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I was offered raises at only one company, ever. At every other company I had to ask for them after positive annual reviews, and I mostly got what I asked for.
by rorrr 14y ago
I was offered raises at only one company, ever. At every other company I had to ask for them after positive annual reviews, and I mostly got what I asked for.
If you look at the amount of raise, it's usually ridiculously small, maybe 5-10%. When I switch jobs, my salary has grown 30-40% pretty much every time.
And that I never understood. When I leave, you have to spend money hiring a good developer, you have to spend money training him, all while possibly losing money because the work is not being done.
- vetler 14y agoSomeone once told me that the easiest way to get a higher salary will always be to get a new job, and I believe this to be true - either your salary at your new job will be higher, or your current employer will increase your salary to keep you since you have another job offer.
- praptak 14y ago> ... or your current employer will increase your salary to keep you since you have another job offer. Accepting a counter offer is almost never a good decision. The old employer is probably only buying time before replacing you. Even if this is not the case: You stay at a company that only pays you fair money when you threaten to leave. You look disloyal to the old company (see point 1, even if not now you might get fired later) and unreliable to the new one. It also perpetuates the "no raises, we'll just make a counteroffer if necessary" mindset which probably made you seek other job in the first place.
- potatolicious 14y ago> "The old employer is probably only buying time before replacing you." A bajillion times this. I've even had HR people admit it off the record that this effect exists and is extremely deliberate - i.e., they get direct instructions from management to "manage out" an employee.
- eru 14y agoI heard that reasoning, too. But couldn't it be still a good strategy? You accept the counteroffer, but go jobhunting again from a higher base.
- simonh 14y agoOk, but with 'only' a 15% raise every year, your salary would quadruple every 10 years. That's not really a normal career trajectory. Pay growth as a percentage tends to be higher for talented youngsters, but then again a lot of the value in an older engineer comes from experience, which often means experience in different work environments.
- streptomycin 14y agoIf talented youngsters expected their company to be around in 40 years and still want them, after 15% raises every year (or even 10%), more would stay at one company. But there's no long-term loyalty on either end, for better or worse. So you have to get money while you can.
- JoeAltmaier 14y agoWhy not? Its not the same engineer expecting cost-of-living increases. Its an ever-more-experienced engineer growing from newbie to architect. Quadrupling every 10 years seems about right to me.
- simonh 14y agoSo by retirement a 20 year old starter on $50k (a little low) should expect to be on $200k by age 30 (which I accept isn't at all impossible for a smart kid), and retire on around $12.8 million a year.... I'm clearly doing something wrong, or the job market here in the UK is a lot more different than in the US than I assumed.
- rorrr 14y agoFirst of all, I don't expect a raise of 15% annually. 5-10% would do, if it does happen every year (assuming they like my work). Second, you forgot the inflation. $50K -> 200K growth in 10 years is possible, there's nothing extraordinary about it, but currently the only way to do it is to switch jobs.