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Company B
6

Company B

Company B

(OP)

Do you guys entertain anyone that is interested just to see if it is worthwhile even if it would be kind of a crappy move to your current employer because you haven't even been with them that long?

RE: Company B

Four decades ago, I wouldn't have considered it.

Now, I would.
 

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: Company B

Sorry, had to read the sentence 5 times to the point where I think I understand it.

I think I would...

Chris
SolidWorks 10 SP5.0
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

RE: Company B

Do as you would be done unto by others.
B.E.

The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them.  Old professor

RE: Company B

I think the post means "would I attend another interview/look at another job offer", and I think "worthwhile" means better remuneration package.  As a hiring manager, I always look at duration of previous positions (and many other things).  If you jump around, this habit will catch up with you.  If you look around and the grass looks greener... it isn't always.  If you have an issue with your current employment, best to try and sort it out!

RE: Company B

I always keep an ear open for new opportunities, especially if it's in a new industry, or involves a considerably better (+15-20%) compensation package.  There's no harm in hearing what another company has to offer.  As StructDave points out though, if you jump from company to company too often in your career (say every 6-18 months), you raise warning flags with potential employers.  They begin to question why you're not employable/stable.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."


Have you read FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies to make the best use of these Forums?

RE: Company B

3
What? No boogy-woogy bugle boy references?

I promised myself to stay with a company for at least one year.  I've had two jobs where I ran fast as I could at 1 year 1 day, but at least then I had convinced myself it was not the place for me.

Don't forget, the grass is always greener.  But if it truly is greener, good luck at your new job.

RE: Company B

The biggest risk of staying with an iffy position is that if it doesn't "sort out", you will be fired.  

Try selling _that_ to a guy like StructDave.

 

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: Company B

(OP)
I wasn't looking for this.  It came out of the blue to me and it would be a 40-50% pay bump. Typing this out, I am feel kind of dumb for feeling guilty but I am going to feel shitty not for my current company but my coworkers. All of them are good people. The office is the most functional workplace I have ever worked at and tragically also the lowest paying.  

RE: Company B

I do not think jumping around jobs nowadays can not be helped.  So many companies have scaled back to bare bones and now everyone is jumping to new jobs when they can do it given the opportunity.  The ones that were left at the bare bone company saw how they were harrassed to no end to work more hours, due to the over hang of "if you don't do this such and such then expect to be fired."

At least that is what I have experienced and have seen in companies.

I think the people that who have never experienced any umemployment have no compassion, so you will never hear this opinion out of them.

RE: Company B



controlsdude
Have you checked out the company making the offer?
  Is this a solid offer, or is it one of those "We need somebody now !!" type of job offers that will evaporate when the contract is done?
 In the present job climate, employers can and will hire and fire because they can. They know that with employment being tight finding new help is not a problem. You will also find your present employer is paying low wages for much the same reason.
B.E.
 
 

The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them.  Old professor

RE: Company B

Pushman don't feel guilty, only you can look out for you.  If you take the job and are hired-on permanently, you can always suggest past co-workers for positions at the new company.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."


Have you read FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies to make the best use of these Forums?

RE: Company B

Personally, I would HAPPILY stay in a lower-paying job with good people at a functional company.  There's not enough money in the world to make me work at a crappy company again.

Are you making it with your current salary?  Seriously, money isn't everything, and spending your day with reasonable people is worth so much more for your health.  Just make sure the new company isn't crazy, or like the place Cass works...

RE: Company B

Pushman,

You have nothing to lose by interviewing for the other job. You will gain more interview experience and hopefully learn some of the dynamics of the new company.

You may not be offered the job (or not want it), in which case your "problem" is solved.

If you are offered the job, you could use that as leverage with your current employer to negotiate a raise or at least show them their salary scale is too low.

If you don't interview, you will be left wondering what could have been.

RE: Company B

You can go through the interview without any of your co-workers knowing about it. Even if they know, it can be explained that you keep an hear open for improving your situation (There is always a place for improvement).

Then if you decide to jump ship, of course it could/will cause trouble to your co-workers but at the same time if your new jobs offers everything you already have and some more then who will blame you for taking this opportunity.

Of course I totally agree with slta that a bad working environment is though to overcome even with money. You have to consider everything in your decision, sometimes a much greater pay means that nobody wants to do it and their only options to find people is to pay big bucks.

Patrick

RE: Company B

Do the economics over your working years with that bump in pay and then consider sita's post, if you get an offer after doing the interview.  Interviewing never hurts.  Jumping around does.

I've been criticized in interviews for jumping around too much within one employer.  I've been criticized for the last few years because I've been "unstable."  If I could have seen the future, I would have remained with Marathon Petroleum.  Some understand, some don't.  You'll always find that.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC

RE: Company B

Your first responsibility is to you.
Not your company nor your co-workers.
Your employers first responsibility is to themselves and to their shareholders.
You come way down their list.
Employees are overheads and treated not as assets that mature in value with experience but as assets with depreciation.
The payroll is like an emergency cash reserve, times are hard they sack people and make others do two or three jobs for the same or less money and then forget all this when times improve.

Once upon a time, in a land far away where Quakers were industrialists, the care and well being of their employees was important to them and the built elysian communities for them such as Port Sunlight, Bourneville and so on. They did their own time and motion studies and reduced the working hours below the legal maximum of the day and helped push down the legal maximum.
Sure, they got rich.
But back then they cared.
(The downside was that these worker's communities, though offering well designed homes, sadly also offered temperance houses and no pubs..., but you can't have everything).

It was usual even into living memory (i.e. I have worked with some of the last of them) for workers to work for one company from the day they left school till the day they retired, with time off for military service.
But today, while too much job hopping, especially with gaps in employment, is a a sign of a potentially unsuitable employee, the norm is now for people to use their mobility (the other factor in long term employment with a single company) to change jobs on a more frequent basis.

There are a variety of reasons for this, including that it develops a much wider and more valuable experience base to offer, but not least is that this is possibly the only way to maintain any kind of decent salary and rewards or to progress up the career ladder.

Anyone who stays in the same job for too long gets regarded as "safe".
Safe means that it is safe for management to overlook them for promotion and safe too to offer them less than the going rate at pay review time.
Safe also means they will believe the manager when he says "times are hard. I have only a small pot to share out but I've done my best for you and you've got a little more than some others so please keep this pay rise/fall confidential." The probability is that the safe employee gets less than the average which is why the "do not discuss" clause is added.
It doesn't do to be "safe".
A little bit of job movement is a signal that you can't be considered safe for any length of time.

Even internal promotions are suspect.

They will pay you more than you get at the moment but probably far less than they'd have to pay to recruit from outside and certainly they will pocket the cost of recruiting from outside.

That you can find a job offering 40-50% more than you get now is perhaps a measure of how far below the rate you have been for too many years.

This brings me to the question I raised in another thread....
Application forms often want to know what your previous salary was.  This may give them a chance to quickly downrate the pay they will offer you but if there are any other reasons, I can't think of them.
I am reluctant to share this information but how do you not share and not lie?
I guess one answer would be that that is company confidential information, which it may well be because if they don't want you sharing your pay details with other employees, they really won't want you sharing it with competitors or other companies.
But how do others get round this?

 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

RE: Company B

You tell them lies or truth or some form of truth depends on you.
Since I have had to bounce around the last 4 years due to this great recession we are still in I have developed some good interviewing skills.

Lies
I made a little less or more(depends on your angle of your grifting skill) then what your offering but I see more opportunity here so thats why I am interviewing with you.

I try not to lie because I am bad at it, my spider web gets me caught.

Truth
I was sadly undervalued at this last company, I looked at salary for similar positions on the internet and saw I was seriously undervalued.  Its the reason I am interviewing with you.

Some form of truth
include your benefits in your salary this will be alot more I suppose but you wont be really fibbing and really they HR does this too.  Then say I think I was undervalued at this other company but think I am a better fit at your company for such and such bs reason.

There are the required salary box on the application.  You could go for a dream number and negoiate from there.  Being too high would probably get you disqualified.

Also, most jobs go thru some recruiter so ask this guy, he would know.  

The last angle is being a contract to hire position then you can get into conversations with people at that company to figure out if they (employer) are generous or not.  Some won't discuss this some will be open about salary.  

RE: Company B

Always consider yourself being lucky if you have an employer - you can always get another one - if needed. Once you become your own boss, everything looks completely different - you simply can't afford to tell yourself to clean up your desk by the end of the day and that you don't have to come to work tomorrow.

RE: Company B

Nothing wrong with seeing what the "market" rate is for your position. Your employers deserves fair treatment as well. If you like your current employer and feel you are under compensated for the work you do.. sit down with them and discuss. Sometimes one party or the other is being unrealistic in their idea of a fair wage.   

RE: Company B

Even if you do leave you don't have to completely abandon your former colleagues.  Note - I say colleagues not employers.  You could let any colleagues you are close to know that if they have a question they can contact you and that if you can you'll give them an answer.

Obviously, this needs to be reasonable in scale, and once again I remind you this is for people you effectively consider friends, not for your employer as such.

Posting guidelines FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm? (probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?

RE: Company B

I had a similar situation a few years back. I had a job that I liked with good pay. I received an offer of a 20% pay increase from another company.

I felt like I needed to accept the higher offer, so I went to the new company.

I hated the new job, I wished that I could have my old one back. After 8 months, there was a downturn in the business and I was laid off. I believe the main reason was my high salary. The company kept most of the younger, entry level engineers with significanlty lower salaries.

Luckily, my former employer took me back.

My advice is stay with your current job if you enjoy it. Having a job that you enjoy going to every day is worth quite a bit. It is difficult to know what a new job is going to be like just going through the interview process. A company that is trying to recruit you will definitely make it sound like their company is a great place to work.

 

RE: Company B

(OP)
I got the job and I like it a lot.  My wife comments on how she can tell I like working at this new company.  I think about stuff at work even when I am not at work. My current employer doesn't play games and treats me fairly. Fairly enough that sometimes I wait for the other shoe to drop. I look forward Monday mornings to going back to work minus the getting up at 6 AM.  I miss working with my previous coworkers but this is better across the board.  The last place rubbed me the wrong way with some of the games that were played and I realize now maybe I am not a good fit for a larger organization. I am glad that I wasn't just happy with having a job or too scared to give a very small company a serious look.  I honestly have nothing to complain about and only hope my current employer is happy with my work and continues to be successful.    

RE: Company B

For a second, when I read the title of this thread, I thought it was about a boogie woogie bugle boy.

V

RE: Company B

It was pushman tooting his own horn.

rmw

RE: Company B

You know.  I read a thread earlier and the OP suggested you put in $1 for previous/desired salary.  

That should show them that you're interested in the job, and are willing to discuss the money.

I don't think you're obligated to share previous salary information.  They can make you an m offer, and you can give them feedback on it.

RE: Company B

I like that idea, especially for those annoying on-line applications!

Technically, the glass is always  full.

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