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Recently had a recruiter call me, interview me over the phone once, in-person once, and via skype once. The job seemed to be a great fit, the pay was there, eve
by altotrees 9y ago
Recently had a recruiter call me, interview me over the phone once, in-person once, and via skype once. The job seemed to be a great fit, the pay was there, everything seemed to be lined up. The recruiter called me again to tell me that they were going to be taking the next steps with me very shortly. A week of silence goes by, then another.
I email, inquiring about the position. "Oh, we gave that to someone we had been interviewing for months, but we'll keep you in mind for the future." Unprofessional disconnects and other encounters like this have taken place several times, in my experience. It turns out I knew the person who did get the job I was all but promised. After talking to them, the company had contacted them three days after its last interview with me, and the successful candidate had been asking for $10,000 dollars less and had less experience than myself. A month later, that candidate emailed me and told me they were let go for "being unable to meet the requirements of the position."
Anecdotal experience like this really makes me skeptical when I hear employers bemoaning that they cannot find employees. Can they really not find employees or good talent, or do they just not want to pay the wages that people are asking for?
- aianus 9y agoIf OPEC embargoes the US, you would still be able to buy a gallon of gas for $10 or whatever but that doesn't mean there wouldn't be a shortage.
- jordache 9y agohow does that random candidate get a hold of you?
- jedmeyers 9y ago"It turns out I knew the person who did get the job"
- altotrees 9y agoThey were in my Linkedin network, and a college friend coincidentally. I simply pinged them and asked them a few questions about the new job and interview process. I disclosed that I had also interviewed for it. They were a bit leery of their own skill level upfront, so even they were surprised when it was offered. An interesting situation.
- damnfine 9y agoSounds like they simply took the job for less.
- tambienben 9y ago> It turns out I knew the person who did get the job I was all but promised. You should have another cup of coffee.
- jordache 9y agoi tend to skim-read manifestos
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- tambienben 9y agoI think it pays more to be observant than to be butthurt on the internet.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- arca_vorago 9y agoThe latter, hands down. I quit college to startup an IT support company, and despite going back in spurts, never finished. I got quite a few jobs after I left the startup though, and in retrospect I think the primary factor that got me those jobs, despite my many years of expertise, was the fact that since I didn't have a degree they could pay me less vs most of the other candidates. The most recent one, that promised 6 month pay raise, turned into a year, then more, and finally, having spent at least a year working late nights and weekends salary exempt (no OT), getting the infrastructure out of enough technical debt that I no longer needed to work the excessive hours, the company tried to make me go hourly... Companies simply don't want to pay what they should for the level of talent they want. They are trying to find the edge case that can still get the job done but that they can also underpay so they have more money for the company/execs. For what it's worth, I quit the sysadmin game and am now pursuing my degree in data science using my GI Bill, which I think will compliment my many years of senior sysadmin knowledge quite well. I'm there to learn, and am very excited about my classes, but I have to admit, a large part of me just wants the degree so I don't suffer the same poor pay not having a degree set me up for, mainly through weakness in the negotiation process.
- coredog64 9y agoI generally agree with your premise, but wages are sticky, economically speaking. There might be a few people here who'd be okay with fluctuations of 10 or 20 percent in their salary on an annual basis, but by and large, most people would expect that there's not a decrease in their salary over time.
- arca_vorago 9y agoI feel like I'm missing something here, could you elaborate more? I didn't say anything about wages decreasing over time, unless you are referencing the part of my comment about an employer trying to make me go hourly.
- humanrebar 9y ago> ...most people would expect that there's not a decrease in their salary over time. So why don't companies give more aggressive bonuses then? It would help with retention if nothing else.
- cynicalkane 9y agoI feel like there's two tiers of the software industry: those employable at AmaFaceGoogFlix or a competitor, and everyone else; but the "everyone else" is completely unaware that the first tier exists. It's like if minor league baseball had no idea about major league baseball. You even see it on HN. Someone will come along and talk about how a senior dev at Google can expect $250k a year. You'll get two categories of replies: "I don't believe this at all, Glassdoor proves you are wrong, nobody I know makes that, blah blah" and "bro that is totally normal". $250k is honestly on the average-lowish end for a senior eng at a major SV company in 2017. Much of the industry is not only unaware of reality but refuses to believe in it. This includes real engineers who do real work at real companies and comment actively on Hacker News. $250k for a senior engineer is just completely outside their reality. On my last job search, my best job offer was about 2x as high as the worst one. The guy who made the worst one--which was about 30-40% below my minimum stated range, depending on how you valued the equity, so he had been stringing me along, but anyway--he started arguing with me about my unrealistic expectations, and wouldn't stop talking until I told him I was going to hang up if he kept trying to talk me down. I know it's considered bad negotiation, but if I can't figure out the salary range of a job opening, I'll name my requirements up front. Over 50% of the time the conversation ends there. I know at least twice people assumed I was over-highballing as part of some misguided negotiating tactic when I actually was a little conservative.
- corporateslave3 9y agoYeah I see this as well. Some recruiters will name a number less than my current comp, and be completely astounded that I am already making that much.
- bit_logic 9y agoThe main reason for this is RSU. The base salary at those companies is not much more than rest of industry. But at senior levels the RSU matches or exceeds the entire base salary. Other companies have a hard time matching this. Startups try but the common wisdom now is to value those at zero. It seems only public traded companies stock is now considered as having value. And only public SV tech companies give these massive RSU to engineers. Other public companies don't do this. And they are not willing to match the RSU amounts with cash. It's possible this situation will only exist as long as this bull market. When the stock market bear comes, will these tech companies continue the massive RSU? And if not will they replace it with cash?
- tomjen3 9y agoThe latter. At the market clearing price the market clears - that is what market clearing means. Of course most companies are filled with people who don't get micro economics.
- Frondo 9y agoThat's it in a nutshell. There are people here who'll do the work, do any work, for the right money. Employers don't want to pay, though. You've seen those charts about productivity graphed against worker pay, and how for the last 40 years, the productivity has gone up while the worker pay has stayed mostly flat? That's the problem. And why pay more, when you can sink a tiny fraction of what you would be spending on labor, to fund a congressional campaign and have the laws changed in your favor? If there's an answer to this besides unionization and better pro-worker laws, I'd love to hear it.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]