4 ms·

"there where levelling meetings where more senior mangers / hr fiddled the figures to hit the desired pay quanta" That's just business. They need to make the bu

"there where levelling meetings where more senior mangers / hr fiddled the figures to hit the desired pay quanta" That's just business. They need to make the budget. There's not an indeterminate amount of money available so it needs to level out among all the employees. And yes, achieving "Significantly exceeds expectations" implies some level of walking on water, and is the top 1-2% of the company. This isn't the same as school grades where anything less than an A means you're doing something wrong. Annual reviews are some of the worst time to get pay raises because of these constraints. Finding ways to get "out of cycle" raises/promotions is much better.

Mauricebranagh 6y ago
Out of cycle promotions/raises did not exist and as we had Martlesham aka the British version of bell labs where we had you know one of the Inventors of ethernet working a cat 1 was realistically out of reach for the ordinary plebes
blackrock 6y ago
The best way, and probably the only way, to get a 25% pay raise, is to jump ship.
- rubidium 6y ago
  Not the only way. Out of cycle promotion (8-10% base + 5% bonus increase) followed by standard cycle raise (4.5%) and then added stock comp (+15% effective) resulted in this for me in one year. This was the result of very direct conversions with my manager about “I’m at $x, I’d like to be at $y” and he used all the tools he had to get me there. But yes, normally that’s the only way.
  - blackrock 6y ago
    Nice! Congrats to you! It seems like you hit the startup stock option lottery. That seems to be a very generous and reasonable sharing of income from the company and your manager. As well as to have a manager that wasn’t a self-serving jerk, whose intention is to manage you down, instead of managing you up. Most people are not so lucky. And most managers are self-serving, despite whatever platitudes they say. But I think for most people, they must take their destiny into their own hands. And negotiate what is best for themselves. In a sense, you’re only worth what you can negotiate.

Mauricebranagh 6y ago

Out of cycle promotions/raises did not exist and as we had Martlesham aka the British version of bell labs where we had you know one of the Inventors of ethernet working a cat 1 was realistically out of reach for the ordinary plebes

blackrock 6y ago

The best way, and probably the only way, to get a 25% pay raise, is to jump ship.

rubidium 6y ago
Not the only way. Out of cycle promotion (8-10% base + 5% bonus increase) followed by standard cycle raise (4.5%) and then added stock comp (+15% effective) resulted in this for me in one year. This was the result of very direct conversions with my manager about “I’m at $x, I’d like to be at $y” and he used all the tools he had to get me there. But yes, normally that’s the only way.
- blackrock 6y ago
  Nice! Congrats to you! It seems like you hit the startup stock option lottery. That seems to be a very generous and reasonable sharing of income from the company and your manager. As well as to have a manager that wasn’t a self-serving jerk, whose intention is to manage you down, instead of managing you up. Most people are not so lucky. And most managers are self-serving, despite whatever platitudes they say. But I think for most people, they must take their destiny into their own hands. And negotiate what is best for themselves. In a sense, you’re only worth what you can negotiate.