Item — HN Reader

Pro tip: if you make pay your only consideration, you may end up pretty miserable. Often companies pay very high because they burn through employees, and are otherwise a nightmare to work for for a variety of reasons.

(Even worse, you can get stuck in these golden handcuffs as your expenses catch up to your income, leaving you in a cycle of one miserable job after another)

3 comments

Good pay at least makes such positions more tolerable. Getting paid poorly in a bad company is far worse, I assure you.

The corresponding choice would be getting paid poorly in a good company. If we're doing extremes, you can get paid well in a good company too.

It is a false dichotomy of course, and pretty much every job is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. You can also do a lot personally to endure a bad job if you decide the pay is worth it, but if your life is nothing but your job then a bad job means a bad life.

Typically you cannot enforce “soft” properties or promises about your job. They may tell you you’ll use the best tools for the job, have management that supports you, gives you a good work/life balance. Then you start the job and it’s all taken away, and you can’t leave because recruiters will think negatively of “job hopping” even if you got bait & switched. So you’ll be stuck with empty promises, wishing you had negotiated harder on compensation, severance and other enforceable benefits.

I'm in such a situation right now.... Not sure what to do :/

Leave. Job-hopping is a pattern, not a single event. If I get a candidate with a good track record but one three-month stint, sure I'll query it, but "it wasn't a good fit for me" is a reasonable excuse and a good conversation starter if you can wrap it in a strong story for what _is_ a good fit.

Bait & switch jobs are a pattern, they happen all the time. Needing to leave several jobs in a row after only a few months at each place is just basic reality, normal circumstances for a lot of people given the way corporations treat employees now.

I find the opposite is true. Low pay indicates poor leadership or lack of market opportunity leading to a very frustrating job.

Sure. I also am conveying the benefits might manifest in other ways (Cadillac health care, profit share, bonuses, autonomy, growth oppys, etc)