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I think the last point about your best chance for getting a good salary being during the interview is a pretty good one. Salary increases tend to be considered

by jarin 16y ago

I think the last point about your best chance for getting a good salary being during the interview is a pretty good one. Salary increases tend to be considered in relation to your current salary, not in relation to your value to the company, unless you do something mind-blowing. Better to get in at $120k and never get a raise than to get in at $80k and get small raises every 6 months.

deleted 16y ago
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davesmylie 16y ago
yeah, most definitely. I used to work for what was basically the largest company in the fairly small country that I live in. Time and time again, new developers (with similar skill sets) would come in off the street at a vastly higher rate than the current herd of developers. Every time the annual pay review came around, any permanent staff would get a token 2-3% raise and that would be it. Team leaders would be given 3% to spread around their team, so the only way for any individual developer to get a more-than-inflation raise, would be at the direct expense of another developer in their team. Not exactly conducive to good team moral! In the end, the only effective way to get a reasonable pay rise was to either change jobs (giving you a chance to jump salary bands), or to leave the company, wait for 6 months or so, and then reapply for another job. The advantage being that this time around, you would know the likelihood of getting a decent raise after you started, so you would be a lot more insistent about coming on-board at a decent rate. Whenever HR was questioned about this policy, their answer was basically to shrug and say something to the effect of: "We need to pay market rate to acquire new talent - once you're working here you're unlikely to leave a stable job, so we don't need to pay you as much money to retain you". Personally, I left (with the intention of coming back in 6 months or so). Five years later, I've yet to get around to reapplying for a job back there =)

by jarin 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

davesmylie 16y ago

yeah, most definitely. I used to work for what was basically the largest company in the fairly small country that I live in. Time and time again, new developers (with similar skill sets) would come in off the street at a vastly higher rate than the current herd of developers. Every time the annual pay review came around, any permanent staff would get a token 2-3% raise and that would be it. Team leaders would be given 3% to spread around their team, so the only way for any individual developer to get a more-than-inflation raise, would be at the direct expense of another developer in their team. Not exactly conducive to good team moral! In the end, the only effective way to get a reasonable pay rise was to either change jobs (giving you a chance to jump salary bands), or to leave the company, wait for 6 months or so, and then reapply for another job. The advantage being that this time around, you would know the likelihood of getting a decent raise after you started, so you would be a lot more insistent about coming on-board at a decent rate. Whenever HR was questioned about this policy, their answer was basically to shrug and say something to the effect of: "We need to pay market rate to acquire new talent - once you're working here you're unlikely to leave a stable job, so we don't need to pay you as much money to retain you". Personally, I left (with the intention of coming back in 6 months or so). Five years later, I've yet to get around to reapplying for a job back there =)