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I had an employer that believed its pay policy was market-competitive, and therefore did not entertain requests for pay rises without proof that you were not be
by jl6 3y ago
I had an employer that believed its pay policy was market-competitive, and therefore did not entertain requests for pay rises without proof that you were not being paid a market rate. In practice, that meant interviewing for another job elsewhere and getting an offer at the higher salary.
I did that, and got my 1.5x offer. My employer dutifully offered to match it, but by that point I liked the idea of the new job better anyway. They panicked and made further offers and desperate manoeuvres to keep me, but it was too late.
I am certain they still have that policy in place.
- hurril 3y agoPlus: you really shouldn't accept to be paid off like that. Take the other offer and move on, otherwise they have you by the proverbials...
- draugadrotten 3y agoAgreed. Get a better offer and leave, never accept a counter offer intended to keep you. Accepting a counter-offer in that situation is bad for several reasons. One is that the employer will be left with a sense of extortion and lack of loyalty from you. Another that you should realize that this employer was underpaying you and is either blissfully unaware of the market rates and thus incompetent or worse, malicious. In both cases you are better off working for someone who knows (or has HR who knows) and values your contributions properly. If you accept the counter offer it should be for other reasons on your part such as that the current job has other benefits for you, such as physical proximity or CV boosting properties. I've seen colleagues stay for years with golden handcuffs and it has never paid off. It leaves them with psychological misery and have made it much harder for them to get the next job.
- sshine 3y agoI once used a job offer to 1.2x my current salary. I had no intention to pick the other job, as they had a pretty poor work culture, and I liked where I was. I stayed another 1.5 years and there was no bitterness from my employer’s side. My boss’es comment was “I guess we started you on a too low salary, our mistake.”
- karmakurtisaani 3y agoYour bosses comment is hilarious. They got you for a discount, it was not a mistake and I doubt the raise covered the difference of giving you full pay from the start.
- hurril 3y agoI can see a scenario where you do accept the golden handcuffs during a critical period of your life. Of course provided that it really is a very high salary. I.e.: simply doing it for the money for a couple of years to move the personal finances along.
- scarface_74 3y agoIe my original plan to stay in BigTech for four years and go back to my comfortable life of working for smaller companies. But I will see if the pay/bullshit ratio is high enough to be worthwhile after my four year anniversary next year and all of my initial stock vest is completed. But at 49 years old, my shit tolerance level is very low.
- hurril 3y agoI'm 45 and my tolerance for shit is virtually non-existent so I can only imagine what 49 implies :)
- scarface_74 3y agoAnd it doesn’t help my tolerance level that this is already my lifestyle right now … https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36306966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36306966 Anything that takes away from my lifestyle is a non starter.
- lannisterstark 3y agoOnce they know you were REALLY serious about jumping ship, they will start preparing a replacement in case they didn't have one before. And if they think the lower paid replacement can replace you, they will let you go.
- switch007 3y agoIn another display of “most internal communication is just PR”, our company embarked on a “market rate” campaign making out they’ve done loads of really hard, balanced research to ensure we’re being paid well etc. Any response to salary complaints, your manager tell you the same line that you’re already being paid “in line with the market”. You can’t argue with them because /they/ have done /their/ research. I swear HR have access to a website with playbooks with whole exercises like this
- akmarinov 3y agohey, that’s my company… And when you point out a couple of offers with higher pay, they say “there will always be companies that pay more on the higher end, your pay is consistent with the average or slightly above average” and then we set OKRs to try and figure out why we haven’t hired any experienced people in 3+ years
- switch007 3y agoHR math: adding a new data point above the mean doesn’t change the average number lol
- m3affan 3y agoThis sounds very US centric. In the EU things work differently.
- epups 3y agoHow does it work in the EU for you? In my experience it's the same bullshit
- bionsystem 3y agoNot your parent but for me you take what they give you. You might be able to get 5% more but that's about it. In a lot of places yearly raises are uncommon or slow. My first company would go beyond 10% for juniors but it would plateau eventually, usually you take 2-5% and that's it, to get 10%+ you need to change jobs and you cannot do that every year without being categorized as unstable in your next jobs.
- lannisterstark 3y agoTbf in EU tech salaries are...underwhelming. And before you mention it, no, my insurance costs (which are minimal) do not justify the $90000 or so pay gap in similar position in the similar branch of the company between Spain or US that I was being offered. When I was interviewing post-graduation in Uk and Germany I consistently got offers between 27 and 50k Euros/Quid. That imho, was too low compared to what companies in US were willing to pay me.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Shaanie 3y agoSometimes no, sometimes yes. 6 weeks of paid vacation, [p|m]aternity leave and heavily subsidized kindergartens etc can weigh heavier than extra pay, depending on your priorities in life.
- Bancakes 3y agoArticle link without popups and crap. https://archive.is/8HS5G https://archive.is/8HS5G
- Ruarl 3y agoMy company had a similar policy. The rate of people leaving went up and up. Eventually a new senior leader go HR to do their maths properly, and the “ranges” for many salaries increased by 30-70%. And everyone got increases to match. We’re still nowhere near the US mega-salaries, but the company is entirely unique, which is good enough for a lot of us.
- scarface_74 3y agoDon’t let the HN bubble fool you. Most of the 2.7 million developers in the US are making between $80K-$170K in most major cities outside of the west coast.
- magicpin 3y agoThat low end of 80k is still higher than even most EU countries.
- scarface_74 3y agoBut your health care system isn’t asinine, you have worker protections, paid maternity/paternity leave and a social safety net. We don’t.