Unfortunately, switching jobs is still the best way to get significant jumps in compensation. Especially, if you’ve been in a role for a long time and the market value of that role has increased substantially.
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After college, I initially joined a smaller company. It was acquired by a larger company shortly after I joined… something measured in months, so technically I remained at my first job for <1 year. That larger company sold our location to a start-up shortly after purchasing. That start-up was not successful and liquidated, so we became an independent entity a short time later, then another company purchased that independent entity a short time later. All of these transitions except the last one involved a large reduction in staff. I was among the <10% of employees who remained through all of the transitions, yet looking at my early resume, someone might think I couldn’t remain continuously at any job for a year.
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That’s the only way to go. Unfortunately, not all do that.
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Job tenure for young workers has been mostly stable in recent decades | Pew Research Center suggests that young adults have not really changed much in terms of how long they stay in jobs, although 2010-2014 showed a slightly greater tendency to stay in the same job versus switching quickly, probably because it was difficult to get a different job.
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My son is still in college, but the expectation going in is that he will stay at his first employer for the long haul if not let go (10+ years). Anyway median tenure at the place is 10 years
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My daughter is still at her first job and will hit 5 years this summer. That’s a big deal as her 401k will vest entirely at that time. Her salary is okay but she got a huge bonus this year (and her $75 Honeybaked Ham card at Thanksgiving), and the 401k match is very high. She would like more time off.
Nephew and his girlfriend, also both engineers, are still at their first jobs now for 4 years. Nephew was in DC but during covid started working from home and moved back to Denver, and his company has let him stay WFH, but he would have quit if they’d require him to return to DC.
Niece worked for a company for about 8 years. She graduated from a masters program and got a new job last year. I don’t know much about it except she gets a LOT of time off.
The one who changes jobs all the time is my BIL. He’s 67, a civil engineer, and I bet he’s had 10 jobs in the last 15 years. Covid was rough on his work, but the 2008-2010 years were worse.
Civil engineering is tough. We got jays off unexpectedly several times in the ‘90s. That’s one reason we started our own company. We were lucky to make it through the recession, though.
23 year old daughter was laid off right around the one year anniversary at her first job. She pivoted well and found something new. I’ve been impressed by the way she handled it all.
25 year old son took some time to launch. He drifted a bit for the first few years after college and got a good job in October. He’d love to be there for a long time.
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My son graduated GaTech, CS major, in 2018 and spent first three years after college in Seattle at Microsoft, moved back to Atlanta and is at Google now. I see a lot of his friends changing jobs more frequently than he is, usually finding new ones they like better pretty quickly.
He had several paid summer internships so he figured out his industry/company/culture fit and it helped choosing the right opportunity for him after his college graduation.
I am glad new generation is more aware of what they want in the employer than my generation is - they do not compromise on important things - company culture, mission, work - life balance.
Good for them!
2021 grad: so far 19 months in his corporate finance job at a major bank that he did an internship with between junior and senior year of college. He’s gotten some additional opportunities as some of his cohort already have moved on. He’s gotten bonuses, raises and perks including a lot of free meals. We were necessarily very thrifty when he was growing up so he’s enjoying his current lifestyle and also banking $ so I don’t think he will move on for another couple of years, and then possibly to MBA or law school.
My daughter (27) has been at her job (IB) since her junior year internship (minus finishing up her senior year of college). She has been promoted a few times (most recently to VP) and is compensated very well in salary + bonus. She doesn’t have any plans to leave, even after having children. She’s invested a lot of time, sweat & tears in learning and excelling in the industry, and while she may at some point be lured to similar work at another bank/firm, I doubt she will leave her industry completely, any time soon.
Seen from the other side, it doesn’t look so good:
“The passion that we used to see in work is lower now, and you find it in fewer people—at least in the last two years,” says Sumithra Jagannath, president of ZED Digital, which makes digital ticket scanners. The company, based in Columbus, Ohio, recently moved about 20 remote engineering and marketing roles to Canada and India, where she said it’s easier to find talent who will go above and beyond.
Since the onset of the pandemic, several employees have asked for more pay when managers asked that they do more work, she says. “It was not like that before Covid at all,” she adds.
…
In an August survey of 1,234 HR employees, 45% said their organization has struggled more than usual to motivate employees to work beyond the required scope of their job in the past six months, according to the Society for Human Resource Management, which conducted the poll.
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More money for more work? Seems logical and fair!
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I believe that the issue may lie with the company’s expectations, rather than with their employees. My S, D & SIL all give 100% at work. None of them works the ridiculous amount I did before I retired, and frankly, I am glad that they don’t. They don’t work for nonprofits, so they need to be adequately compensated and given work that can be completed without having to work many hours more than 40 per week. They need to be able to take vacation without having to work every day while on vacation. They saw how hard I worked & knew how little I made, and they aren’t about to fall into that trap. They enjoy their lives outside of work.
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My D graduates in May and signed on for a multiyear rotational program so she’s committed for at least 2 years. That said, there is very little turn over in this program and the group that started when she was in her 1st co-op rotation four years ago are all still with the company. My D’s intention is to stay long term.
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I also think it’s good and healthy that this generation is seeking a better work/life balance. When our kids were small, my husband missed so much because of work obligation far exceeding 40 hours a week. He commuted hours a day, spent vacations on the phone, etc… I don’t want that for my kids.
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Companies may well have to adjust, on the other hand, going above and beyond may make you stand out more when the time comes for promotion. And isn’t your 20s the time to put in effort at work, before you have kids?
S found out his firm (internally) ranks everyone from A+ to D- and that’s what they use in promotion decisions. Their promotions (analyst, associate, senior associate, VP etc) come quickly (every 12-18 months) with substantial pay rises each time, so it’s very obvious how you are doing.
I think this section from the article sounds a little like your situation, but I bet the guy is going to regret his quotes (“by 40, leave the corporate world to become a professor” is particularly naive):
Growing up, Austin Wiggins saw his father work long hours as a manager at a regional grocery chain, without ascending to the store-director level. Doing so, his father, Daniel Wiggins, says, would have meant possibly moving to a store location further from family, which he didn’t want.
In May, just before he started a new accounting job, the younger Mr. Wiggins asked his dad to cosign a loan to buy a 2020 Toyota Camry. Mr. Wiggins says he was taken aback when he saw his dad’s salary, required for the loan. It was under six figures, and not far above what he was going to make as a 23-year-old recent graduate, he says.
“I know how many hours he’s put in, how much he’s given to this company,” Mr. Wiggins says. “There’s not compelling enough correlation to make me become the person that’s going well above and beyond what I need to do.”
Now in an entry-level accounting program, he says he makes sure he does quality work, but he says he doesn’t constantly ask managers for extra assignments. He doesn’t aspire to the C-suite and hopes to, by 40, leave the corporate world to become a professor. He has told managers that he can work a 60-hour week if the work is there, he says, but that he isn’t the kind of person to wait to leave the office until a boss does if there’s no work to do.
S1 has had the same job for 11 years, and now has picked up a second (p/t) job. His small company has no interest in retaining people by paying or advancing him, but he loves what he does and is a niche job. So not lots of other options.
S2 had a job for 3 yrs and the company was bought out and restructured, lost his job along with lots of other people. Current position is w a Fortune 500 company that rearranges people at will. There is no clear advancement ladder or pay scale, and like lots of companies they insist on a hard limit on how many employees can be reviewed as “excellent”, which seems stupid.
My point being, companies seem to have little loyalty. At my own job, the under -30 cohort lasts about 2 years and leave for a better paying lateral move. People hired to replace them start at more $$ than those who stay are currently making. I don’t blame anyone for trying for better, whatever “better” may mean to them and their life.
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The first job H & I had was with a major corporation. People stayed because the company took care of them. If you worked hard, promotions were available. If you wanted to do something different, chances were that you could get into a different area within the company. They had amazing tuition reimbursement and fully funded graduate fellowships. The benefits were great. H stayed because they were good to him. Until they weren’t … they no longer inspire employee loyalty, and they are no longer a company where people are going to stay for more than 40 years (like H & many of our friends did).
My kids work really hard in their jobs, and they have received promotions and raises. But they aren’t going to live for work. For those young people who want to work ridiculous hours and feel that being stressed out by their jobs is worth the payoff they hope results, that’s cool for them. But not every job needs to require blood, sweat and tears in order for the person doing that job to be considered a valuable employee.
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Grading on a curve… In school, that is only effective in large classes that are unlikely to have a distribution of student achievements different from the assumed one. But if a manager is required to grade on a curve several or a dozen employees, that means that if the manager was previously successful in hiring all high achievers, the manager needs to downgrade some of the high achievers.
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