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I just learned of this thread yesterday, and I've been to busy to read more than first and last pages. So sorry about asking stuff that's been answered a bunch before. My situation is this: first of, I'm in Denmark. Strong public sector, very clear collective bargaining within the public sector. There is essentially a pretty decent minimum comp, plus room for negotiation, which can be high in certain positions. I'm currently employed in a public agency at the lowest level plus a small bit extra. Very common and quite acceptable, but also essentially the lowest they could possibly get away with (sound strange? Try collective bargaining). Now, this particular position sucks balls because management is ...not good. I am slowly getting back from sick leave due to very predictable and fixable bad conditions, and nothing has changed. I am in information security (not technical but organisational), a field with too few qualified candidates. I am great at my job, but I don't have much paper to prove it, despite being mentored by a well known and respected former coworker. I've been in the business around 3 years now, unfortunately with three different places of employment, all public agencies. Getting to the point: tomorrow, I am going to have coffee with the CEO of a small company specialising in information security. And by coffee I'm pretty sure we're talking serious offer of employment. They have a pretty good piece of software that I have a lot of experience in, and then they do consulting work. Presumably I will be doing consulting work. I know the CEO from my previous employment, and he seems to have been impressed by my abilities (and I said nice things about his software). Essentially, I want to work for this guy, he's pretty sensible, but I also kind of want more money because I'm honestly worth it. My current salary is roughly DKK 35000, which he can basically look up on loenoverblik.dk - but my realistic BATNA would be waiting around (very doable) and getting a better position in a different agency. This should also be fairly obvious to the guy, and honestly I'll probably mention it to him in the negotiation. I don't have any real realistic goal, but I'm hoping to settle for more than 40000, which seems pretty substantial. In terms of alternative comp, I'm pretty firm on 37 hours and 6 weeks paid vacation, paid sick leave including first day off when my kid is sick and essentially a bunch of good stuff that strong unions have provided. That's completely standard in public agencies and common outside as well. I guess my question is: how do I approach this casual kind of negotiation, where I'm gonna be pretty easy to read? My thought is also that a public sector job is gonna be more cozy, so he's gonna have to pay me meaningfully more than I could get even after two years of experience as a consultant, because I would honestly be tempted. That is also something I expect to be upfront about. I basically welcome any thoughts, and just writing this out is honestly pretty helpful.
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Feb 21, 2021 20:16
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Thanks for the advice! I'm fairly certain that expectations are quite different between the US and Denmark regarding work hours. Unless you're a super career person, 37-40 hours is absolutely the norm. I am very definitely gonna be clear that I might work overtime once in a while, but it won't be the norm. As for transportation, I live fairly centrally in Copenhagen, where most businesses are. It's Denmark, so the distances are a lot smaller. I honestly don't expect a problem, but I am going to ask about it. I know they have billing for transportation at least. It definitely seems like I was gonna lowball myself, also are talking to my union, so that's good to know. I'm gonna adjust accordingly and report back.
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Feb 22, 2021 14:26
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Trip report: we talked for 1.5 hours about my current job, my previous job, the company, my role, all sorts of very interesting stuff, and honestly it's a really good fit, especially since he wanted me to be part time consultant, part time product owner. He was very into letting me have a family, and we spent some time discussing this company versus traditional consultant companies, where they value engine persons and regular working hours, 65% billable time and so on. He did get me to say a number, despite me telling him I wouldn't, so I completely highballed it, which made him hesitate, but continue talking about my role. I feel like that's the best outcome given that I hosed up and said 50.000dkk (this time including pension, that and taxes means I completely lose track of what I get and what I want). All in all a very pleasant experience, but with very little talk of actual compensation. It was pretty clear that I can definitely get the job, which is nice, so now it's more about finding the right deal. I have the next meeting Wednesday, and they want me to quit my current job Friday, which could get a bit rushed if the details aren't immediately agreeable. Obviously I'm not quitting without an acceptable offer in writing. I'm gonna have my union look at whatever contract they send obviously, to make sure I'm not getting screwed.
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Feb 22, 2021 20:27
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BonHair posted:Trip report: we talked for 1.5 hours about my current job, my previous job, the company, my role, all sorts of very interesting stuff, and honestly it's a really good fit, especially since he wanted me to be part time consultant, part time product owner. He was very into letting me have a family, and we spent some time discussing this company versus traditional consultant companies, where they value engine persons and regular working hours, 65% billable time and so on. Final update: I landed on 47.000 dkk per month all inclusive, which is slightly higher than the average for my educational background and year of graduation, which in turn is more than my messy career trajectory would imply. It was really helpful with you guys, and also having the union help me look up averages and look over the kinks in the contract. I maintained IP rights to stuff I do outside of work on that account. I got offered 45, pointed out that the average is 46 and asked if he considered me below average in a slightly joking way. This was apparently the right move and I got more than I expected or hoped for really. And this was after agreeing that I might not be working 100% the first month since I'm recovering from stress. All in all pretty good. Also, there was no mention of restricting me from seeking employment at a customer, except that I can't have a competing simultaneous job. So that's nice if it turns out I want to go back to the public sector. I gotta say that negotiating with a guy who's both the business owner, a future close colleague and my immediate superior has a weird power dynamic, because I also want to essentially be friends with him to some extent from here on out. BonHair fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Feb 25, 2021 |
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Feb 25, 2021 19:30
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In my experience (Denmark, public sector), it's absolutely the standard to decide on a candidate and only then figure out the practicalities like salary. But this is also a field where collective bargaining is pretty strong and the pay difference is fairly low and predictable by education and experience. It gives you a better hand because they already said they want you, or at least that's my reading.
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Mar 4, 2021 22:24
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Etuni posted:Related to the previous page, does anyone have experience negotiating for more pay when your counterpart leaves? I share a job title with one other person at my company who is about to give her 2 weeks notice. I've already put in for a 5% raise, and should hear whether I'm getting that by the end of the month. However, once she leaves I'll be taking over her duties, and will now be the only person in a a 500+ person company with 40+ products doing my job. I'm going to push hard for them to replace her ASAP, but historically they haven't been very fast or good about this. I know the answer is find a new job, and I've started brushing up my resume, but I like my benefits and the prospect of selling myself, finding, and starting a new job in a pandemic is the last thing I want to do. What is a reasonable ask for the interim period when I'm working alone doing 2 people's work (really the work of 3-4 people)? Has any company ever been willing to increase someone's pay when this happens? The high risk semi-long-term solution is to keep doing exactly what you're doing now without picking up any slack and make them realize how much extra work you'd be picking up and how bad it is when no one does it. This involves risk of being terminated and possible trouble from here on out if it works. On the other hand, if you're essential and hard to replace, you're in a good spot financially for some time. My anecdote here is a former workplace where 5 out of around 300 people had their own private offices: the 4 people on the board and a niche computer toucher. The latter was basically the only person who could fill the role, and he knew it. I wish I could have seen his negotiations, and his other results. Incidentally, he also had a habit of ignoring orders if he didn't agree with management. I imagine he occasionally mentioned retirement just to remind management that he didn't need them.
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Mar 11, 2021 19:54
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Don't go down from your current salary. Definitely play up how your current experience in the company and non traditional background gives you a fresh synergetic perspective that will counteract silo thinking or whatever. Cross company networking is not nothing either. Also you will still be somewhat available to help your replacement.
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Mar 19, 2021 18:59
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Consultant work has other aspects than PowerPoints?
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Mar 23, 2021 22:17
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A good rule of thumb is that if two things look about equally good, you should pick the one that requires change. This is because your brain has a preference for what you know, also known as a conservative bias. So if new job and staying put sound about equal, chances are new job is actually better. Anecdotally, my previous job had everything, great colleagues, meaningful work, career progression, work live balance, benefits and so forth (pay wasn't great in retrospective, but eh, I didn't really care at the time). However, my boss was one of two bad bosses in the organisation, and I couldn't deal with her. So I switched jobs. The new job had a great boss, who was fired soon after I started, whereupon everything went to loving poo poo, I spent most of my time doing nothing while idiots decided idiocy and didn't tell what they wanted while the deadline approached. I got a serious take-a-month-off-doctor's-orders stress diagnosis from bad management and have now successfully landed a new job because gently caress that shithole. My point in all this is that I don't regret the initial change, despite everything getting worse. I wasn't happy, I wasn't gonna get happy, and while I sure as poo poo didn't get happier at the new place, it served as a stepping stone to something that hopefully makes me happy. Or at the very least richer I guess, but in that case it's another stepping stone. Keep going until you get to somewhere you want to be.
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Mar 24, 2021 20:38
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:It sucks, but offer letters are generally nonbinding. I'm not sure what an employment lawyer would do in this case. This really stood out to me. That really sucks. I remember being super nervous about this for my first adult job and talking to my union about it, and they assured me that offer letters are binding over here in Denmark. It just makes a lot of sense from the perspective of a flexible labour market too, since it lets people change jobs without worrying about poo poo like this.
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Mar 31, 2021 18:53
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Good ending! It sounds like they honestly hosed up with the temp and tried to damage control as quickly as possible when they realized. Bad situation, especially for you, but it sounds like they owed up to it in the end.
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Mar 31, 2021 21:55
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Just because they literally wrote the book doesn't mean they are all experts. The book is probably written by the senior expert with help and proofreading from the team, and has the huge luxury of not taking time constraints into account (in the actual text being written). You being self taught actually could be a plus here, since you obviously know enough to get hired at a good rate and got there by thinking for yourself instead of just following a manual. I have seen way too many people who had been taught the manual and were good at following it, but then were hopelessly lost if they had to step outside it. Take the job, do some new fun stuff. You wouldn't have applied if you weren't ready to switch jobs.
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Apr 1, 2021 19:37
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Xguard86 posted:Am I an rear end in a top hat for almost never feeling imposter syndrome? I feel like it's usually something like the opposite: I'm continually disappointed with how unimpressed I am with those senior to me. I feel the same. I've had plenty of colleagues and bosses with 20 years more experience than me who seemed like they were roughly as competent as me, if not less so. It's probably a combination of us but being idiots, us not knowing what we don't know and, at least in my case, white man syndrome, where I believe I'm hot loving poo poo because of privilege.
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Apr 1, 2021 20:17
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At least in my neck of the woods, the first three months at any workplace is a "trial period" where you both can walk away if it's not a good fit with (in theory) no hard feelings (I still got pissed when I was fired in that period, but that's because the manager was an idiot). Just be careful to tell anyone you like that you got an unexpected dream job or whatever, they'll likely understand, and if you need to, tell management that the position didn't meet your expectations in practice (you can always find something they exaggerated in the description). As for job A, they're heavily invested in you, and they will try to negotiate. Definitely shoot high, especially since your alternative is job B, which seems comfy enough.
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Apr 13, 2021 16:33
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jimmychoo posted:haven't signed an offer letter yet, but the pay is fine tbh. am i chump if i don't negotiate higher anyway? In addition to the above, it's uncomfortable to negotiate now, but in a week or three, no one is gonna remember or care about the number or the process leading to it. Except you, because you get to donate that much more to the local orphanage/buy that much more coke/pay off your student loans before you hit 89. But it's absolutely uncomfortable, so I get why you don't wanna.
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Apr 18, 2021 20:05
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I understand that recruiting is technically a component of HR, but I think outsourcing stuff like benefits management, payroll, etc, is not quite as bad. Outsourcing routine management is fine, both in HR and finances, especially if you can't justify a full time staff for it. Recruitment is not routine though, and the recruiter should have some feel for both the business and the subject matter of the position. All of the interviews I've done have had the immediate superior as the interviewer, which just makes sense.
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Apr 30, 2021 21:16
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shame on an IGA posted:lol Ikea is a nonprofit Does nonprofit actually mean any profit is moved offshore? I don't think we have nonprofits as a distinct category in Denmark except NGOs I guess.
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May 8, 2021 19:12
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Eric the Mauve posted:If he's still young (which I assume he is) that one single little timidity-driven mistake is going to cost him a million dollars over the course of his life, or drat near. It shouldn't really affect his next salary though, right? Except in his mind where he'd be happy with a 10% increase instead of the 20% that would put him back to average. I got two new jobs during the pandemic. First one I was an idiot about and accepted their first offer. Second one I found this thread and I feel like I did pretty well. But I never felt like the first affected the second in any real way.
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May 14, 2021 20:16
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buglord posted:Despite all odds I’ve made it to the third and final round of the interview. I don’t think I can kick the salary can down the road any longer. They're not gonna pick a less qualified guy for 5k after three rounds of interviews, at least not without negotiating with you about it. At that point, they've made the decision about what choice number you are, and will only bump you down if you ask something outrageous like 75k or 10 weeks vacation. They won't have more than 3 guys in my experience, and probably just you and possibly one other guy.
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May 14, 2021 20:37
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Eric the Mauve posted:Not at all. Two points about this. If this happens to you in the EU, or (I think) in an EU based company, it's very much illegal because of GDPR. This is worth knowing in case the company screwed you over, because you get a pretty nuclear option of reporting them, which could lead to solve serious fines. I think this would also apply in most places that copied the GDPR, possibly even California.
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May 15, 2021 06:52
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leper khan posted:Selling your salary bands and buying other people's salary bands is illegal? None of the data is at the person level, and they may not know where in the band you are, but HR at bigco absolutely knows the salary bands for level 62 vs 63 at msft or whatever. It's part of how the company ensures they're paying competitively. Or justifying not paying competitively by self-identifying as competing in a lower pay industry. Having data like that is legal yeah. But at least in the places I've worked, that only tells you about the floor. Your new place can only say that your band is x-y, not if you're actually exceeding it. And also be company doesn't automatically know which band you fit into. But my experience is in a much different world I admit, where there are three categories for non-management and about the same for management, and everything else is more or less negotiable up to absurd amounts.
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May 15, 2021 13:19
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Succes is awesome! And also remember, even if they can see you're underpaid, they will want to pay you at market rate to make sure you don't leave immediately. Recruiting and training is expensive, and giving you a few thousand extra is usually worth it for them in the long run. Of course, not all companies see the wisdom in this.
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Jun 2, 2021 20:18
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Just adding to the above plan: do a risk assessment of some kind for your area. I work in information security, so that's where I'd start, but it could just as well be a business risk assessment or something. This should highlight all the things you stop from going horribly wrong, and also highlight that they will go wrong without you
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Jun 30, 2021 21:09
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In my Danish government jobs, I've had to get a security clearance from the police intelligence agency. Apparently, what they care most about, except for you being involved with known criminals, is your debt situation. You have to fill out all outstanding debts too. It kinda makes sense too, because of you're in over your head, an easy out might be too tempting. But in general, if your record is not relevant, the company either doesn't care or is lovely. The worst thing you can do is try to cover it up, and if possible, try to give it a good spin.
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Jul 27, 2021 21:29
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Deadite posted:For context my company has ~60,000 employees so I'm not sure I need to be worried about HR being mad at me or even remembering who I am, but my manager might be a different story. Does this just depend on my relationship with my manager? Yeah, HR isn't going to remember you, especially since they probably have a crazy turnover. This is why they keep a file on every employee where they note down stuff like this, and also any complaints you make, alleged bad behaviours, and so on. And whenever there's a firing round, they'll look through those files.
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Aug 8, 2021 20:15
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There's an off chance that HR is being terrible on their template, but the actual hiring guy thinks it's bullshit, and he's the one who decides if there's room in his budget. In that case, he will ignore if you put in 0 or 99999999, but may be anchored by a realistic amount. What I'm saying is, put in 0 and see what happens if you wrote the application already. But don't get your hopes up, it's likely to be poo poo as mentioned.
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Aug 20, 2021 21:19
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My feeling is that anything they would consider a threat would get you a very nice place in the list of people to get rid of soon, so be careful if you can't afford it. E: but absolutely gently caress them and you should get your money. Just don't get so angry that you end up kicking yourself in the teeth.
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Sep 21, 2021 20:20
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empty whippet box posted:I have a job interview which should be a lock today. Start date should be in a couple weeks. No matter what happens I will be finishing out this training and then leaving for the new job, assuming I get it, which I should. They have hosed around and now they will find out. In the meantime, I still haven't been paid so I guess I have to call my state's dept of labor at this point because I can't get anyone in the company to respond to any email or inquiry about my pay no matter who I send it to or what I say. Excellent, you should absolutely call the state once you have final confirmation from the new place. And but some popcorn, because it could be fun to watch. I just wanted to make sure you didn't get yourself fired and unemployed because of a delayed payment.
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Sep 23, 2021 09:44
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skipdogg posted:Very true. My old boss was 100% the reason I walked away from 17 years at the last place(s). I was assigned to him post acquisition along with some other SME's to form a new team that didn't really go anywhere. I remember clearly the day I decided I was going to quit after we had a 1:1. Aug 14th 2020. It took me until Nov to find a new job which I didn't start until Jan 2021 Once you become a manager, in my experience, you can only fail upwards. My previous job had the manager literally bring down half the team including me with stress (actual, doctor-requiring stress with months of recovery), twice for one of my colleagues. While also absolutely bombing our project. He was actually fired, but it took him two weeks to get an equivalent job. The job before, I and more than half the team left within a year or two of getting a new manager. I went to her boss and told him about it, I talked to various people at the company including other managers at her level about her, and everyone agreed that she was bad at her job and hard to work with. And she is leading a governance team, which is literally about working together. But she's still there, and still terrible. And also the only thing I really disliked about that job. Anyway, I'm just venting. But thanks to her being a terrible person (actually, she wasn't much of a person, just a drone) and this thread, I was able to afford a house. So even bad bosses can be good.
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Sep 23, 2021 20:49
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I don't know if this is a result of collective bargaining, but in my old place, management had a set budget for raises at raise time. If so, you will essentially be competing for this with everyone else, and internal politics makes it less likely that you will get a large chunk of it. If it's possible to go off schedule, it could make it easier on that way. As a side note, the written agreement made sure that the budget was a hard floor and usually the actual raises were above budget because of the local union reps.
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Oct 9, 2021 20:55
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Remember it's the system that's bullshit, not the guy fronting it.
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Nov 5, 2021 20:54
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On that point: sometimes, your immediate superior is in fact negotiating on your behalf. I learned that when I put in for a raise, after informing said supervisor that I would do so, and she called me after negotiations and told me that I was absolutely not deserving. It sucked, but she was terrible in general, so I gave my notice the same month I think. The point being, sometimes, your immediate supervisor can be your ally in negotiations, and also it sucks extra if they're terrible.
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Nov 23, 2021 18:47
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Honestly, that sounds a lot more like a guy trying to justify nepotism than someone getting passed over for promotion because he was looking for other work.
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Dec 8, 2021 19:56
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Quick trip report: my wife got a new job, so that's nice. She's formally unqualified, but otherwise a great fit. She asked me about pay, so I told her a fairly big number (50.000 DKK/month). She didn't think she could get it in a government job, so she went with 45, which was countered with an offer of 44, which she took. Except at her level in the Danish government, the union representative formally does the negotiation after agreement in principle, which occasionally adds a bit. In this case the union rep was mostly just impressed with the number though, which makes me think it's good. Bottom line: I anchored my wife high. Always go high.
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May 7, 2023 10:02
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spwrozek posted:Management got no union my man. Seriously? Surely Denmark is not ahead on this point? We have both a straight up union for managers (Lederne, literally The Managers) and more importantly a lobbyist organisation for employers (Dansk Arbejdsgiverforening, The Danish Union of employers), who do the collective negotiations on behalf of companies and obviously various lobbyist stuff. Also, all the union jobs I've had also had negotiations and individual adjustments to the base. The company needs some way to convince a candidate sometimes and I don't think unions should mind that someone makes more than the reasonable default (except management exploitation obviously).
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Aug 20, 2023 15:49
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This thread has definitely been the reason I and my wife are quite overpaid compared to our peers, especially considering our backgrounds. In terms of dollars (actually kroner), this thread has been the most valuable in my 16 years of being dead and gay.
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Aug 24, 2023 18:56
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Not so much a raise as a fall
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Aug 26, 2023 06:36
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For the record, telling basically anyone other than recruiters (and other people involved in hiring you) what you make is actually pretty cool. You're basically either telling them that they could do better or (assuming they also share) you will know that you're being cheated. This goes for strangers, co-workers, friends, family and especially interns and other young people. A large part of why my work is not formally unionised is probably that we share and encourage each other to go hard if someone is not getting what they're worth.
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Aug 26, 2023 20:27
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If you wanna get philosophical about it, the only moral obligation corporations have is to generate value for the owners. That is essentially why they exist in this capitalistic society. Any other effect of a company is essentially incidental. One might argue that long term planning and continual surplus is better than immediate payout followed by collapse, but that's only for the kind of people who don't piss their pants to keep warm. Some owners and managers choose to set aside that moral obligation because of personal belief, which is good, but also bad for business.
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Aug 30, 2023 19:37
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Another important part of changing jobs is that your experience is in your current company, which means it's essentially the same as everyone else's. But in a new job, all that experience is a fresh perspective, which is much more valuable, especially since you will pretty quickly be able to compare old and new and find the best way. It's also amazing how much you realize you actually know when you move away from the people who haven't taught you those things or heard them a million times before. So yeah, don't ever be afraid to jump ship.
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Aug 31, 2023 13:09
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