Live data from Hacker News

Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

forbes.com

231–240 of 334 posts

Re: Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not do both? thats what I see. Firms give paltry pay bumps as default, but will fight with competitive salaries to retain top performers. Top performers get completive raises by going to their boss with an offer letter from a competitor.

> Top performers get completive raises by going to their boss with an offer letter from a competitor. In my businesses, I've had employees do this a couple of times. Both times my response was "you should take that offer". Also both times, if they'd asked for a pay increase equal to what the offer represented, they probably would have gotten it. Coming to me with an offer letter in an attempt to get a pay raise is a…

You admit to intentionallu underpaying your employees, and then insinuate moral failing on their part for proving their worth to after you told them your underestimate of it? Good for them that they left, and left you poorer for it.

Re: Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, the value of employees tend to go up the longer they stay as they grow more familiar with the people and systems at the company.

This is an interesting fact and brings up a paradox I've seen at the last two major companies I've worked for. Both saw a limit on the time someone could be at the company and still be promoted. The C-Suite people really felt if people were at the company for more than 5 years, they were no longer viable candidates to move up because they had become to "accustomed" to the corporate culture and would develop a sense o…

> Both saw a limit on the time someone could be at the company and still be promoted.

this is called "up or out", maybe 10-15 years ago my little sister had this same setup at Mckinsey but she's not there anymore. The idea iirc was if you haven't been promoted in 2-3 years then you're better off leaving and trying somewhere else so you get let go. I haven't heard of that setup in a long time.

Re: Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you leave positive impressions on your coworkers? Did you maintain contact? Part of the advantage of moving every few years is that you work with more people, which means more people are willing to recommend you for open positions. In those three jobs you were laid off from did any of your coworkers also get laid off? Where did they go to, and can they give you a recommendation? No matter what story your resume t…

>Did you leave positive impressions on your coworkers? Some of them, though it's hard to become really good friends with a coworker after only three months of a remote job. At the jobs that I stayed two years at I definitely made lots of friends > Did you maintain contact? For a few of them, the ones that I got close to (generally the people that were as geeky as I am about bizarre CS concepts). That was immensely ha…

> the problem with short stints is that you're considerably more likely to fail the initial screening by the internal recruiter.

That's exactly why I was trying to guide you into a back door.

Re: Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

#234
post #54

Employers don't reward long-term employees because they don't need to. Even though everyone knows you make more by job-hopping, companies are following a rational strategy because too few people "walk the walk" despite wanting more salary. Arguably unethical, but rational. At the cost of losing a minority of job-hoppers they retain the cheap majority that: - finds job interviews exhausting, or is anxious about being…

> Employers don't reward long-term employees because they don't need to. Even though everyone knows you make more by job-hopping, companies are following a rational strategy because too few people "walk the walk" despite wanting more salary. Arguably unethical, but rational. Ambitious employees "know" that switching jobs will give them the pay they're looking for, because they see those numbers right on the job posti…

I've tried having that conversation a couple times in my career, and it never works. At my current job, I am the top performer on a mediocre team, and it seems to be impossible to convert from contract to full-time. I also demanded something resembling a cost of living pay raise (been here 3 years), and eventually got the agency to give me about 6%.

Re: Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is why the trend towards remote seems inevitable. I wish, but not in my country. Remote here means 2-3 days/week WFH tops and that's it. Nobody offers more. Meaning you're still tied to the location of your employer as you have to come regularly in the office. It boggles my mind that employers don't see the advantage of employing people remotely nation-wide as that gives them access to a wider talent pool outsi…

What country is it you are living in?

Austria.

Re: Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is why the trend towards remote seems inevitable. I wish, but not in my country. Remote here means 2-3 days/week WFH tops and that's it. Nobody offers more. Meaning you're still tied to the location of your employer as you have to come regularly in the office. It boggles my mind that employers don't see the advantage of employing people remotely nation-wide as that gives them access to a wider talent pool outsi…

>> It boggles my mind that employers don't see the advantage of employing people remotely nation-wide as that gives them access to a wider talent pool outside their area making it a win-win Lots and lots of companies have completely embraced remote work. You are not hearing from them because once they embraced it they found people better than you [1] who'll work for a tenth of the price. In other words, offshore. Put…

>You are not hearing from them because once they embraced it they found people better than you [1] who'll work for a tenth of the price. In other words, offshore.

I know the companies in my country, they don't offshore because offshoring has additional overhead and costs they can't afford(small and medium companies), so they mostly prefer local workers they can tap on shoulder, and preferably German speaking.

And those few companies who do offshore(mostly banks and other large enterprises) already had offices abroad, no need for the pandemic to convince them.

Re: Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

#238

I've experienced this to varying degrees over my 15 year career, but can safely say that my current job at a FAANG probably pays more than any job I could get today (including another FAANG). Stock appreciation and more importantly, extra stock awards, are difficult to match. Or I could be a sucker and 100% wrong.

I have never worked at a FAANG. Not only do typical companies pay much less, there isn't much in the way of stock packages. Usually there is some kind of ESPP, which is just a low-risk way for us to gamble on the stock price going up.

FAANGS are unusual in that they actually do reward productive employees.

I'm the top performer on my current team. After 3 years of no raises, I threw a bitch fit, and after a bunch of bureaucratic bullshit, I ended up with +6%. I have 0 stock or benefits because I am a contractor, which is a whole other load of shit I could complain about.

Re: Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

#239
post #105
post #54

Employers don't reward long-term employees because they don't need to. Even though everyone knows you make more by job-hopping, companies are following a rational strategy because too few people "walk the walk" despite wanting more salary. Arguably unethical, but rational. At the cost of losing a minority of job-hoppers they retain the cheap majority that: - finds job interviews exhausting, or is anxious about being…

My observations suggest that this applies far more to lower performing employees than higher performing ones since the barrier to change jobs is lower for top tier talent. In effect this means that while companies that give paltry pay bumps that don't keep up with the market may successfully hold on to lower performing employees, they'll be continually churning through top performers.

But is this actually a problem for a company? I think most companies can only afford second rate talent with the top tier talent going to FAANG companies anyway.

What most companies are really looking for is undervalued high performers. And there's probably a lot of those still that haven't moved to the bay area.

I think MBA's these days have decided that they'll hold labor costs low by not rewarding high performers, and then hire whoever they can to fit their budget, but then have a yearly 5% layoff to hold their employee's feet to the fire.

And then those same MBA's get a bonus for keeping costs low, meanwhile enjoying their beach houses on the weekends.

Granted it sucks to be an individual contributor, but if you're a manager, you have incentives for cutting costs to the bone.

Re: Employees who stay in companies longer than two years get paid 50% less (2014)

#240
post #53

Caution: you might get paid 50% more to work at a company that is 500% worse managed, and therefore is hemorrhaging employees so fast that the only way they can maintain staffing levels is to offer a hefty premium above normal market wages to get new suckers to take a chance on them. If you're nihilistic and believe all employers are rotten, then jumping ship every 2 years might be a decent game strategy, but I tend…

The primary reason for having an employer in your life at all is for them to pay you, so the primary measure of a good employer is good pay. Yes, there are other factors, but many of those factors (read: benefits) have known monetary values which are effectively equivalent to pay.

There is no such thing as a good employer who doesn't pay their workers competitively.

While this may not be your intent, your post sounds a lot like a manager narrative that "sure, our pay and benefits leave bit to be desired, but we have a great culture and we're well managed". That's not a thing. A great culture is one where everyone is paid enough to live comfortably, and when the company does well financially, workers do well financially. The primary measure of managing well is paying your workers well.

The things management does besides paying their workers simply do not have enough impact on workers' lives that they can "manage" well enough to make more difference in an employee's life than a 20% increase in pay, let alone a 50% increase in pay as you describe. Beyond behaving at all in an appropriate manner, i.e. not verbally, sexually, or physically abusing your employees, your actions as a manager simply don't impact workers' lives as much as that much money does.

And in fact, other attributes of management are correlated with pay in my experience. The company you describe, that pays well but is otherwise terribly managed, is not one I have experienced. In most cases, a company that pays well is great to work for in other ways, and a company that pays worse is terrible to work for in other ways. The management mindset that is stingy toward workers doesn't stop at pay.

Post reply on HN