Work Reform

I made the mistake of becoming a manager about 4 years ago. This is one of the most frustrating parts of the job. If you have a good relationship with your team they’ll usually tell you something like “I’ve been getting contacted about other offers, here’s what they’re offering.”

It’s usually about a 20% bump. I’ve not once been able to convince the company I’m at to match it. Usually the best I’m allowed to do is something like a 5-6% raise in the next salary increase cycle.

I’ll usually know for 2-3 months a team member is leaving before it actually happens because of this. Of course, if I’m allowed to hire a replacement they’ll let me pay market value.

Job hopping is definitely the best way to get a pay increase.

Clickbait.

Article is nearly 10 years old.

Article contains no studies or surveys showing this result.

The 50% figure is calculated by assuming a paltry annual raise and consistent large pay bumps by switching companies.

Old article, but it’s certainly true in my industry. Having said that, I’m a bit conflicted with this at least for my own personal situation.

I’ve been with my current employer for a decade. I’m sure I can get a significant pay bump if I switch, but I’m in a comfortable position where I think the trade off is worth it. I earn enough to support myself and my wife on a single income. Work from home, unlimited PTO, and the job itself is not super stressful that I get good work/life balance. My manager and teammates are awesome. The company has great benefits and lots of perks.

I’m at a point in my life where I no longer want to be “challenged” with work. Meaning, I just want to clock in, do work, clock out. I don’t yearn for promotions, new challenges, and moving up. I just want to get paid for work I’m familiar with and good at, and focus my energy on my personal life. And my current job allows me to do that plus all the perks mentioned. So the question is, will I be willing to potentially sacrifice all the comfort I currently enjoy to get paid more? Sure, there’s a chance I could get a better paying job AND all the same perks, but that’s not a guarantee and I will never know until I’m working that new job. Also take into account all the effort required to learn everything on the new job and having to “perform” to impress as a new hire.

But who knows, it might come to a point where my current pay is no longer enough. Only time will tell.

This article is more than 9 years old.

This sucks for the general public. You're always either going to be dealing with a] a disgruntled employee who knows he deserves a raise or b] an under trained new guy. You never get the one who knows the job really well.

I used to be one of the “loyal” ones but around covid time I decided to see where I could get by doing this. Since then, and three jobs later, my salary went from around 66k to now 105k. Current gig seems cool and a cake walk, so may stick around a bit.

Negotiating with your current boss is significantly more difficult than negotiating with a future prospective firm, because your future prospective firm doesn't have the power to fire you.

Unless you have a union job, then you're making the same thing as anyone else with the same experience as you and you've got benefits and probably job security 👍

Or, as my omniscient relatives and neighbors who have on countless occasions provided unsolicited commentary on my career would say, "a nice stable job, why don't you ever stay in one place?"

This has been well documented for at least a decade.

Meanwhile, employers feign concern over turnover but know it's a better bottom line and their bonus to let employees with standards leave than to do the right thing.

Article is old but I have often heard this anecdotally. I have known a number of people over the years who changed jobs every 1-2 years, because they said it's the only way to get ahead salary-wise. I suspect it's a lot harder to pull it off now, tough. There's a lot of fake job postings. Not to mention running the gauntlet of submitting your resume 300 times to get auto-rejected 299 times by some dumbass AI where a clueless HR person typed in the criteria prompt. "A young person with at least 30 years of experience who knows ALL the latest technology but will work for less than a landscaper per hour thanks bye".

P.S. I'm not shitting on landscapers. They do real work, unlike most office drones like me.

Before covid I switched jobs. Got about $12k more. Months go by, COVID hits and I can't do my job (didn't have the flexibility and daycare was shut down). So I get my old job back but said I'd do it for $X where X was another $10k above from the new job.

Switching jobs definitely works. It sucks giving up a sure thing and the comfort zone though

Ha.. This is true.

There's only been one company that I had worked for almost 4 years. Every company I've ever worked for, on my second year I check the job market, if it looks good I start to submit my resume with the goal to get job offers that offer either more pay or more PTO/sick time/holidays (more time off combined). Take my job offer, present it to my employer, then just leave to the other org because more than likely I'll have a target on my back when it comes time to cut employees / lay off.

Except I can't switch cause the tech sector crashed and nobody hits me back.

I wonder how this looks when compared to a decent union shop. In union shops you probably tend to not move jobs a lot, or like in some trades you take your union creds with you no matter where you work.

You certainly can increase pay by jumping around a lot in regular work, but union gigs tend to have set progression based on seniority.

I've moved to a couple different employers over the last few years obtaining all kinds of skills, most of the companies went down or moved to cheaper labour countries.

My wage has been stagnant for the past 10 years. It's all bullshit anyway, they just fuck with you just to fuck with you.

10 year old article might be off juuust a smidge

Eh, at some point you find a place you like and stop worrying so much about getting 20% more in another job

Don't worry if you're Canadian - wages don't go up here unless you're in a good good union, or crack upper management.

There may be a few industries where job hopping is worthwhile, but there's a kilometers thick crust of nepotism to crack if you don't have connections

While not focused on exactly the same topic, this HMW video has some intersection and gets into the nitty of what's going on.

It also means the employers hosed themselves, since skilled labor is not threatened by a potential firing (the way they once were) and are continuously looking for their next rung on the ladder elsewhere. Also, it means promotions are no longer an incentive for hard work, since the workers expect you to hire from elsewhere. So all those incentives to overperform are gone.

PS: Curiously in The Sims 2 (a 2004 game) I figured out the best way to get rich legitimately (e.g. without using cheats, and not getting an Open For Business storefront, was to swap careers whenever you reached the top tier of a career ladder while sustaining necessary skill and friend minimums. The sim would get promotions every day of work, including a fat bonus, and I could finally afford that pre-built dream-house I made.)