I took a counter once. When you're miserable at a place, for whatever reason, a big pay raise will make you forget it for about 4 months, then you'll be miserable again. Life is too short to be miserable 8+ hours a day.
I've worked at 2 companies in the last 14 years and they both got really shitty after being acquired by a private equity firm. It usually takes 2 years until it's unbearable. I stayed so long because they were wonderful jobs; work and pay; and growing like wildfire before the M&A.
Do you not look around unless you are miserable?
The only recruitment calls I ever get are from body-shop class contracting firms that never manage to even come close to my current compensation for scut work.
Another guess is that I had a recently listed promotion to Lead Developer on my LinkedIn account. Anecdotally I've heard similar experience from other people who started getting more high quality contacts once their job title on LinkedIn reflected a more senior role. I know we all hate LinkedIn but it matters because people on the hire side use it extensively, so spend some time entering details in there so that it's as impressive as your resume.
Then again, curiosity doesn't hurt either.
You don't have to be miserable just to look for another job that will pay more.
(2) If you're applying to similar jobs (in terms of skill) then a single amount of prep can be shared among many
I know many who try to "get in the market" every year or so just for "curiosity"
Not everybody lives in a major hub, and for those who don't it can be really hard to get a company in one to notice you exist, let alone make you an offer.
Job-hunting in Dallas is hard. I've been unemployed twice. The first time was long-term (to the point where it was affecting my sanity) and during the Great Recession. The second time, which was earlier this year, wasn't that long but still harrowing. After I got laid off, it was two months before I got an in-person interview. I got the job, but I'm fairly sure that a good part of the reason I was even considered for an interview was because one of my best friends works here and put in a good word for me with HR.
Also, on at least three occasions I've tried job-hunting while employed. Only one time did I actually find a new job before giving up.
There is absolutely no reason not to. One might argue this is essential -- how can you know "market" if you don't study the market?
Or to look at it another way, the same programmer with the same skills is going to make more profits if they're working at, say, Amazon, than if they're working on some backend IT system at a regional bank. So the former has correspondingly higher remuneration.
Ironically, it's generally less offensive as well as much more effective at getting a real increase in take-home pay to go out and get an offer from an external employer.
Haven't they laid off around 20,000 people in the past few years? Seems like MS as a company wants to have it both ways, as I'm sure many do.
If they do, flee. Business is business and if people are getting offended about business, something is wrong.
Business would be better named "pampering giant babies", because that's what it is. Despite the mythology that we're programmed with, most of the work of being in charge is managing peoples' feelings so that they stay favorable to you. There is a ton of room for mistakes as long as everyone likes you, and very little if nobody does. Thus, the whole of business training can be summarized with "be as popular and well-liked as possible". They try to dress it up fancy and act like they do something better than that, but they don't.
The most important thing in anyone's career is what their boss and their boss's bosses think of them. Only slightly less important is what their peers think of them. Work performance is essentially a non-factor in career advancement, so it actually is really important to manage this kind of thing carefully.
Asking directly for a raise is confrontational and inelegant. Subtly demonstrating that you deserve a raise and making your boss believe it was his idea is how you actually get one without alienating anyone. That's a lot of work, so most people just jump to another employer instead.
The most important thing in anything, not just business, is not what people think of you. The whole purpose of your employment is to exchange your value for their value; why would feelings get involved if you recalculate your own value? You're asking poorly if people get offended, or the person you're asking does a poor job of separating emotion and business (literally step one of succeeding in business).
Do you really think Tim Cook gets up before sunrise to manage his SVPs' feelings? Your observations about what business actually is speak more to you than they do "the real world"; speaking of, since your opening retort was a slightly condescending explanation of that real world which I assure you I live in as well, I suspect the problem with your outlook reflects on you. But I don't mean that to belittle you. Just that perhaps the outcomes you experience come from how you approach things and not a firm understanding of business.
Might be worth some introspection here. Maybe I'm totally wrong but if I am, a whole lot of people who aren't you are too.
Partially. His primary job is managing investor's feelings.
>Maybe I'm totally wrong but if I am, a whole lot of people who aren't you are too.
You believe the version of the world that they want you to believe, not the world as it is. That's understandable. The powers-that-be project this narrative specifically because if people know their job is to manipulate feelings, it'll be much more difficult to do that effectively.
Good managers want to make themselves sound like self-sacrificial superheroes and inspire hero worship so that it's easier to manage the subordinate's feelings. That's the narrative they project.
However, it doesn't take an intelligent person much reading or experience to realize that things don't line up with the narrative. Management is all about managing feelings. Yes, it's true that management has to make decisions that won't bankrupt the company, but that's the easy, minor part. The difficult part is pushing those decisions through the organization with as little feeling-damage as possible, and running programs of feeling-grooming to keep your employees cooperative.
Typically, you wait for your yearly or quaterly review, tell him what great stuff you did for the company, how you will contribute again in the future then tell him you feel like a raise of x percent or n dollars would be appropriate. You don't say "you're underpaying me", but "the value I bring to the company increased, so I deserve more than I did last year"
I've never seen a boss get offended for it, at worst he'll make excuses like "sorry I can't right now, but at soon as things get better I'll think about you".
And nowadays in many companies, if you never ask for a raise you never get any. Your boss assumes you're happy with your pay, so why give more?
So if you do sit on your hands for 11 months so that you only ask your boss at the time when he won't find it offensive, you're still most likely going to walk away with nothing or a pittance, since as I said, bossess appear to believe any raise in excess of 5% is outrageous (again, a large bump is like an admission that they're cheapskates, so they don't like doing it).
On the other hand, most programmers can go out and get a new job offer within 2-4 weeks, and unless they're at the top of the pay scale for their industry and area, probably get a 20-40% pay bump. Which option is more attractive?
It was amazing how much everything improved once I had a higher-paying offer from a leading competitor. Boom! Better title. Boom, more money. Boom, a lot more face time with VP level folks who became my de facto bosses and boosters. I ended up staying at that place for another 13 years and had a great ride. My timid "boss" was gone from the organization within two years. The guy never caused me a bit of pain after that.
I'm glad other posters are saying that in the end, it's the agency recruiters who really hate counteroffers. The economics for them are so disastrous that they can't help but try to tug talented employees over to their point of view. From my experience, it all comes down to whether you can get your current employer to make your working situation a lot better, as well as bump up the money. If they are capable of delivering a whole new situation, then you're in a good place.
In all cases there were failures on both sides (me for not realizing what I was getting into, and them for bragging about a technical branch they didn't have); however, I very much enjoyed working at those places and would have stayed if they upped my compensation to match my [actual] responsibilities.