Never accept a counter-offer • Hacker News Board

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#141

Post by fecak » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 1:04 AM UTC

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #126

fecak wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20-25% of salary isn't uncommon, and salaries of 120 K in technology is seniorish developer range where I work (Philly and NYC). My business model is different now, but when I did pure contingency work a 30K fee wasn't uncommon.

Do you have to wait a certain period before you get paid? Does this also work for in-house recruiters? Quite fascinating area really.

Most clients require a guarantee, usually around 90 days. Sometimes pay terms are sooner, so theoretically you could have to refund a fee if a candidate leaves quickly and you don't replace them.

In-house recruiters are not usually paid fees like agency recruiters - they might get bonuses, but most in-house are paid mostly in salary with smaller performance bonus. Agency recruiters are usually paid little (sometimes nothing) in salary with most comp coming via commission.

This explains bad recruiter behavior, or at least much of it. Every deal might be 10-20K in the recruiter's pocket. For that amount of money, some people will do things they wouldn't normally do, and morals go out the window.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#142

Post by slg » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 1:07 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #64

slg wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always hear this, but where do you people work that this is the case? As some who has been on the other side of the table this was never how it worked. Losing a team member sucks. A counter offer is an attempt to avoid that. The idea that your boss would secretly interview your replacement before firing you just seems silly to me. At the most practical level doing something so cold hearted would send every other me…

> Losing a team member sucks. But being paid below market rate also sucks. By making a counter-offer and having it accepted, you're now setting a precedent. All of that person's peers will now see that the way to get a raise at this company is to constantly be interviewing and threatening to leave. Is that the environment you're trying to foster?

I think the disconnect is that most people imagine their boss is allied with their company against them. In reality they are a mediator between the two (or maybe I'm in the minority with that line of thinking, but it is the best way I can both do the job and sleep at night). I want everyone on my team to be paid fair market value. I fight for it come budget time. If someone who I think is underpaid comes to me with an offer, I will go to my boss for more money. If someone who I think is fairly paid comes to me with an offer, I might simply shake their hand and wish them luck. A counter offer is not guaranteed. It is only offered to employees that we want to keep long term at whatever their new rate would be.

Trying to get a raise with another offer is a bluff. You have to live with that fact that you might be called on that bluff.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#143

Post by atsaloli » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 1:10 AM UTC

I accepted a counter offer as a senior sysadmin at my last job and then ended up getting promoted to Dir Ops. I never regretted accepting the counter offer, even though the recruiter tried to talk me out of it.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#144

Post by StephenConnell » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 1:13 AM UTC

FT_intern wrote: post #133

DominikR wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have the experience, contacts and social skills (very underestimated by many professionals in our field) you can make much more as a freelancer/contractor. I'm now self employed for 4 years and I earn 6x as much as I earned in my last job. (though I believe I was underpaid in my last job)

How does freelancing income compare to working as a senior engineer at a big corp ($300k total comp if you include bonuses, benefits and subsidized health insurance)?

Your personal time is worth more than any number of $$$. You can't buy back your time after you've traded it for cash. Make sure you enjoy life while you have it.

Edit: My point is that freelance work income may not compare, but the income may not be the reason for moving to freelance. The op did not explain why he moved to freelance, but I can think of some great reasons to do so.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#145

Post by CydeWeys » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 1:14 AM UTC

WhitneyLand wrote: post #137

donretag wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once was searching for a file locally (Windows) and my search ended up searching the shared drive of my company, which contained a zip file. Inside this zip file were excel spreadsheets containing the salaries of all employees (around 50 IIRC). The instructions from the CEO were to limit raises due to the economic conditions at the time (very true). Apparently the tech manager was not as good fighting for us, since…

This is one of the many benefits to working for a high performing manager. They will have more clout to argue on your behalf for raises and promotions. Not to mention it's easier to grow around higher caliber people.

Some of the best advice I've ever gotten, and I'm so glad I followed it, is to ignore details like what the product is entirely, and pick the team to join solely based on the manager. It's worked out very well. There was a survey I remember reading earlier this year about how the single biggest factor causing dissatisfaction at work is having a bad boss.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#146

Post by CydeWeys » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 1:18 AM UTC

StephenConnell wrote: post #144

FT_intern wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does freelancing income compare to working as a senior engineer at a big corp ($300k total comp if you include bonuses, benefits and subsidized health insurance)?

Your personal time is worth more than any number of $$$. You can't buy back your time after you've traded it for cash. Make sure you enjoy life while you have it. Edit: My point is that freelance work income may not compare, but the income may not be the reason for moving to freelance. The op did not explain why he moved to freelance, but I can think of some great reasons to do so.

As a senior engineer at a big corp, I feel like I have lot more free time available to me than if I were a freelancer. I don't have to worry about business details, contracts, hell, really even deadlines. In order to contract out for a comparable amount of money I think I'd have to spend a lot more time and deal with a lot more stress. Plus, you don't get paid vacation as a freelancer, whereas I get as much paid vacation as I'm apt to use.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#147

Post by CydeWeys » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 1:20 AM UTC

vonmoltke wrote: post #120

Clubber wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's another unfortunate thing HR does. If I'm so miserable that I've actively sought, interviewed and received an offer, I'm gone. Like someone else alluded to, most shitty jobs aren't shitty because of pay. I've worked at 2 companies in the last 14 years and they both got really shitty after being acquired by a private equity firm. It usually takes 2 years until it's unbearable. I stayed so long because they…

> If I'm so miserable that I've actively sought, interviewed and received an offer, I'm gone. Do you not look around unless you are miserable?

A lot of people don't. Hell, my last job change occurred because I was contacted by a recruiter from what was literally my dream job for the past decade (you don't ignore an email like that). I was content in my previous job and not actively looking, and had actually been promoted to lead developer not a year prior.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#148

Post by drdeadringer » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 1:20 AM UTC

vonmoltke wrote: post #120

Clubber wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's another unfortunate thing HR does. If I'm so miserable that I've actively sought, interviewed and received an offer, I'm gone. Like someone else alluded to, most shitty jobs aren't shitty because of pay. I've worked at 2 companies in the last 14 years and they both got really shitty after being acquired by a private equity firm. It usually takes 2 years until it's unbearable. I stayed so long because they…

> If I'm so miserable that I've actively sought, interviewed and received an offer, I'm gone. Do you not look around unless you are miserable?

Miserable can cover pay, emotions, mental health, and others. I would say 'yes'.

Then again, curiosity doesn't hurt either.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#149

Post by CydeWeys » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 1:20 AM UTC

Clubber wrote: post #97

baddox wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a fairly fuzzy distinction. Is it only a counteroffer if you actually give your n weeks notice? What if you ask for a raise, and while asking you note that you have an offer from another company for a higher salary?

Yes, I suppose a counter offer doesn't require notice, just another offer, real or imaginary.

Sometimes they'll ask to see it, so bluffing can be a very high stakes game. I wouldn't want to put myself in the position of lying like that.

Re: Never accept a counter-offer

#150

Post by CydeWeys » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 1:25 AM UTC

prklmn wrote: post #75

ryandrake wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are only able to get more by threatening to quit, that sounds like a pretty miserable place to me.

Many people are afraid to ask for raises and default to looking for work elsewhere.

Looking for work elsewhere has a much higher success rate. The vast majority of programming jobs are simply at companies that cannot pay a really high salary for their developers. These companies just aren't big enough or profitable enough per developer to support it. My last job hop was like this, moving from a small company in a market niche to the big leagues. I'm making more now than anyone at my previous company except for maybe the owner. Asking for raises doesn't get you far for most programmers who are working at companies for wages that are roughly appropriate relative to their profitability.

Or to look at it another way, the same programmer with the same skills is going to make more profits if they're working at, say, Amazon, than if they're working on some backend IT system at a regional bank. So the former has correspondingly higher remuneration.