I had a job where there was a huge difference in salary if you were an external candidate vs. an internal candidate applying for a promotion.
I got promoted to a role where everyone else in the same role was external and made significantly more. I also had more education than most of them. They wouldn’t budge. It wasn’t the only reason I left after a year, but it made it easier.
As for why they lowballed me, it seemed like it was just because they could. Since I wasn’t doing a job search (just applying for an opportunity that came up) my only other option was to stay in my old role and make even less. So I had very little power in the negotiation.
They did favor me in the sense that they hired me instead of an external candidate. They just knew they didn’t have to pay me as much to get me to accept.
Right but...I think they're just cultivating dissatisfaction in people when they pay them less than they'd pay the new person. That's what I think I see in my workplace anyway.
I enjoyed this post a lot, partly because it’s about something I do fairly regularly (hire people, or help other departments hire people) and I’ve given a lot of thought to the following:
Almost every resume I see is that of an extreeeme job hopper. Someone who has stayed more than two years, even in _one_ job on their resume, is more the exception than the rule.
But: I don’t want to hire job hoppers. I want to hire people who will stay. There is so much involved in training people— it takes about a year. From my point of view, job hoppers are a huge pain.
And yet: yes, the raises at work are stingy. About 3%. If we gave people 10% for sticking around, they wouldn’t leave so fast.
And you’re right: people coming from the outside are paid way more than people who’ve stuck around. We’re all punished for staying with an organization. Newer people with less experience get more than me, and that tends to make me want to leave for a place where I’ll get more.
And hiring people really can be hit-or-miss. You think there would be better methods by now. I want to hire great people and don’t want to waste time on the problem people. There are a lot of problem people.
Numbers of barber shops, though? Is that supposed to be a general reasoning /intelligence question? I’ve had good luck focusing on narrowing applicant pools according to (1) anything that indicates high intelligence and (2) (going back to the Big 5) indications that the person has a moderate amount of Agreeableness and a high amount of Conscientiousness. Low Neuroticism and High Openness are a bonus. I don’t care about Intro/Extraversion.
So… I’ve got this “method” and it yields pretty good results except once in a while I’m spectacularly wrong. There was this one guy I helped another department hire. He seemed to meet all my “qualifications” although he was a little …slick, I guess. He ended up being a totally incompetent, work-avoiding, morale-destroying disaster. He literally would hide from his team and did absolutely no work. I don’t think he knew what his job was. He didn’t stay too long but…
We wouldn’t have had to hire him at all if people just stayed in their jobs a few years! We need better pay for sure.
It’s interesting how even a fairly decent system sometimes really fails. I guess some people are skilled at pretending to be agreeable, conscientious and smart.
Also, I agree with your values. I think IQ, conscientiousness, and agreeableness are a must. Low neuroticism is probably helpful, though I can't say for sure because I'm probably 95th percentile neurotic. I actually prefer a bit less openness when it comes to data. Obviously you can't be too close minded, but the data analyst needs to be a bit less open to new ideas. They need to act as a bit of an intellectual veto.
Yes, it probably depends on the job, and the subset of openness. There's the intellect aspect (wanting to engage with ideas, abstract concepts, complex novel information); and the openness aspect (interested in art / beauty / maybe more the daydreamy aspect of the larger openness trait).
Right, I guess I just expect a bit less openness with some abstract concepts. I don't think you could have an analyst that engages in "hermeneutics," as one commenter brought up in a previous thread. A good analyst needs to shut down a lot that stuff as executives abstract everything into meaninglessness.
If that commenter is reading this: I thought that was a great a comment! I love to learn about stuff like that. But I would never analyze data that way.
Yeah, I think it would stand no chance, honestly. There would be the obvious DEI and post-structuralist objections: numbers are western imperialism or whatever. I also think there would be a strong objection from the elites themselves, many of whom are just not very bright.
I also have this half-baked idea of, like, bureaucratic-class solidarity. Look at all the college dropping the SAT. If we based admissions on SAT and GPA it would take like, what, 3 interns to determine admissions? But if we want to be holistic and diverse etc we need a ton of bureaucrats to help this along. Creating a workplace SAT would also eliminate tons of HR bureaucrats. I just don't see the level of bureaucracy in the world declining.
I'm for power dynamics, short-termism, and love of the status quo.
If I were to distinguish the pay philosophies driving new job rates vs existing job rates, it would be this: new jobs pay at market, existing jobs pay what they paid last year plus 3% [in the US].
For existing jobs, it's a rare company that follows the market. There's the short-termism of not wanting immediate raises to payroll*, whereas the disruption of turnover doesn't directly impact your dept budget. There's the status quo of both 'you are where you are in terms of salary and job title, why do we need to change that?' and 'adding more flexibility to the processes governing raises/promotions to retain high performers and respond to changing market conditions is too big a pain'. And the power differential allows companies to follow these tendencies.
*note sometimes the market goes down! For what I assume are obvious, practical employee morale- and PR- related reasons, companies do not decrease salaries to follow the market.
But when it comes to filling a new role with external candidates, practically all companies have to follow the market because external candidates want what the market is paying. So a company will budget for the new role accordingly, though it may be more than happy to lowball any low-information candidate it happens to catch.
Addendum: in my personal experience I've seen the psychology aspect at play, but it has a lot to do with individual company culture so it only applies to a subset. The key thing in those companies is that it's not that leadership loves to replace old blood with new blood, it's when they create a sexy new VP position they love to bring exciting new blood in, meanwhile existing peons have to move mountains to be considered for getting promoted out of their low level peon roles. External candidates are mysterious beings who show only their best face which can be easily photoshopped onto the body of the unicorn you're looking for; current employees are known, warts and all, and with the human tendency to weight the bad over the good, they often don't match the allure of the hot new thing.
I had a job where there was a huge difference in salary if you were an external candidate vs. an internal candidate applying for a promotion.
I got promoted to a role where everyone else in the same role was external and made significantly more. I also had more education than most of them. They wouldn’t budge. It wasn’t the only reason I left after a year, but it made it easier.
As for why they lowballed me, it seemed like it was just because they could. Since I wasn’t doing a job search (just applying for an opportunity that came up) my only other option was to stay in my old role and make even less. So I had very little power in the negotiation.
But doesn't it seem like youd have less power at a new company? That still seems like a weird equilibrium
Doesn’t it seem though that they should favor “the devil they know” (us, the internal applicants) versus the unknown?
They did favor me in the sense that they hired me instead of an external candidate. They just knew they didn’t have to pay me as much to get me to accept.
So do you think the "power dynamics" explanation is the right one?
Right but...I think they're just cultivating dissatisfaction in people when they pay them less than they'd pay the new person. That's what I think I see in my workplace anyway.
I enjoyed this post a lot, partly because it’s about something I do fairly regularly (hire people, or help other departments hire people) and I’ve given a lot of thought to the following:
Almost every resume I see is that of an extreeeme job hopper. Someone who has stayed more than two years, even in _one_ job on their resume, is more the exception than the rule.
But: I don’t want to hire job hoppers. I want to hire people who will stay. There is so much involved in training people— it takes about a year. From my point of view, job hoppers are a huge pain.
And yet: yes, the raises at work are stingy. About 3%. If we gave people 10% for sticking around, they wouldn’t leave so fast.
And you’re right: people coming from the outside are paid way more than people who’ve stuck around. We’re all punished for staying with an organization. Newer people with less experience get more than me, and that tends to make me want to leave for a place where I’ll get more.
And hiring people really can be hit-or-miss. You think there would be better methods by now. I want to hire great people and don’t want to waste time on the problem people. There are a lot of problem people.
Numbers of barber shops, though? Is that supposed to be a general reasoning /intelligence question? I’ve had good luck focusing on narrowing applicant pools according to (1) anything that indicates high intelligence and (2) (going back to the Big 5) indications that the person has a moderate amount of Agreeableness and a high amount of Conscientiousness. Low Neuroticism and High Openness are a bonus. I don’t care about Intro/Extraversion.
So… I’ve got this “method” and it yields pretty good results except once in a while I’m spectacularly wrong. There was this one guy I helped another department hire. He seemed to meet all my “qualifications” although he was a little …slick, I guess. He ended up being a totally incompetent, work-avoiding, morale-destroying disaster. He literally would hide from his team and did absolutely no work. I don’t think he knew what his job was. He didn’t stay too long but…
We wouldn’t have had to hire him at all if people just stayed in their jobs a few years! We need better pay for sure.
It’s interesting how even a fairly decent system sometimes really fails. I guess some people are skilled at pretending to be agreeable, conscientious and smart.
Also, I agree with your values. I think IQ, conscientiousness, and agreeableness are a must. Low neuroticism is probably helpful, though I can't say for sure because I'm probably 95th percentile neurotic. I actually prefer a bit less openness when it comes to data. Obviously you can't be too close minded, but the data analyst needs to be a bit less open to new ideas. They need to act as a bit of an intellectual veto.
Yes, it probably depends on the job, and the subset of openness. There's the intellect aspect (wanting to engage with ideas, abstract concepts, complex novel information); and the openness aspect (interested in art / beauty / maybe more the daydreamy aspect of the larger openness trait).
Right, I guess I just expect a bit less openness with some abstract concepts. I don't think you could have an analyst that engages in "hermeneutics," as one commenter brought up in a previous thread. A good analyst needs to shut down a lot that stuff as executives abstract everything into meaninglessness.
If that commenter is reading this: I thought that was a great a comment! I love to learn about stuff like that. But I would never analyze data that way.
My dream is that someone develops a workplace equivalent to the SAT. Then you can just take that and we can bulldoze half the colleges in the US
Workplace SAT! It has my vote!
Also: Can you imagine how extremely useful but extremely maligned such a test would be?
Yeah, I think it would stand no chance, honestly. There would be the obvious DEI and post-structuralist objections: numbers are western imperialism or whatever. I also think there would be a strong objection from the elites themselves, many of whom are just not very bright.
"many of whom are just not very bright" -- and there's the heart of it.
I also have this half-baked idea of, like, bureaucratic-class solidarity. Look at all the college dropping the SAT. If we based admissions on SAT and GPA it would take like, what, 3 interns to determine admissions? But if we want to be holistic and diverse etc we need a ton of bureaucrats to help this along. Creating a workplace SAT would also eliminate tons of HR bureaucrats. I just don't see the level of bureaucracy in the world declining.
I would love to see 99% of bureaucrats and bureaucracy gone.
Unemployment would be 30% lol
I'm for power dynamics, short-termism, and love of the status quo.
If I were to distinguish the pay philosophies driving new job rates vs existing job rates, it would be this: new jobs pay at market, existing jobs pay what they paid last year plus 3% [in the US].
For existing jobs, it's a rare company that follows the market. There's the short-termism of not wanting immediate raises to payroll*, whereas the disruption of turnover doesn't directly impact your dept budget. There's the status quo of both 'you are where you are in terms of salary and job title, why do we need to change that?' and 'adding more flexibility to the processes governing raises/promotions to retain high performers and respond to changing market conditions is too big a pain'. And the power differential allows companies to follow these tendencies.
*note sometimes the market goes down! For what I assume are obvious, practical employee morale- and PR- related reasons, companies do not decrease salaries to follow the market.
But when it comes to filling a new role with external candidates, practically all companies have to follow the market because external candidates want what the market is paying. So a company will budget for the new role accordingly, though it may be more than happy to lowball any low-information candidate it happens to catch.
Addendum: in my personal experience I've seen the psychology aspect at play, but it has a lot to do with individual company culture so it only applies to a subset. The key thing in those companies is that it's not that leadership loves to replace old blood with new blood, it's when they create a sexy new VP position they love to bring exciting new blood in, meanwhile existing peons have to move mountains to be considered for getting promoted out of their low level peon roles. External candidates are mysterious beings who show only their best face which can be easily photoshopped onto the body of the unicorn you're looking for; current employees are known, warts and all, and with the human tendency to weight the bad over the good, they often don't match the allure of the hot new thing.