4 ms·

I'm curious to hear your advice on the following: At once point I was hired by a bigCo, had been working at a university as a research sysadmin. They made a m

I'm curious to hear your advice on the following: At once point I was hired by a bigCo, had been working at a university as a research sysadmin. They made a mistake, and thought that because they hired me _at_ a university I was a college hire, apparently ignoring the years of industry experience on the resume, and placed me at the lowest salary level. After 6 months, this mistake came to light, and after agreeing with my manager that the position was basically insulting given the background, I was told simply "well we can't do anything about it until the next promotion cycle, and even then we can't really 'catch you up'". This still stings in terms of time that I've now entirely lost pushing my career upwards. I decided to stay and wait it out rather than fight the decision or leave, I'm just curious about whether that would have been your decision in the situation. (this turned out a bit long and ranty; my takeaway is just, I've run into too many situations where telling my employer I was unhappy/underpaid resulted in basically a "nothing we can do", and my switching to a higher paying base job)

zo1 12y ago
I'm not the OP you initially posed your question to. But if you ask me, they just gave you the runaround. With what I would currently consider an insulting excuse. There is always a way, no matter how silly the "rule" if you could even find it written anywhere. Any manager, or moderately-motivated HR person would immediately find a way around it. If not, you don't really want to work there. I was in a slightly similar situation at some point a long time ago. Did a 3-month "internship" as part of my degree at a real business. It was a token salary at that point, and I was fine even when the 3-month internship was extended for another three months. After that three months, I got a 10% raise, and when I questioned it I was given a cheesy response by a just-below-ceo-level person of "10% is a huge raise" as if ignoring the base salary that the 10% was adding onto. Being a fairly shy, non-confrontational person I agreed. 6 months later when the year was over, and it came time to further renew the "contract", I told them I'm not signing diddly. That's when the story changed and they tripled the salary to a very good entry-level point. Two things: One, I made my point clear that they knew they would be losing a very productive and useful member of their team. And two, I spoke to someone a little lower down the hierarchy that ended up vouching and making my case to the "higher ups".
learnstats2 12y ago
Your manager was wrong to not fight to correct this for you. Even if his/her hands were tied higher up, I would have considered leaving on this basis alone: it shows nobody at the company is willing to look after your interests. However, you must have agreed your salary at some point? As illustrated in the article, the start of the job is the most opportune time to negotiate. Once you have started on a low salary, employer can safely assume you don't need a high salary and has little reason to pay you more. (You confirmed that this was the correct decision for them by deciding to wait it out) My conclusion is that you'll now likely always be behind on your salary for as long as you stay with this company.
- existencebox 12y ago
  To his credit, my manager was extremely forthright in fighting for me, but his hands were tied in being limited to the typical periods. Yes, I did agree to the salary, but as that I was coming from an academic position (and was honestly/still am relatively new to shopping around for jobs) the salary seemed like a vast improvement and I didn't think to dig deep into actual level. Thanks (to other child posters as well) for your thoughts. (to answer some side posts as well; I didn't mean to come across as having excessively many years experience, but that I was just not a college hire and hope I didn't mislead. This introspection also doesn't preclude looking for other options simultaneously, and I've certainly learned my lesson about asking more of some sorts of questions during my offer.)
steven2012 12y ago
Why aren't you looking for a new job? And if you had years of industry experience, why did you take the low salary? I feel like this is more a reflection on your passiveness rather than the bigCo. If you want more money and a better job it's up to you to go get it, you can't wait for your paymasters to pat you on the head and throw you a bone.
biot 12y ago
One option to consider is to interview around and get a few firm, written job offers with companies you'd want to work at and with compensation you know to be fair. With those in hand, go to your employer and hand them your resignation "effective immediately". You can then say you're now available to be hired at an appropriate compensation level (and with firm offers in hand, they can't easily low-ball you) without having to wait for some arbitrary cycle. If they're unwilling then your fallback is the several better jobs you've already lined up.

zo1 12y ago

I'm not the OP you initially posed your question to. But if you ask me, they just gave you the runaround. With what I would currently consider an insulting excuse. There is always a way, no matter how silly the "rule" if you could even find it written anywhere. Any manager, or moderately-motivated HR person would immediately find a way around it. If not, you don't really want to work there. I was in a slightly similar situation at some point a long time ago. Did a 3-month "internship" as part of my degree at a real business. It was a token salary at that point, and I was fine even when the 3-month internship was extended for another three months. After that three months, I got a 10% raise, and when I questioned it I was given a cheesy response by a just-below-ceo-level person of "10% is a huge raise" as if ignoring the base salary that the 10% was adding onto. Being a fairly shy, non-confrontational person I agreed. 6 months later when the year was over, and it came time to further renew the "contract", I told them I'm not signing diddly. That's when the story changed and they tripled the salary to a very good entry-level point. Two things: One, I made my point clear that they knew they would be losing a very productive and useful member of their team. And two, I spoke to someone a little lower down the hierarchy that ended up vouching and making my case to the "higher ups".

learnstats2 12y ago

Your manager was wrong to not fight to correct this for you. Even if his/her hands were tied higher up, I would have considered leaving on this basis alone: it shows nobody at the company is willing to look after your interests. However, you must have agreed your salary at some point? As illustrated in the article, the start of the job is the most opportune time to negotiate. Once you have started on a low salary, employer can safely assume you don't need a high salary and has little reason to pay you more. (You confirmed that this was the correct decision for them by deciding to wait it out) My conclusion is that you'll now likely always be behind on your salary for as long as you stay with this company.

existencebox 12y ago
To his credit, my manager was extremely forthright in fighting for me, but his hands were tied in being limited to the typical periods. Yes, I did agree to the salary, but as that I was coming from an academic position (and was honestly/still am relatively new to shopping around for jobs) the salary seemed like a vast improvement and I didn't think to dig deep into actual level. Thanks (to other child posters as well) for your thoughts. (to answer some side posts as well; I didn't mean to come across as having excessively many years experience, but that I was just not a college hire and hope I didn't mislead. This introspection also doesn't preclude looking for other options simultaneously, and I've certainly learned my lesson about asking more of some sorts of questions during my offer.)

steven2012 12y ago

Why aren't you looking for a new job? And if you had years of industry experience, why did you take the low salary? I feel like this is more a reflection on your passiveness rather than the bigCo. If you want more money and a better job it's up to you to go get it, you can't wait for your paymasters to pat you on the head and throw you a bone.

biot 12y ago

One option to consider is to interview around and get a few firm, written job offers with companies you'd want to work at and with compensation you know to be fair. With those in hand, go to your employer and hand them your resignation "effective immediately". You can then say you're now available to be hired at an appropriate compensation level (and with firm offers in hand, they can't easily low-ball you) without having to wait for some arbitrary cycle. If they're unwilling then your fallback is the several better jobs you've already lined up.