|
Ugh, FML. Long story short, I got a job offer for a W2 contract through a staffing agency. In my area, contracts tend to pay less than the salary rate, which I know is backwards from most places. This time they said that there would be a cut on conversion after we agreed on a number. Here's a draft letter I wrote up just now, could I get feedback on it? Cross posted from the IT thread: (Pleasantries) "I remembered something mentioned in passing during one of our phone calls. You said that upon conversion I could expect a cut in pay in exchange for the expanded benefits. This is opposite from my experience regarding contracts in the past. Most of the ones I have seen which said anything about it promised an increase of effectively several dollars an hour. Decreasing by effectively several dollars an hour would leave me at or below the bottom end of the local salary range. Because of this unexpected difference, I would like to request an increase in the hourly rate from $27 per hour to $35 per hour. I recognize that this is a big swing, but the difference between gaining thousands of dollars per year and losing thousands of dollars per year is a big swing too. This would make my post-conversion salary more in line with the average in the area." I feel like that's a big request, but the terms were much different than I expected and I would probably end up going down to <50k after conversion. For reference, the average in the city is 58-60k. Thanks for any help you all can give.
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2016 19:05
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 11:03 |
|
|
It seems like locally they think of it like a trial period. It does really suck not looking forward to holidays since you don't get paid for them. E: I haven't started yet, this is a new contract I would be starting. So I don't have any accomplishments yet. They would probably end up cutting me to ~46k, but that's a wild guess since I haven't hit this situation before. 22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Dec 22, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2016 19:36
|
|
|
How is this sounding? As I said in the IT thread I'm really bad at being assertive. Would anchoring with 25 or 50 cent increments likely help, or is that whole thing BS? (Saying I hope she had a good vacation) "I remembered something mentioned in passing during one of our recent phone calls. You said that upon conversion I could expect a cut in pay in exchange for the expanded benefits. This is counter to my experience regarding contracts in the past. Most of the ones I have seen or discussed promised an increase of 15-35% on top of the benefits. Decreasing my pay upon conversion would leave me at or below the bottom end of the local salary range. Because of this unexpected difference, an increase in the hourly rate from $27 per hour to $35 per hour is warranted. This would make my post-conversion salary more in line with the average in the area." 22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Dec 22, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2016 20:13
|
|
|
It's a W2 contract to hire, which means I start out as a W2 employee of a staffing agency A working at company B and then (hopefully but not always) become a W2 employee of company B. I'm not sure how to make myself seem valuable. I've got an AS in computer science, one completed small Java project, a couple incomplete projects, and training in SQL (the actual language being used). I don't have any practical experience in SQL, though, so they are planning on doing training for both that and the special snowflake inventory/sales system they are using. Maybe try emphasizing my programming background?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2016 20:35
|
|
|
At this point I'm past the interview, I have the job already. I haven't signed any offer letters yet, though. I guess I'll just have to emphasize my coding qualifications and say how programming skills transfer between languages. Worded better than that. This one is a 6-month contract. It varies, but I start looking for something else two months out in case it doesn't get converted. It's not always even a performance thing, sometimes finances just change. The last time it was discussed it was one month out.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2016 20:49
|
|
|
"I remembered something mentioned in passing during one of our recent phone calls. You said that upon conversion I could expect a cut in pay in exchange for the expanded benefits. This is counter to my experience regarding contracts in the past. Most of the ones I have seen or discussed promised an increase of 15-35% on top of the benefits. Decreasing my pay upon conversion would leave me at or below the bottom end of the local salary range. Considering this unexpected difference as well as my coding skills and experience, an increase in the hourly rate from $27 per hour to $35 per hour is warranted. This would make my post-conversion salary more in line with the average in the area." Better? I know I'm taking a long time on this, but it's a pretty critical letter in a subject and style I'm not used to. If I can't get this rate changed, odds are I'll have to jump ship at the end of the contract, again.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2016 21:42
|
|
|
Well, I sent an email like my most recent one but also saying that I hoped we could come to an agreement, saying I looked forward to working with the company, and asking for 37. Here's hoping. I'm applying for another job tonight that a friend of my mother's suggested at his company, just in case. If I do come to an agreement for a higher number, I'm going to talk with the director and make sure there's no hard feelings about the number the recruiters gave changing. I didn't mean to bait and switch, they just completely buried the lede on the salary cut. They being the recruiters, not the director or the client company. 22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Dec 23, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Dec 23, 2016 18:59
|
|
|
Okay. I do tend to have a problem with assertiveness. In the past every time I tried to be assertive I just got poo poo on. Wherever people get paid more to do scripted IT, it definitely isn't here. Are you in the Bay Area/NYC? Around here 50k-65k seems to be the norm for this type of thing, I thought it was lower at first. I'm waiting to hear back now, the recruiter was supposed to be back today. I'm guessing they are communicating between themselves right now. E: Okay, looks like she isn't back until this evening so I'll either hear from her this evening or tomorrow. She has sent emails at 10:30PM before, so who knows. EE: Actually, she must have replied on the plane. Now she's saying that the rate on conversion would be 50-60k, to be negotiated. Of course, that is a very easy promise to make. It sounds like they aren't willing to negotiate. I'll try, but I'm not optimistic. 22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Dec 27, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Dec 27, 2016 20:25
|
|
|
How do you estimate the actual average pay for a role in an area when estimates are wildly different? I'm looking at Glassdoor, Linkedin, Salary.com, and Indeed.com. Trying to match what I'm doing the best I'm seeing from $62,000 to $100,000  . Salary.com's descriptions are so vague that maybe I'm looking at the wrong thing, there's nothing I see that precisely matches what I would say I do. The others are from 80-100k, at 80, 80, 90, 100.I mean, don't get me wrong, I would be over the moon to get even 80k, and happy to get 70k, but with numbers so all over the place I'm not sure what to expect.
|
|
#
¿
May 7, 2017 21:31
|
|
|
I know a few people in development in the area, but I'm not sure about any BI people. The tricky part is also that it's a mix of BI development and SQL development, so it's hard to pick which to go with. Thankfully in this case they're mostly the same range. I also finally found the right set of keywords for Salary.com and got another 80-90k result. I started in IT at 31k three years ago, so that would be meteoric compared to 90% of people I have worked or gone to college with. I'll ask again in the CoC threads, but I didn't get a response last time. While I'm here, anyone know a reasonable range for a BI dev / SQL dev in Denver?
|
|
#
¿
May 8, 2017 02:26
|
|
|
 I'm pretty sure KC has a much lower COL too. I'm probably going to get on the lower end since I'm so new, but we use some really unique software that would require training pretty much anybody, so I'm hoping to leverage that to negate the newness factor. I'm going to be 26 when I start, and I'll probably already be making more than my 56 year old dad has ever made. 
|
|
#
¿
May 8, 2017 17:56
|
|
|
I'm being trained in reporting at this job (contract to hire), are there any counter arguments to the predictable "we're training you, so you won't get paid as much as someone who already knew how to do this" point? I can't think of any that don't sound like "if you underpay me I'll just get a year under my belt and jump ship for another $20-30k." I am using ERP software unusual enough that they would have to train anyone they didn't have to bring in from out of state, so that's something. But I would rather be able to use the high demand low supply of the skillet as its own point rather than as a counter, if that makes sense. The fact that there are pretty much no salaries in the US posted for BI development with this software also makes it hard to gauge how high on the range I should be shooting for. At this point I'm spending most of the time I'm not spending working trying to plan this out.
|
|
#
¿
May 11, 2017 04:47
|
|
|
I was hoping for a way to convince them without threatening them, because if I get underpaid then I probably will end up leaving in a year or two and I like this place. I've never really negotiated before, so I'm trying to figure out how to do it well. I probably am going to just have to take whatever I can get, though. I doubt I could get something else like this I kind of just lucked into it. Unless they offer me something based off of what I was hired for rather than what I've been doing for most of the contract at this point. Even the low end of normal would be great. 22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 18:26 on May 11, 2017 |
|
#
¿
May 11, 2017 18:22
|
|
|
Oh, I did that too. I've got student loans from community college and an aborted University attempt. That's why I got this job, that and OJT for SQL support they never ended up needing.
|
|
#
¿
May 11, 2017 18:49
|
|
|
Yeah, I figure that's not unlikely. I would kind of like to stay here for a few years, but then again things can change very quickly at a company. Perspective check because sometimes I don't know how I come across: if I mentioned in my negotiations that my manager (who will probably be there) said (system we use) is a very valuable system to know, would that sound like I was threatening to leave? It might help that I've been training one of my coworkers on the system already, and will probably do the same with the replacement we are trying to being on. Would the fact I'm already training people myself be worth mentioning? Yes, I know it's bad that currently the most senior non-manager we have working on this system in this country has been here 4 months.
|
|
#
¿
May 11, 2017 21:19
|
|
|
I'm not expecting to be compensated like an expert, I'm just trying to put together as many arguments for being paid well for my experience level as I can. Expert would be well over 110k from what the salary sites are saying, especially with (aforementioned system) expertise. I don't expect to land anywhere near there, I'm just hoping to land more in the normal junior range rather than the intern range. I guess I wasn't being clear about that. I'm trying to figure out places I'm performing above what would normally be expected, value added to the company, that sort of thing. Is that not the proper approach? E: reading my posts I can see how you misunderstood. I communicated very poorly. 22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 22:27 on May 11, 2017 |
|
#
¿
May 11, 2017 22:08
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 11:03 |
|
|
Follow up to my posts a few months months ago. I managed to negotiate up to the top of the range for my position. Still doing way more than my job description, so I'm not happy with the pay rate, but I'm happy with the benefits and it's still another $500 per month. I'll see if I get a raise and bonus that make me happy this winter, and if not I'll start looking elsewhere. It will be nice being able to flat out refuse contracts.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2017 18:44
|
|