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Loyalty at work no longer pays – and it's employers who are to blame

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Re: Loyalty at work no longer pays – and it's employers who are to blame

#31

Post by numbasys »

afavour wrote: post #25
Apreche wrote: post #11

Facts. The biggest career mistake I made was staying at one place for too long. It was comfortable and solid. I got complacent. I didn't think I could do better. I was wrong. I've changed jobs twice since then, and both have been big upgrades. If your employer isn't significantly rewarding loyalty, I highly recommend at least looking to see what's out there. You aren't forced to go, but be open to new opportunities.…

My employer has increasing vacation over the years, start with 3 weeks but you’re up to 5 when you’ve been there a decade. IMO that’s a very undervalued proposition that makes me want to stick around longer than I might otherwise. There’s a dollar value that would trump it of course but it’s pretty high.

In Europe though 15 days would be illegal. You'd start day one with 5 weeks. Minimum. Plus bank holidays.

Re: Loyalty at work no longer pays – and it's employers who are to blame

#32

Post by m463 »

ink_13 wrote: post #15
zero-sharp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, but who wants to be always interviewing? That sounds terrible. At some point your life is going to have different priorities.

One hack I've seen is to be the interviewer, not the interviewee

Of course I understand prime number trees...

Look, I'm the interviewer, quit turning the tables!

Re: Loyalty at work no longer pays – and it's employers who are to blame

#33

Post by olliej »

It hasn’t paid in decades - it’s well established that the most effective way to increase comp is to change employer not hope for recognition.

Employers refuse to provide even basic inflation matching compensation increases, and report what increases they do provide without including the impact of inflation.

This is like the “we’re a family” or “you should be committed to the company” BS, when they’re also “hi we’re firing you so that our stock price will go up for our bonuses” and similar.

Re: Loyalty at work no longer pays – and it's employers who are to blame

#34

Post by schmookeeg »

Jtsummers wrote: post #23
throwawaysleep wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always interview, be overemployed as a C player at the jobs you get, retire early.

We had a guy do that. He got fired from all his jobs and effectively blacklisted in the area.

Was this like in the outskirts of Saskatchewan? :) I can't think of a way to meaningfully blacklist engineers in the age of remote work.

Re: Loyalty at work no longer pays – and it's employers who are to blame

#35

Post by RoyalHenOil »

afavour wrote: post #20
rr808 wrote: post #6

The other point specifically for devs is how interviewing is such a different skill to normal work. The people with the best careers are almost always interviewing. If you constantly using that muscle you get really good. The guy I know who stayed in the same role for 15 years and got laid off is screwed because he's a great developer but doesn't know any of that stuff.

Eh. I really don’t think it takes that much to get into the swing of interviews. Developers sometimes suffer with them because our jobs make it easy to be introverted and avoid personal contact. As long as you’re regularly using your social “muscle” at work (which is always always a good career move no matter what) applying that same energy to an interview isn’t such a huge lift.

The problem is that it is a competition. If socializing is difficult for you, you can still get better at it with plenty of practice, but you are up against other applicants who had the same amount of practice as you and got more out of that practice (because they are naturally better at it).

Telling everyone across the board to just practice more does not actually solve the problem. The problem is solved only by having more job openings relative to applicants OR by teaching interviewers how to do their jobs better (i.e., how to identify skills that the role calls for, rather than inadvertently using social skill as a proxy for those other skills).

Re: Loyalty at work no longer pays – and it's employers who are to blame

#36

Post by twojobsoneboss »

rr808 wrote: post #6

The other point specifically for devs is how interviewing is such a different skill to normal work. The people with the best careers are almost always interviewing. If you constantly using that muscle you get really good. The guy I know who stayed in the same role for 15 years and got laid off is screwed because he's a great developer but doesn't know any of that stuff.

Isn’t there a very real cap of say 200-225k for senior level regardless of where you go tho?

After that would be faang which itself is the endgame except (in some cases) jumping between faangs could get you more

Re: Loyalty at work no longer pays – and it's employers who are to blame

#37

Post by RoyalHenOil »

justin66 wrote: post #30
pacbard wrote: post #18

I wonder how much the loyalty of the "good old days" was due to a smaller local labor market for skilled jobs. Let's say that you are a doctor and you live in a town of 20,000 people with one hospital. You are stuck being "loyal" to that hospital unless you move. Now let's say that you live in a metropolis of 2 million people and multiple hospitals. That gives you the option to move between jobs if they become availa…

> Let's say that you are a doctor and you live in a town of 20,000 people with one hospital. You are stuck being "loyal" to that hospital unless you move. It’s tangential to the main point of your hypothetical, but: in many states that small town doctor’s salary is a multiple of what it would be in an urban or suburban area, and he’s chosen to live there because he’s making a ton of money.

Even of he's only paid the same, the cost of living is lower in the small town than in the big city. Even doctors get priced out of expensive areas.

Re: Loyalty at work no longer pays – and it's employers who are to blame

#38

Post by Jtsummers »

schmookeeg wrote: post #34
Jtsummers wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had a guy do that. He got fired from all his jobs and effectively blacklisted in the area.

Was this like in the outskirts of Saskatchewan? :) I can't think of a way to meaningfully blacklist engineers in the age of remote work.

I said the area, but no, in CO. He was employed by a couple space-related companies, which is still a small field. In one job he was also hired via a national hiring agency, so he screwed himself out of any jobs through them again. The genius was not smart enough to get remote jobs. He may have had more success with remote jobs, but in the layoffs over the last couple years I doubt he would have survived, he was definitely not contributing enough to keep around.

Re: Loyalty at work no longer pays – and it's employers who are to blame

#39

Post by twojobsoneboss »

rr808 wrote: post #5

I'm actually on my 9th employer and its surprising the difference - they pay people well, very few contractors, no outsourcing, constructive feedback, encouragement for internal mobility. Every other place was the opposite.

Good employers exist. It’s crazy the number of people who get burned a couple of times and declare the industry is sheet and they have to do their own thing or their life is doomed

Re: Loyalty at work no longer pays – and it's employers who are to blame

#40

Post by afavour »

numbasys wrote: post #31
afavour wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My employer has increasing vacation over the years, start with 3 weeks but you’re up to 5 when you’ve been there a decade. IMO that’s a very undervalued proposition that makes me want to stick around longer than I might otherwise. There’s a dollar value that would trump it of course but it’s pretty high.

In Europe though 15 days would be illegal. You'd start day one with 5 weeks. Minimum. Plus bank holidays.

As a European I am very aware of that. But like I said about dollar amounts, the extra you can earn in the US made the move worth it for me personally.
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