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Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

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Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#91

Post by AnimalMuppet »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #73
jandrewrogers wrote: post #64

Stalling out on promotion has always happened. It can be explained almost entirely by two factors: As you become more senior, the success metrics for your role change significantly. Mentoring only goes so far because there is a large element of self-awareness and a willingness to change. Some people never recognize this and many never successfully adapt to what seniority entails. It is the career equivalent of trying…

Another aspect of being promoted: many of us see what the next level has to do/is doing and isn’t interested in doing that. I’ve seen people get promoted and then immediately implode because N+1 started involving lots of politics that they couldn’t or didn’t want to handle. Even senior IC roles get more and more exposed to non-technical and organizational issues.

During the interviews for my last three jobs, I explicitly said that my career goal was to never become a manager. I guess I started saying that when I had about 20 years of experience.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#92

Post by pjc50 »

MangoCoffee wrote: post #55
figmert wrote: post #3

There's no reward for loyalty any more, and it's caused everyone to job hop (at least while that was possible), including me. At the time, employees complained about it, and in the same breath refused to give out any promotions and/or reward employees. Or they'd reward them with some shitty voucher. The world has literally become the people vs corporations. There is no soul in working any more.

two weeks notice when you leave but where's the two weeks notice when they fired you.

Another "America vs Europe" (well, UK): I have my notice periods written in my contracts, whether that's one month or three months, and it is always bi-directional.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#93

Post by gwbas1c »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #64

Stalling out on promotion has always happened. It can be explained almost entirely by two factors: As you become more senior, the success metrics for your role change significantly. Mentoring only goes so far because there is a large element of self-awareness and a willingness to change. Some people never recognize this and many never successfully adapt to what seniority entails. It is the career equivalent of trying…

In a hierarchical organization, there's a lot less room at the top: There's only one CEO, only a handful of executive positions, ect. Not everyone needs to be a leader to be successful.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#94

Post by rboyd »

arsan87 wrote: post #42

At my workplace we were hyped up for a special announcement during a company meeting. this is after, literally, years of layoffs, offshoring, cut after cut to benefits, and restructurings. Morale is incredibly low. The big announcement is they are giving everyone one extra day off around a national holiday as a reward. We already have "unlimited" PTO but of course can't really use it. So their reward is letting us us…

I've found it's always best to calibrate around expecting something like the ice cream sandwich episode of The Office. Never feel too much of a letdown this way.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#95

Post by matwood »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #64

Stalling out on promotion has always happened. It can be explained almost entirely by two factors: As you become more senior, the success metrics for your role change significantly. Mentoring only goes so far because there is a large element of self-awareness and a willingness to change. Some people never recognize this and many never successfully adapt to what seniority entails. It is the career equivalent of trying…

Another thing I tell people is if you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted. Many people do a job well and make themselves too critical in a certain position thinking it will make their job more secure. First, the way layoffs typically work, they are likely not more secure. And second, it makes promotions much harder.

> create a new promotion-like role

I do this for people on my team when I can.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#96

Post by 21asdffdsa12 »

danans wrote: post #86
jandrewrogers wrote: post #64

Stalling out on promotion has always happened. It can be explained almost entirely by two factors: As you become more senior, the success metrics for your role change significantly. Mentoring only goes so far because there is a large element of self-awareness and a willingness to change. Some people never recognize this and many never successfully adapt to what seniority entails. It is the career equivalent of trying…

> Some people never recognize this and many never successfully adapt to what seniority entails. > > However, this requires a level of initiative and agency that most employees never exhibit Even if some aspects of that might be true on the individual level, this take is the classic "blame the individual, but don't question the system." Nothing about the concentration of capital by mega-corporations (enabled by tax po…

Those employees that show that sort of initiative, create companies of their own - to at least sell that initiative as consultant.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#97

Post by lbrito »

tavavex wrote: post #87
arsan87 wrote: post #42

At my workplace we were hyped up for a special announcement during a company meeting. this is after, literally, years of layoffs, offshoring, cut after cut to benefits, and restructurings. Morale is incredibly low. The big announcement is they are giving everyone one extra day off around a national holiday as a reward. We already have "unlimited" PTO but of course can't really use it. So their reward is letting us us…

I don't understand. What is 'unlimited' PTO? And if it's so unlimited, why can't you use any of it? I've only had jobs with very specifically defined PTO that had no ambiguity in whether I could ever use it.

Its a way for US companies to avoid paying money. When employees get real PTO, companies have some legal and tax obligations. With fake "unlimited" PTO, they just pretend the person is working as usual.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#98

Post by ianm218 »

ptero wrote: post #81

The fact that 1 in 4 white collar workers are not getting raises or promotions might not be a bad thing. As white collar workers get older they frequently stop optimizing for money and start optimizing for time, flexibility and other things and be totally OK with no promotions as the trade-off. I personally find the US setup where often the longest serving and oldest workers would be earning the most, strange. Even w…

> I personally find the US setup where often the longest serving and oldest workers would be earning the most, strange.

Isn't the US significantly more meritocratic in this regard than other large economies? I.e. compared to Europe or Asia it would seem that Europe has much more rigid comp rules, Japan has formal mechanisms to ensure that older people are paid more. And this is a tech forum obviously where i.e. the right ML engineers are making 7 figures + right now in their late 20s.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#99

Post by [deleted] »

gwbas1c wrote: post #93
jandrewrogers wrote: post #64

Stalling out on promotion has always happened. It can be explained almost entirely by two factors: As you become more senior, the success metrics for your role change significantly. Mentoring only goes so far because there is a large element of self-awareness and a willingness to change. Some people never recognize this and many never successfully adapt to what seniority entails. It is the career equivalent of trying…

In a hierarchical organization, there's a lot less room at the top: There's only one CEO, only a handful of executive positions, ect. Not everyone needs to be a leader to be successful.

[deleted]

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#100

Post by pixl97 »

tavavex wrote: post #87
arsan87 wrote: post #42

At my workplace we were hyped up for a special announcement during a company meeting. this is after, literally, years of layoffs, offshoring, cut after cut to benefits, and restructurings. Morale is incredibly low. The big announcement is they are giving everyone one extra day off around a national holiday as a reward. We already have "unlimited" PTO but of course can't really use it. So their reward is letting us us…

I don't understand. What is 'unlimited' PTO? And if it's so unlimited, why can't you use any of it? I've only had jobs with very specifically defined PTO that had no ambiguity in whether I could ever use it.

Its a trick used to avoid financial liability.

https://www.businessinsider.com/unlimited-pto-vacation-scam-...

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