Hacker News Reader

Comment by hapless | Hacker News Reader

This whole thing is bad advice

* New hires get paid more because they are worth more to the employer. Point blank. You don't have to pay existing employees more to keep them working there. "A bird in hand is worth two in the bush" was meant to be a parable but it turns out to be rather more literal

* Never accept the counter-offer. If you have gone as far as interviewing outside, you are already checked out, and you are already branded as disloyal. It's time to make your exit! If you ask for a counter-offer, it should be a move to squeeze more out of your offers, not a real attempt to "stay" where you have already decided to leave

* Arguing about a raise is almost always a waste of time. If you are not happy with your 3% COLA, will 5% really mollify you? LOOK FOR NEW WORK

View on HN

> If you are not happy with your 3% COLA, will 5% really mollify you?

Most of the jobs I had didn't even have a COLA. So yes 5% would be fine.

> New hires get paid more because they are worth more to the employer

Anyone who manages a company should put their money where their mouth is and fire their whole team, and hire a new one. Those new hires are worth far more than the existing team was. Except, we all know it's BS, and existing employees are what keep a company in existence.

I mean, they ARE putting their money where their mouth is

They pay existing employees less, and new employees, more. If a whole team quits, a replacement will be more expensive. That's the state of the game!

You're confusing pay and value. The claim was that not only is pay higher for new hires, but value is higher. They are saying literally that hiring an entirely new team and ditching the old one is the most valuable move to make for the company. So why wait for them to quit?

Disagreed on point 2. I was at a company more than a decade, and the only sizeable raises I got were counteroffer matches. I liked my job and company, and it made me feel valuable.

And if you say 'well if you were valuable you shouldn't have had to', you're absolutely right, but it's the way things work. My first manager told me I was underpaid, that he couldn't fix it unless I had another offer in hand as he was capped by the company at 4% raises. So I did, and he did. And I did it 4 more times, in total 4xing my pay.

I did leave eventually, but that had nothing to do with pay.

> Never accept the counter-offer. If you have gone as far as interviewing outside, you are already checked out, and you are already branded as disloyal. It's time to make your exit! If you ask for a counter-offer, it should be a move to squeeze more out of your offers, not a real attempt to "stay" where you have already decided to leave

I quit because I felt I constricted in my role. I was given the option of switching to a different role within the company and went on to have the most professionally rewarding and satisfying years of my career.

> Never accept the counter-offer.

Even when you're the product (e.g., you're employed by a contracting company) and the demand in your industry is far greater than the supply?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com