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I had a job interview for a position with a city government in Washington State today; I don't anticipate getting an offer, but the position is union-represented; given that it's a government position and union-represented, I think benefits and salary are locked in and non-negotiable. Is that the case (I've never been in a union before)?
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Dec 11, 2019 03:09
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 13:20 |
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So, reviewing some of the posts in this thread, I'm wondering if I hosed up. As I mentioned before, I interviewed for a position with local government. They stated a pay range in the job description which was pretty wide, but started at slightly less than what I'm making now and went up to a 20+% raise, in addition to being a union-represented non-exempt hourly position (as opposed to my current unrepresented exempt salary position). Honestly, even if I got the bottom of the range in pay, it would probably represent a significant increase in my hourly pay (given the extra hours I work). All that being said, I'm currently working as a sysadmin-level IT professional in a not-for-profit. The job I'm interviewing for was described as a "PC Technician," the job description carried a lot of desires for pretty technical things (pretty much all of which I meet), and was hinting at some relatively large projects. One of the early questions was "we're converting from Office 2013 to Office 365, what are some possible obstacles you think we may run into with this?" I gave a pretty loving detailed answer to it, citing some work I'd done earlier, and some pretty specific and fairly technical obstacles. After this, they broke into some more technical questions, which ended up being things like "what is an IP address and how would you find it" and "what would you do to troubleshoot someone who can't print?" (these are very basic questions that anyone competent who has done pretty much any IT work would know inside of their first month). Once the basic questions were done, they asked me if I had any questions, and I asked some, and one of the people there followed up with a question of "why did you apply for this job?" I gave what I thought was a good answer about wanting to do some altruistic work, looking for "the last place I'll be working" at this point in my career (i.e. someplace with a public pension), and--here is where I'm wondering whether or not I hosed up--that while there were a lot of things I like about my current job, I'm underpaid and overworked, and that this job would offer either a small pay bump and a much better work/life balance, or a very large pay bump due to the overtime. I was really worried they were thinking I was overqualified, and wanted to alleviate that concern; given that it's union, government work and they already laid out a pay band, did I gently caress up? I'm also probably going to be applying for a lot of jobs like this in the future (which is to say, jobs that I appear to be overqualified for; the sysadmin-level jobs in the local government are largely only open to internal candidates), is there a different, better way I should approach this? Ham Equity fucked around with this message at 10:05 on Dec 11, 2019 |
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Dec 11, 2019 09:57
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Eric the Mauve posted:fakeedit: I've worked for nonprofits twice (one medium-size, one small), and my experience both times is that their executives take outlandish salaries for themselves and their posse while hammering at everyone else to accept being overworked and underpaid because we're not for profit, we all sacrifice for the good of the community! and usually also pressuring everyone to totally-voluntarily-but-you-drat-well-better-do-it-if-you-want-a-future-here volunteer their time or donate their money back to their employer on a regular basis. That's private nonprofits, not government.
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Dec 11, 2019 19:40
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Suicide Watch posted:A company I'm looking at says this on their application form: "Top of the salary band." No idea if that's useful or not.
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Jan 23, 2020 04:07
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Hoodwinker posted:This also gives you some drat good motivation to ask as many questions as possible to give yourself a solid foundation to tweak the original quote. This is good sense anyway, but now you've really got a reason to do it.
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Feb 8, 2020 01:36
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:You can definitely live on $65k in Denver, but just be aware that it will require more planning and effort and tradeoffs than living on $65k anywhere in Tennessee.
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May 5, 2020 16:23
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I have a friend who works for a startup that was bought out several years ago by a much larger company. The larger company is outsourcing most of their teams to India. This dude is a manager-level (like, eleven reports before they started cutting people). They've more or less admitted that all the teams will be outsourced in the next year. He pulls in $80,000 a year; what's a good ask for a retention bonus? The best people to train are leaving like crazy right now, so I think he's probably got some leverage.
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Jun 30, 2020 10:40
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Dik Hz posted:He should be leaving also. Director level (11 reports is effectively a director) of a successful start-up should be making more than $80k. Even in a low cost of living area he's underpaid to the tune of $50-100k Officer Koala Fart posted:Are retention bonuses generally asked for? In my experience they are freely given by management desperate to retain talent while the organization is falling apart.
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Jun 30, 2020 19:44
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I just had a recruiter play the "we're not continuing with this discussion until you name a salary" card. I'm thankful I'm not desperate, and I'm guessing they're having trouble hiring for this job because it has weird hours (that I think I would actually really like). I followed up by asking several clarifying questions about the job (the description didn't even mention whether it was exempt or not), so we'll see. I strongly suspect they're trying to pay very little for the position, and when I name a number they'll tell me to gently caress off.
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Sep 10, 2020 18:42
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Anti-Hero posted:Did they reach out to you or vice versa? Lockback posted:Naming a number first doesn't have to be a bad thing, in negotiation it's called "anchoring" and there's tons of research to indicate its better to anchor than have the other party start first and anchor too low. Tibalt's example is a good example where he got played because he was already at a disadvantage and didn't know the ranges to begin with. She wound up responding to my questions by giving me a salary range, so, mission accomplished.  Also, I'm not sure whether recruiters would consider this a positive or a negative, but I find myself getting partway through applications for jobs that look like I may be interested in but don't super excite me based on the description and just not bothering finishing the application if their application site is a pain in the rear end.
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Sep 10, 2020 19:10
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Eric the Mauve posted:Don’t work at a nonprofit if you can help it. They won’t go a dime higher than maybe $85k, the bennies won’t be nearly worthwhile, and you should decline and keep looking. Just echoing this. Aside from executives, people work at non-profits because they believe in the work and don't care about money. If you want to get paid, look at private sector, if you want security, look at public sector, if you want to feel good about your work, look at non-profit.
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Oct 15, 2020 23:44
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Chalets the Baka posted:Thanks for the the advice - I'm not going to accept this job, unless they can come up with total comp that ends up better than what I've got now. I'm not holding my breath.
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Oct 16, 2020 18:39
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Had The Talk today with the HR person for the local government office for my hopefully upcoming job switch. It's a union job, pay bands go from $75,000-$95,000, I went ahead and asked for the 8th of ten steps at $91,000. I'm hoping they come back with $80-$85,000, but honestly I would totally take the $75,000 (it's a 25% pay increase with better benefits). Thank you thread for making me brave.
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Jan 14, 2021 00:46
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Thanatosian posted:Had The Talk today with the HR person for the local government office for my hopefully upcoming job switch. It's a union job, pay bands go from $75,000-$95,000, I went ahead and asked for the 8th of ten steps at $91,000. I'm hoping they come back with $80-$85,000, but honestly I would totally take the $75,000 (it's a 25% pay increase with better benefits). Ooookaaayyyy... So, I'm expecting this offer to come in today, but also had a call with another job I'd been interviewing for that weren't as up-front about salary. We were talking next steps, and I said that I was almost certainly gonna accept this first offer, and they asked about a counter-offer, and I said "I mean... I would entertain one, but it would need to be six figures," figuring that was a gently caress-off number... and she said "let me talk to some people and get back to you." She said I was their number one candidate, and head-and-shoulders above the others. Over a year of applying and interviewing with no offers, and then this in the same week.
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Jan 15, 2021 00:32
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Just put in my notice. 60% salary increase, better time off, plus going from 3% matching on 6% contribution to retirement to 7% matching on 7% contribution, and when I told them I was leaving, even after I told them my new salary, my boss suggested they wanted to counter. Get loving paid. You're probably worth more than you think you are (I was hoping for a 35% increase while I was searching before I got my offers). Listen to the thread. 
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Jan 22, 2021 23:06
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Inner Light posted:Congrats and thanks for coming back to the thread to share your success. Are you going to consider a counter depending on the f-you number?
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Jan 22, 2021 23:45
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BeastOfExmoor posted:Is this the same job and they offered you more than you asked for? Either way  That job actually fell through; it was going to be a "temporary" 36-month position at a government office that makes internal-only job postings all the time that I'm qualified for, but the funding didn't come through, and the term got reduced to 6-12 months. I wasn't worried at three years, but at 6-12 months I was. Which is why you don't put in your notice until you have the official offer, and don't withdraw from consideration of other jobs. Ham Equity fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Jan 23, 2021 |
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Jan 23, 2021 00:45
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Zarin posted:Question for the thread: I've recently accepted an offer, and now it's time to move forward with a background screen, drug test, etc.
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Feb 3, 2021 20:19
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Guinness posted:Freelancing/contracting is also somewhat paradoxical in that the higher rates you charge the better customers you tend to get. You have to view a freelancing position as a business-to-business transaction, not a business-to-individual transaction. You are a business and should know what your going rate is. And it should be high out the gate because you can always negotiate it down, but very difficult to negotiate it up.
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Feb 10, 2021 20:36
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TheParadigm posted:If your boss seems cool and open to it - try arranging your final few weeks with your saved up vacation time so that you're on the books but not at work when bonus day +1 rolls around. Usually bonus policies like that require you to actually be working the final day/week, not just on the payroll.
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Feb 17, 2021 22:42
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OMGVBFLOL posted:i read the entire op and it has been a powerful affirmation of my suspcion that office workers live in an entirely different world than the rest of us We really, really do, and it is profoundly unfair. The vast majority of people working in hospitality or doing manual labor work way harder than us.
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Feb 18, 2021 04:26
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 13:20 |
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RE: wage slavery, if you are in retail or food service and looking to get out, one way to do it is to go to work for a bank or credit union as a teller or call center jockey. It's not going to pay that much more (and in the case of some food service jobs, may actually pay less), but many teller/phone teller jobs come with benefits at a base level (insurance and paid time off, yo), and especially at smaller institutions, there can be opportunity to move to non-customer facing roles, which lets you get the true white-collar experience to parley into other jobs. It also has the advantage that your retail/food service experience is relevant, and if you're posting on this forum, your computer skills are probably significantly better than their average applicant's. I have a few friends who have done this, so, y'know, anecdotal (my old roommate just moved into a salaried analyst position via this path from working food service five years ago), but it seems relatively solid; as solid as any other path out I've heard of, especially if you don't have a college degree.
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Feb 19, 2021 02:12
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