I did end up leaving my contract position in April. Twice, actually.<\/p>\n
I was not particularly happy with the previous employer, as an environment. Not a bad place to work, great people, good assortment of hardware….but they were\/are a “company in flux”. That phrase came from a colleague of my new recruiter who had also recently left my previous company. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
It’s not anyone’s fault, per se, but the corporate direction was less a business plan, and more a funeral plan. The upper management seemed to be far more concerned with getting someone to buy us out than to actually run the company. (They were on year 5.5 of a 5-year plan.)<\/p>\n
At any rate, I started entertaining offers, and man did they come fast and furious. By the end of the week I had lined up a dozen interviews. Some I really wasn’t a good fit for, some I was a great fit for, but we weren’t in the same league as far as comp went, and two of the dozen were matches. I decided on one of them, and let the other know I was out.<\/p>\n
Then things got interesting. This whole ordeal was FAST. The one I thought I was the best fit for and accepted started like this, literally:<\/p>\n
Monday, 16:30 : Recruiter called, said they had an interest, could I do an interview? I said sure, they said can you do it tomorrow morning? I said, wow, holy short notice, but as it happened, yes I could. In person? Sure. Interview set for 9AM Tuesday, for 1 hour. we set what my expectations were, and what the job would entail, including salary and benefits. We were on the same page.<\/p>\n
Tuesday, 9:00 A: Interview begins. I like the environment, I like the people, the job site seemed a little stuffy (it’s a pharmaceutical company) but plenty livable, site was halfway between home and school. Not bad all around. They kept bringing more people in, and I felt I owned the whole interview. I was exactly what they wanted, but the interview started going a little long…<\/p>\n
Tuesday, 12:45 P: Interview then (yes, almost 4 hours into a 1 hour interview) proceeds directly to the hiring director (hiring manager decided we might as well get approvals now, I guess) and that went swimmingly as well. He’s a veteran, so we could bond over that, and one of my co-workers at the contract job was one of his at his last company. I was able to get a read from my co-worker that this was a good guy to work for. At the end of the process, he says : “well, we’ve got a few more interviews, but I think you’re a lock for this. We’ll let you know by Friday.” I thought that was completely reasonable, and left for work.<\/p>\n
Tuesday, 1:45 P: Call from Hiring director. “We’ve decided to make you an offer. We’ll have the hiring recruiter send you a document.” To which I replied, “Great, send it over, and I’ll let you know in the morning. I need to talk to the wife, and see if this will be the right fit.”<\/p>\n
Tuesday, 2:00 P: Email from the recruiter spelling out the details, including salary and benefits info. Tuesday evening, we discuss and decide to accept.<\/p>\n
Wednesday, 8:30 A: Conference with the boss at the contract gig. He’s a really great guy, and I’ll actually miss working with him, but he’s good with the decision.<\/p>\n
Wednesday, 9:00 A: Call recruiter and give verbal acceptance. She says they’ll send an official package overnight to sign. Tell recruiter I’m putting my two week notice in.<\/p>\n
Wednesday, 10:00 A: Send out email to team letting them know I’m leaving, due to a quirk of the calendar, my notice is really only 10 days, (which is not a problem with the management team.)<\/p>\n
Wednesday, 1:30 P: Call from the recruiter. “Hey we sent out your package via FedEx. Oh, BTW…there was a problem with HR at the new company, so your salary was lowered 5K. See you tomorrow!” ExCUSE me? We have *in writing<\/em>* my salary requirements. I was already taking a pay CUT in accepting a full time out of contract work. The benefits still<\/em> didn’t make up the difference, and by any<\/em> metric, my gross was going to be $5,000-8,000 less than my contract gross annualized. It was a step down, but less responsibility. I had explained at the beginning of this that the range was from $X to $Y – at $Y it would be worth it to me to take the offer, anything less, like $X, would NOT be worth me leaving. The offer they were sending? $X. Bastards. They said they’ll make a few phone calls and see if they can fix it.<\/p>\n Thursday, 9:00 A: The recruiter calls back and they aren’t going to budge.<\/p>\n Arghh. So for the next couple of days they call me and explain how next year I’d be eligible for bonus\/merit raise, etc, which could maybe get me back to $Y anyway. Bonus and merit had already been factored into my decision- those gave me the possibility of almost geting back to even after a year or two. This made it a three or four year turnaround. I was LIVID.<\/p>\n At the time I accepted, I decided to stop entertaining offers. After this happened, I got a call from Credit Suisse, and I said, why, yes! I would entertain their interview request. I sailed through that process over the next two weeks, but couldn’t count on anything, so I started at the company the screwed me anyways, already disgruntled. One week later, I accepted the offer here, and quit there, effective immediately. I didn’t like to do it, but I can’t trust a company that would hamstring someone like that. I feel for the manager and the director, because they had absolutely no say in the matter at all, HR deemed a number, and wouldn’t budge. Apparently the last person hired for this job had a masters degree, and was paid $Y. I didn’t have a Master’s degree, so their argument was they couldn’t offer me the same as the guy with the Master’s. (I didn’t remind them that he lasted less than three months- either he couldn’t do the job, or someone else offered him a lot more money to do it for them…either way…)<\/p>\n So, I am happily gainfully employed again, not contracting. So far I still have a lot to learn about the new environment, but things at least look bright. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I did end up leaving my contract position in April. Twice, actually. I was not particularly happy with the previous employer, as an environment. Not a bad place to work, great people, good assortment of hardware….but they were\/are a “company in flux”. That phrase came from a colleague of my new recruiter who had also … Continue reading So, updates are in order…<\/span>