Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less • Hacker News Board

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#151

Post by ugh123 » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 10:37 AM UTC

scaryclam wrote: post #112

elnygren wrote: post #107

Best way to increase salary at current workplace? Get offers from other companies & ask for a meeting with your boss (or whoever decides your pay, so HR etc.). Bring up the offers, discuss what you'd get from there and also go through the potential career you could build at those companies. For example: Consultancy X would pay me $k/mo and every 6months it will go up the ladder if I perform well. With this kind of di…

I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are un…

I think you typify the type of manager that cares more about the bottom line than the value you get out of good employees. Maybe it wasn't spelled out as clear in the article, but much of the point is that the employee is more valuable to retain than to simply re-cycle for someone lessor or equal pay.

Wouldn't care to work for you at all.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#152

Post by crdoconnor » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 10:39 AM UTC

scaryclam wrote: post #112

elnygren wrote: post #107

Best way to increase salary at current workplace? Get offers from other companies & ask for a meeting with your boss (or whoever decides your pay, so HR etc.). Bring up the offers, discuss what you'd get from there and also go through the potential career you could build at those companies. For example: Consultancy X would pay me $k/mo and every 6months it will go up the ladder if I perform well. With this kind of di…

I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are un…

>And TBH, if your company has to make cutbacks in the future and you've shown you're willing to up and leave at the drop of a hat, you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list than you'd probably like.

Wouldn't that be a good thing if you actually can get a job at the drop of a hat? If the company is doing badly then staying is probably bad for your career, plus you often get a redundancy payout.

If anything, it's probably worse to be at the bottom of the list - that often means that you're viewed as a bargain - i.e. you're being grossly underpaid.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#153

Post by laumars » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 10:40 AM UTC

joyofdata wrote: post #144

dustinmoris wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't agree more. Basically your current employer should really pay you what the salary you would get somewhere else plus an additional markup for the internal knowledge which you have already acquired (you should put a value on that as well). Also don't believe any line manager or anyone else here posting that this is not a good strategy, because remember, every line manager is only an employee as well and has a…

As the line manager is employee herself, the strategy only works, if she is applying it herself, too. Otherwise her salary might not be competitive and you as her sub-employee are risking the most severe of all offenses - asking for more than what your supervisor makes.

In technical fields it's not uncommon for supervisors to earn less than those whose authority otherwise ranks below them.

It is basically just a question of market forces. If a particular position is sufficiently specialised when the supervisor role is more generalised then you might expect to pay the specialty more than the generalised role - even though the generalised role is more senior.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#154

Post by mojomark » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 10:40 AM UTC

joyofdata wrote: post #144

dustinmoris wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't agree more. Basically your current employer should really pay you what the salary you would get somewhere else plus an additional markup for the internal knowledge which you have already acquired (you should put a value on that as well). Also don't believe any line manager or anyone else here posting that this is not a good strategy, because remember, every line manager is only an employee as well and has a…

As the line manager is employee herself, the strategy only works, if she is applying it herself, too. Otherwise her salary might not be competitive and you as her sub-employee are risking the most severe of all offenses - asking for more than what your supervisor makes.

> as her sub-employee are risking the most severe of all offenses - asking for more than what your supervisor makes.

This is a flawed philosophy. As a manager I have had a few critical pulling in higher salaries than my own. If you are a superviser who is artificially holding an employee back from reaching their full potential (seeking compensation that matches the demand person's talent in the open market) than you are doing your company (yourself) and that employee a major disservice.

Just because you are a manager doesn't mean you can do what your employee does (and vice versa). Artificially holding a sub-employee back is a sign of fear for one's own ineptitude.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#155

Post by abalashov » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 10:40 AM UTC

ugh123 wrote: post #151

scaryclam wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are un…

I think you typify the type of manager that cares more about the bottom line than the value you get out of good employees. Maybe it wasn't spelled out as clear in the article, but much of the point is that the employee is more valuable to retain than to simply re-cycle for someone lessor or equal pay. Wouldn't care to work for you at all.

Managers are paid to look after the bottom line. The good ones do their best to balance that with treating their people well and fostering loyalty, but no balancing act ever goes entirely smoothly -- yet that's the one they're paid to perform. Businesses aren't charities or good-will missions.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#156

Post by epynonymous » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 10:43 AM UTC

a few comments, this article seems to want to incite people to jump ship which is fine, but fwiw, i have been with the same company for about 14 years and i dont think i'm getting paid less than my peers, rather i think i'm way above most with similar experience and titles. part of it maybe that this article generalizes and doesnt segment the different industries, i work in software and my company has done a lot to make certain that they're competitive and do not lose key people. i met a guy at google, he has been there since 2004, i doubt he's making less than his peers, there are certainly benefits, say restricted stocks (please look at goog from 5 years ago and you'll understand). this article is probably grouping everyone who works the counter at mcdonalds to investment bankers, nice work forbes.

also, i think working for the same company does give you more opportunites to understand different parts of a company that you certainly would miss out on if you jumped ship every two years.

also note that as a hiring manager, i look down on candidates that jump ship too frequently, no matter how strong his/her skill.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#157

Post by lostboys67 » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 10:46 AM UTC

jpatokal wrote: post #63

vacri wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hostility is because it's ridiculously obvious that moving from a minimum-wage job to a run-of-the-mill professional job is going to net you an incredible percentage increase in salary, especially in the US where the minimum wage is a joke. And where is the 'events happening now' in what I said? Job-hopping? Not exactly a new thing. > I mean, do you make a similar comment on all the articles you read? So... I can…

The person was working as a marketing manager in her first job, so it was a "a run-of-the-mill professional job" from day one, and she's still in marketing, only with 5x more salary. Then again, her first job was at YMCA, and non-profits tend to have low salaries.

But 8$ an hour is burger flipper wages and by definition professional jobs are salaried not hourly paid

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#158

Post by osrec » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 10:46 AM UTC

scaryclam wrote: post #112

elnygren wrote: post #107

Best way to increase salary at current workplace? Get offers from other companies & ask for a meeting with your boss (or whoever decides your pay, so HR etc.). Bring up the offers, discuss what you'd get from there and also go through the potential career you could build at those companies. For example: Consultancy X would pay me $k/mo and every 6months it will go up the ladder if I perform well. With this kind of di…

I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are un…

Your advice seems a little unusual; perhaps you've had caring line managers in the past, but in my experience, the less they know about your grievances the better. If you suggest you are unhappy, your manager is likely to assume you are looking around anyway. Thus you end up giving your manager the upper hand in negotiations. If you don't have a back up offer in place, you are simply hoping that your manager is a nice person who deals with your issues fairly - but there is always a very significant chance your boss reacts badly to your dissatisfaction. Then where do you go without a backup?

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#159

Post by thehardsphere » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 10:50 AM UTC

lostboys67 wrote: post #150

thehardsphere wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The men and women at any given company who do the same job are probably being paid similar amounts of money without any regard to "equal pay legislation," because the gender pay gap goes away when you control for the choices that people make in developing their human capital. So it's not relevant and nobody should be blaming women for not being able to give you a raise. If someone in management at your company tells…

Lol I don't mean to sound mean but this is not how the world works

Actually, it is how the world works. If there was really a gender pay gap for women who are doing the exact same work as men with the exact same experience as men, then it would be trivial for employers to reduce their costs by only hiring women. Yet, nobody ever does this.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#160

Post by sokoloff » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 10:51 AM UTC

mikekchar wrote: post #55

needlessly wrote: post #21

I don't get people who say, "Well I would never hire someone who has never worked more than 5 years at a single place!!!" I would never have increased my from $68k to $115k in 5 years.I probably would've been somewhere at like $80k right now at best if I was didn't switch jobs twice. If it means some hiring manager is going say some snarky opinion, then yes I'll take my extra money.

On the other hand, look at it from a hiring manager's perspective: people who have stayed in a job long enough to see how things go wrong are also less expensive. I'll be honest, if I'm looking at a CV for someone with 10 years of experience and they have changed jobs every year or two, I will suspect that they are missing some pretty important experience as a senior developer. Everybody makes serious mistakes that d…

> if I'm looking at a CV for someone with 10 years of experience and they have changed jobs every year or two, I will suspect that they are missing some pretty important experience as a senior developer.

I call this the "one year of experience, ten times" phenomenon.