6 ms·

I had a somewhat similar, but much less serious experience at Google. I resigned just after I had gotten a promotion, but before the date when the promo was ef

I had a somewhat similar, but much less serious experience at Google. I resigned just after I had gotten a promotion, but before the date when the promo was effective. Much to my surprise, the resignation (slated to be effective after the promo) somehow cancelled the promo via some automated system. However, a promo at Google is a huge deal. I really wanted the promotion to go through, so that I would have that level if I decided to re-join Google (or even so that go/epitaphs would match my resume). My manager and HRBP managed to get it sorted out, but it was a pain.

sigfubar 8y ago
What made you think that you were entitled to something that you were supposed to receive on a date which was later than the date on which you resigned?
- drewg123 8y ago
  I resigned effective the 2nd of a month, and the promo was effective the 1st of the month. See above "resignation (slated to be effective after the promo)". So the resignation was scheduled for the day after the promo. I actually stayed an extra week to receive the promo.
  - sigfubar 8y ago
    You should have become a lawyer.
  - RandomInteger4 8y ago
    I'm not going to lie; that type of thing -- resigning right after getting promoted -- seems like something from some alternate reality fantasy world.
    - Arainach 8y ago
      Why? Top performers are poached all the time. Plenty of people do excellent work in jobs they may not love. Both promotions and bonuses are usually tied to performance review cycles, and right after bonuses vest is the most popular time to leave.
    - AdrianB1 8y ago
      I have an ex-colleague that was promoted 2 weeks after she resigned, just days before she left the country. The announcements came in the right order, first leaving the company and later being promoted. It puzzled lots of people, but this stuff happens.
    - toomanybeersies 8y ago
      It is entirely possible they weren't planning on getting promoted. I was due for a performance review about a week before I handed my notice in at my old job. The review didn't happen because my boss was incapable of communicating with his employees and actually scheduling appointments with them, but had it happened, I was fully prepared to push for a payrise, even though it would only be a couple of dollars an hour, and for only 3 weeks. You wouldn't turn down a promotion because you know you're about to hand your notice in. You act like everything is normal and you're going to be working at the company for the foreseeable future, right until the day you hand your notice in, which should be at the minimum notice period. Otherwise what would happen if you decline a promotion, then your new job offer falls through? You'd be left looking like a prize dick.
      - Spooky23 8y ago
        I had a similar thing happen, except the company was acquired and we thought we were being laid off. 30 days after I started with my new employer, I received notice of being equated to a higher rank in the new company, and a very significant stock grant. Too late though. :)
    - patmcguire 8y ago
      It's not that uncommon - promotion takes so long and has so many moving parts - you might as well interview somewhere else, since if it doesn't succeed you'll just be doing the whole thing again in six months.
    - kamaal 8y ago
      One manager told me, he never tries to promote job hoppers no matter how well they perform. They don't stay, and you end up wasting a perfectly valid promotion while some one who would stick longer with you could have got it.
      - monksy 8y ago
        Wouldn't that give incentive to not stay?
      - ironjunkie 8y ago
        except that this doesn't work in a high demand market such as the Bay area right now! Your old manager may have said that to encourage you to stay, but at the end of the day he will promote whoever needs to be promoted in order for that person not to leave. It is all very simple offer and demand at the end of the day. I was once in a company where the CEO liked to brag that in this company everyone is fairly paid in regards to their competences. You can guess what happened next, we went to have a couple beers with colleagues one evening and started talking about salaries. We realized that we had salaries that didn't really match what the CEO was pretending. The laws of the market are simply too strong, you will always need to sometime pay someone a lot because of circumstances or because that person had another offer to match. At the end of the day, companies benefit a lot from information asymmetry (they know everyone's salary, but you know nothing). They can claim a lot of things without you having the ability to verify it.
      - s73v3r_ 8y ago
        Doesn't that exacerbate the problem?
  - brett40324 8y ago
    > somehow cancelled the promo via some automated system Maybe someone just unassigned your employee id to the role, because in reality you weren't actually taking the job!
  - paulddraper 8y ago
    Your story is inconsistent? > I resigned just after I had gotten a promotion, but before the date when the promo was effective If I get sick before my insurance is effective...I don't get my coverage. If I resign before my raise is effective...I don't get my raise.
    - jpatokal 8y ago
      The point here is not the raise, but the promotion itself. It's leverage for joining other large companies ("I was a Senior SWE at Google, so you'll need to offer me a Staff SWE role"), and as the OP notes, it lets them come back to the new level without having to go through the promo gauntlet again.
    - elygre 8y ago
      If you cancel the insurance effective from next month, you have coverage until the cancellation date.
      - paulddraper 8y ago
        Exactly. If you resign before your insurance coverage monthly renewal is effective, you don't get your insurance renewed. All of this is what "effective" means.
        elygre 8y ago
        Maybe we disagree on the sequence? As I understand it, it goes like this: 1) Employee gets promotion, effective in the future (at #3) 2) Employee resigns, to be effective after promotion (at #4) 3) Promotion is to be effective at this date 4) Resignation is to be effective at this date In my understanding, the employee's resignation is to be effective after the promotion it to be effective, so that the they would resign with the new/promoted level. I understand the surprise.
        paulddraper 8y ago
        "I resigned just after I had gotten a promotion, but before the date when the promo was effective" I had interpreted that as being resignation effective before the promotion. But I was probably wrong.
  - megy 8y ago
    You didn't answer the question at all.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- phyzome 8y ago
  A promotion can also be a way of acknowledging an existing reality.
- koko775 8y ago
  Because large companies give the promos as trailing indicators of performance, meaning that to be promoted requires an acknowledgment of prior sustained performance at that level. Entitlement to the level is actually accurate and above board.
realo 8y ago
This is interesting. On the one hand, you have been promoted to a new role, so you have reached a compatible level of expertise. You can put that role on your resume and sell yourself. On the other hand, you never, ever actually performed in that role, with the new responsibilities. How can you list that on your resume ! I am not sure what is the right answer here... but as your new employer I would take your last promotion with a big grain of salt. A resume is not a score sheet of levels accomplished in a game, it is a list of things your have actually done.
- drewg123 8y ago
  At least at Google, the whole point of a promo is that you've been working at the new level for some time before the promo cycle. And the new employer was not really in the equation, I'd already received my offer from them.
- sulam 8y ago
  There is a very clear right answer here provided you consider promotion from a clean point of view. A promotion is a _recognition_ that you are _already_ operating at a given level. It's an acknowledgement by TPTB that you deserve a given title. Anything less than this leads to a result where you may not actually be performing at the level the new title requires, which means you could conceivably be promoted and immediately fail to meet expectations in the new role.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - chii 8y ago
    > promoted and immediately fail to meet expectations in the new role. aka the peter principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle)
- rinchik 8y ago
  I'm not particularly familiar with the system at Google, but at any somewhat decent tech company in order to get a promotion you have to already perform as you would in your "future" role for some time, with higher-level expectations and responsibilities. For example, is someone with level I is up for level II promo, she/he has to match level II criteria long before actual promotion is due.
VRay 8y ago
You need to stand up, stretch, and look really carefully at the world at large and your place in it. Getting a promotion at Google isn't actually a big deal at all, man. You went from generating $2M and being paid $225k of it to generating $2M and being paid $250k, plus you get an extra word in your title https://csimarket.com/stocks/GOOG-Revenue-per-Employee.html https://csimarket.com/stocks/GOOG-Revenue-per-Employee.html
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- TheCoelacanth 8y ago
  Yes, because getting a raise that is more than 50% of an average full-time worker's entire yearly wages is not a big deal at all.
kamaal 8y ago
Generally in cases like these, they don't want to waste the promotion(the new position) and they give it to whoever is next in line and wants to stay longer. A very logical thing to do. In big companies it takes time to build a case for a promotion(position). If you were not going to use it, it was always a good thing to give it to somebody else. Plus asking somebody to sustain a position for somebody who was promoted and still wants to leave seems like bonkers even from the HR perspective.
- guytv 8y ago
  Google do not have position quotas. At least they didn't have them when I worked there a few years ago. So getting a promotion is not done by competing with others for the same slot, but by earning the merit from doing a great job.
cannam 8y ago
What is "go/epitaphs"?
- skj 8y ago
  An internal Google site that let's people see who has left the company and, occasionally, why.
  - walshemj 8y ago
    Err isn't that a potential huge legal liability
    - skj 8y ago
      I don't know. What do you imagine someone would sue for?

sigfubar 8y ago

What made you think that you were entitled to something that you were supposed to receive on a date which was later than the date on which you resigned?

drewg123 8y ago
I resigned effective the 2nd of a month, and the promo was effective the 1st of the month. See above "resignation (slated to be effective after the promo)". So the resignation was scheduled for the day after the promo. I actually stayed an extra week to receive the promo.
- sigfubar 8y ago
  You should have become a lawyer.
- RandomInteger4 8y ago
  I'm not going to lie; that type of thing -- resigning right after getting promoted -- seems like something from some alternate reality fantasy world.
  - Arainach 8y ago
    Why? Top performers are poached all the time. Plenty of people do excellent work in jobs they may not love. Both promotions and bonuses are usually tied to performance review cycles, and right after bonuses vest is the most popular time to leave.
  - AdrianB1 8y ago
    I have an ex-colleague that was promoted 2 weeks after she resigned, just days before she left the country. The announcements came in the right order, first leaving the company and later being promoted. It puzzled lots of people, but this stuff happens.
  - toomanybeersies 8y ago
    It is entirely possible they weren't planning on getting promoted. I was due for a performance review about a week before I handed my notice in at my old job. The review didn't happen because my boss was incapable of communicating with his employees and actually scheduling appointments with them, but had it happened, I was fully prepared to push for a payrise, even though it would only be a couple of dollars an hour, and for only 3 weeks. You wouldn't turn down a promotion because you know you're about to hand your notice in. You act like everything is normal and you're going to be working at the company for the foreseeable future, right until the day you hand your notice in, which should be at the minimum notice period. Otherwise what would happen if you decline a promotion, then your new job offer falls through? You'd be left looking like a prize dick.
    - Spooky23 8y ago
      I had a similar thing happen, except the company was acquired and we thought we were being laid off. 30 days after I started with my new employer, I received notice of being equated to a higher rank in the new company, and a very significant stock grant. Too late though. :)
  - patmcguire 8y ago
    It's not that uncommon - promotion takes so long and has so many moving parts - you might as well interview somewhere else, since if it doesn't succeed you'll just be doing the whole thing again in six months.
  - kamaal 8y ago
    One manager told me, he never tries to promote job hoppers no matter how well they perform. They don't stay, and you end up wasting a perfectly valid promotion while some one who would stick longer with you could have got it.
    - monksy 8y ago
      Wouldn't that give incentive to not stay?
    - ironjunkie 8y ago
      except that this doesn't work in a high demand market such as the Bay area right now! Your old manager may have said that to encourage you to stay, but at the end of the day he will promote whoever needs to be promoted in order for that person not to leave. It is all very simple offer and demand at the end of the day. I was once in a company where the CEO liked to brag that in this company everyone is fairly paid in regards to their competences. You can guess what happened next, we went to have a couple beers with colleagues one evening and started talking about salaries. We realized that we had salaries that didn't really match what the CEO was pretending. The laws of the market are simply too strong, you will always need to sometime pay someone a lot because of circumstances or because that person had another offer to match. At the end of the day, companies benefit a lot from information asymmetry (they know everyone's salary, but you know nothing). They can claim a lot of things without you having the ability to verify it.
    - s73v3r_ 8y ago
      Doesn't that exacerbate the problem?
- brett40324 8y ago
  > somehow cancelled the promo via some automated system Maybe someone just unassigned your employee id to the role, because in reality you weren't actually taking the job!
- paulddraper 8y ago
  Your story is inconsistent? > I resigned just after I had gotten a promotion, but before the date when the promo was effective If I get sick before my insurance is effective...I don't get my coverage. If I resign before my raise is effective...I don't get my raise.
  - jpatokal 8y ago
    The point here is not the raise, but the promotion itself. It's leverage for joining other large companies ("I was a Senior SWE at Google, so you'll need to offer me a Staff SWE role"), and as the OP notes, it lets them come back to the new level without having to go through the promo gauntlet again.
  - elygre 8y ago
    If you cancel the insurance effective from next month, you have coverage until the cancellation date.
    - paulddraper 8y ago
      Exactly. If you resign before your insurance coverage monthly renewal is effective, you don't get your insurance renewed. All of this is what "effective" means.
      - elygre 8y ago
        Maybe we disagree on the sequence? As I understand it, it goes like this: 1) Employee gets promotion, effective in the future (at #3) 2) Employee resigns, to be effective after promotion (at #4) 3) Promotion is to be effective at this date 4) Resignation is to be effective at this date In my understanding, the employee's resignation is to be effective after the promotion it to be effective, so that the they would resign with the new/promoted level. I understand the surprise.
        paulddraper 8y ago
        "I resigned just after I had gotten a promotion, but before the date when the promo was effective" I had interpreted that as being resignation effective before the promotion. But I was probably wrong.
- megy 8y ago
  You didn't answer the question at all.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
phyzome 8y ago
A promotion can also be a way of acknowledging an existing reality.
koko775 8y ago
Because large companies give the promos as trailing indicators of performance, meaning that to be promoted requires an acknowledgment of prior sustained performance at that level. Entitlement to the level is actually accurate and above board.

realo 8y ago

This is interesting. On the one hand, you have been promoted to a new role, so you have reached a compatible level of expertise. You can put that role on your resume and sell yourself. On the other hand, you never, ever actually performed in that role, with the new responsibilities. How can you list that on your resume ! I am not sure what is the right answer here... but as your new employer I would take your last promotion with a big grain of salt. A resume is not a score sheet of levels accomplished in a game, it is a list of things your have actually done.

drewg123 8y ago
At least at Google, the whole point of a promo is that you've been working at the new level for some time before the promo cycle. And the new employer was not really in the equation, I'd already received my offer from them.
sulam 8y ago
There is a very clear right answer here provided you consider promotion from a clean point of view. A promotion is a _recognition_ that you are _already_ operating at a given level. It's an acknowledgement by TPTB that you deserve a given title. Anything less than this leads to a result where you may not actually be performing at the level the new title requires, which means you could conceivably be promoted and immediately fail to meet expectations in the new role.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- chii 8y ago
  > promoted and immediately fail to meet expectations in the new role. aka the peter principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle)
rinchik 8y ago
I'm not particularly familiar with the system at Google, but at any somewhat decent tech company in order to get a promotion you have to already perform as you would in your "future" role for some time, with higher-level expectations and responsibilities. For example, is someone with level I is up for level II promo, she/he has to match level II criteria long before actual promotion is due.

VRay 8y ago

You need to stand up, stretch, and look really carefully at the world at large and your place in it. Getting a promotion at Google isn't actually a big deal at all, man. You went from generating $2M and being paid $225k of it to generating $2M and being paid $250k, plus you get an extra word in your title https://csimarket.com/stocks/GOOG-Revenue-per-Employee.html https://csimarket.com/stocks/GOOG-Revenue-per-Employee.html

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
TheCoelacanth 8y ago
Yes, because getting a raise that is more than 50% of an average full-time worker's entire yearly wages is not a big deal at all.

kamaal 8y ago

Generally in cases like these, they don't want to waste the promotion(the new position) and they give it to whoever is next in line and wants to stay longer. A very logical thing to do. In big companies it takes time to build a case for a promotion(position). If you were not going to use it, it was always a good thing to give it to somebody else. Plus asking somebody to sustain a position for somebody who was promoted and still wants to leave seems like bonkers even from the HR perspective.

guytv 8y ago
Google do not have position quotas. At least they didn't have them when I worked there a few years ago. So getting a promotion is not done by competing with others for the same slot, but by earning the merit from doing a great job.

cannam 8y ago

What is "go/epitaphs"?

skj 8y ago
An internal Google site that let's people see who has left the company and, occasionally, why.
- walshemj 8y ago
  Err isn't that a potential huge legal liability
  - skj 8y ago
    I don't know. What do you imagine someone would sue for?