change in "the rules" or always be a bit of a bubble in terms of how the organizations operate.
• southphillyman 9y ago
  Never understood why companies will refuse to give valuable employees reasonable raises but when turn around and pay an unproven new hire even more money to replace them. So you refuse to give me a 10% increase because "never negotiate with terrorists" but will gladly pay the 20% increase that I'm getting at my new job to my replacement (because that's the market). Just seems so short sighted.
  • Tomis02 9y ago
    Because it's easy to say "the employee is just doing the job they're paid to do, why give them a raise?". Also, "we need to give an extra 20% to convince this person to come aboard, whereas we already own these employees".
    • nojvek 9y ago
      Sure, what about training costs for the new employee?
      • Tomis02 9y ago
        If that question somehow arises, management will probably say the new employee will pay for themselves very quickly by generating loads of value. There's always a rationalization available for justifying irrational decisions.
• mcguire 9y ago
  "It’s a fact that employees are underpaid." Forbes?
• Pogba666 9y ago
  went thru many comments here and despite lots disagreement between people, I believe one thing people will all agree with is: in this game, individuals are much weaker than companies and much more vulnerable regardless. company can never go bankrupt because of loosing one super star, but a worker and his/her family can be in a bad situation if company decides to do something to him/her. So the whatever negotiation between company and works can never be a fair game at any point.
• methodin 9y ago
  What makes the most sense to me is making moves early on in your career then hopefully finding a company/CEO/team you really like and settle in for a while. You aren't going to learn some of the valuable lessons if you swap jobs too often as you will never really become an expert at what you're doing. Certainly valid you are underpaid and don't particularly enjoy your job.
  • mseebach 9y ago
    Not bad advice, but be careful to calibrate "like" correctly, which can be difficult. In the land of the blind, a one-eyed man is king. It's easy to get comfortable in a group of nice people that just aren't very good developers, and believe that you're becoming an expert at something, and then by the time you get slapped in the face by reality, it might be too late. Switching jobs every few years ensures exposure to a much wider range of people, skills and group dynamics. Every time I've switched jobs, I've had my eyes opened to some things that we did at my previous jobs that might not have been helpful.
• johnward 9y ago
  I often refer to this gem on salary negotiation: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/
• castratikron 9y ago
  I'm not sure why companies prefer that someone leave and take all of their institutional knowledge with them, then hire someone new at a higher wage that would have kept the first person at the company. They are not taking into account the value of knowledge. If your domain knowledge increases 20% within a year, then you should be getting a 20% raise. With the elimination of pensions, the only vesting time that most people have is for their 401k, which is usually only a couple of years. Not sure what employers are expecting to happen or why they're surprised when their hot college grad employees decide to leave for a big pay bump.
• g9yuayon 9y ago
  As I often told my friends, go to a company like Netflix. Netflix actually tries very hard to make money not a concern to its employees, and they do hell of a great job.
• pm24601 9y ago
  Thoughts: 1. A company can be underpaying for the employee's experience but paying correctly for the skills the company needs. 2. It should not be a bad thing for an employee to leave a company to advance their career - the current company may not offer the needed opportunities. 3. Managers should be proactively asking the question of the employee: "Let's talk about recognizing when you SHOULD move to a new position at XYZ or some place else?"