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I joined a new company in the beginning of 2015 at grade 5 (though the salary difference wasn't that much more than the previous employer), I tried to negotiate but they said that the offer is final so I decided to take the offer since the job is interesting and more into my field. I already started and after 2 weeks I was frustrated when I saw their old internal job postings and discovered that they have posted this job for a grade higher than what they offered me.

Should I discuss this with my manager now or in the yearly review?

Paul D. Waite
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malsaggaaf
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    @gnat I think the two questions are different enough to be only related. The OP here joined less then a month ago (at the date of this comment posting), while in the question you linked the poster had two years on the job. – Mindwin Remember Monica Jan 20 '15 at 16:56
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    I'm understanding "internal job posting" as "this is what we're offering people who already work for us". To me at least, it would make perfect sense to pay someone a grade higher who already is familiar with the company, whatever they do, whoever they deal with, etc. – thatengineerguy Jan 20 '15 at 20:27

7 Answers7

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You should not be upset, and you should not discuss it.

You accepted the offer. The negotiations are concluded. If you didn't feel that the offer they gave you was adequate, you should not have accepted it.

What was done previously within the company before you talked with them is completely irrelevant.

As it is, now, you have two options:

  1. Look for another position somewhere else that makes you an offer you feel is adequate.
  2. Do the best possible job you can and make it clear to your manager you wish to be considered for any promotions or position upgrade opportunities that arise.

If you come to your manager with this question in the tone you phrased it, the only thing you will convince him of is that you do not keep your word.

Wesley Long
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    Thank you Mr. @Wesley . I knew I would find the answer in this great website. I will follow point 2 for sure and I will prove to them that I really deserve to be on the top. Thank you again :) – malsaggaaf Jan 19 '15 at 18:09
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    The negotiation is never really concluded, it's a given assumption that salary will change and that equal responsibilities should have similar salaries. If this is not the case, asking for a raise is perfectly acceptable. – Sklivvz Jan 20 '15 at 01:37
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    Couldn't agree more with Sklivvz. Negotiations are NEVER concluded. It should be see as an ongoing endeavor with any job one has. – DA. Jan 20 '15 at 02:28
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    @Sklivvz - Really? 2 weeks in and you're going to ask to renegotiate. I wish you the best of luck. – Wesley Long Jan 20 '15 at 02:51
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    You can ask why... That's a form of negotiation which you can use 2 weeks in. Or you can wait a few months. Still better than looking for another job 2 weeks in, which you suggested. – Sklivvz Jan 20 '15 at 02:54
  • @Sklivvz - I did not suggest looking for another job. I merely pointed out that it was one of two options. – Wesley Long Jan 20 '15 at 03:07
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    If they lied to him on the job interview, it's not very likely they will appreciate best possible job... –  Jan 20 '15 at 07:34
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    -1: For something so upvoted, this isn't great advice; "bury your frustrations rather than communicating them to your manager" is how trivially solveable problems remain unsolved. What are you worried about, that your manager will go "What kind of employee is seeking promotion? A slacker, that's who!"? – deworde Jan 20 '15 at 11:45
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    @РСТȢѸФХѾЦЧШЩЪЫЬѢѤЮѦѪѨѬѠѺѮѰѲѴ who says they lied? Maybe they made compromises in their requirements in terms of skill/experience to choose this candidate. There is very rarely one price for a role, companies often look for best value and will make a choice between cheaper less skilled employee vs a more expensive higher skilled employee. So this new info is irrelevant, after the probation period there is a natural review, this is the time to get a rise if you can show through performance in the meantime that you have been undervalued. – JamesRyan Jan 20 '15 at 12:52
  • @JamesRyan Except you're drawing a link between "cheaper" and "less skilled" that may not be there. The company may just have paid him less because he was willing to accept less, and was unaware that they'd accept more. – deworde Jan 20 '15 at 13:00
  • @deworde thats why I mentioned value. Obviously a company is going to try not to hire a low skilled employee for too much. But yes what people are prepared to accept is also a factor. Thats not short changing someone, the differing value we place on ourselves is a real input. – JamesRyan Jan 20 '15 at 13:29
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    @deworde - I'm not suggesting burying them at all. First, any frustration there is the result of flawed thinking: That a person is entitled to the best of all offers considered, rather than the one that was offered. Second, a person has to face the consequences of their actions. An offer was made and accepted. End of story. Third, there is a path up - the second option I mentioned. – Wesley Long Jan 20 '15 at 16:28
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    @РСТȢѸФХѾЦЧШЩЪЫЬѢѤЮѦѪѨѬѠѺѮѰѲѴ - Speculative comments are not helpful. There is no indication of any dishonesty on the part of the company. The OP even said that this job is "... more into my field ..." than his previous one. They reduced the grade and took a chance on someone who wasn't already working directly in the field (whatever it is). – Wesley Long Jan 20 '15 at 16:31
  • @WesleyLong Would you object to the OP simply asking why he was made a lower offer? Asking their reason for doing so seems significantly less confrontational than asking for a raise based on it, and receiving an explanation may help alleviate the frustration. – jpmc26 Jan 20 '15 at 18:36
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    @jpmc26 - I wouldn't object. I wouldn't recommend it, either. You can't go through life worrying about what you might have had. You have to meet the promises you've made, learn from the good and bad of every job, and move forward as a better candidate / Employee. – Wesley Long Jan 20 '15 at 19:51
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    +1. As you say the window for negotiating starting salary is well and truly closed. Attempting to negotiate a raise before your first year will come across as operating in bad faith. Trying to do this after 2 weeks would mark you to many managers as plainly dishonest. – Lilienthal Jan 21 '15 at 14:16
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What may well have happened is this:

  • company posts the job internally needing requirements A, B, and C and paying X
  • no suitable internal candidates apply
  • company posts the job externally, doesn't specify a salary but is still thinking X
  • you apply. You don't quite meet the requirements (maybe they want Strong A and you're more a Medium A person, or they wanted some D even though they didn't put it in the job requirements, and you don't have D)
  • they decide you're the best applicant they've seen, even though you're missing a small requirement, so they make you an offer for less than they had planned. You take it. That's that.

It's possible they decided you were perfectly qualified and deserved X, but they tried hiring you for less and it worked. That's that.

At no point should you try to get this "fixed". You like the job and you took it. Knowing what it was once offered for changes nothing. You have perhaps learned that you're not a good negotiator, or that you're not quite as perfectly qualified for this job as you thought you were. Try not to let this knowledge get you down. You were hired, after all, and you like your job.

That said, if you'd like to make more, going to your boss and asking "what skill do I have to develop in order to start making more money?" is never a bad thing. Don't make a meeting for no other purpose, just ask your manager some time. If you manager says "wait until your review and we'll talk about it then" you will have to accept that, though you may not like it.

Kate Gregory
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    Thank you Kate, you are true about the fact that I really have to improve my negotiations skills. I appreciate your response. Thanks again! – malsaggaaf Jan 19 '15 at 18:20
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    The last point is good advice, but I'd definitely wait for more than two weeks on the job before asking that question, lest you appear dissatisfied. – Bobson Jan 19 '15 at 20:17
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    And so what? It's standard industry practice to post white-knight job descriptions which cannot be satisfied, not even by someone at twice the salary, even if they could be found. Recruiters can then use this as fake leverage in compensation negotiations. Remember: you can't lie about your qualifications and experience, but the employer (and recruiter) can totally lie about the job requirements. Or recycle generic, outdated or nonexistent job listings. – smci Jan 19 '15 at 20:50
  • Also, by definition if they couldn't fill the job req internally after months of looking, it's strongly possible either the requirements are too high, the compensation is too low, or there's some other factor about that manager/department/product/job function/company. – smci Jan 19 '15 at 20:53
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    @smci I'm not sure how these comments address the question or the answer. Are you telling the OP that the internal posting is not particularly reliable information and to be content with the current salary? – Kate Gregory Jan 19 '15 at 21:37
  • @KateGregory: it directly addresses your assumption that OP didn't meet the requirements, and also your criticism that they "may not be a good negotiator". This is a very well-known recruiter trick: floating a job req with unsatisfiable requirements then using those as a clawback in compensation discussions. It's important to note that you're required to be honest with companies and recruiters, but they can (and often do) do dishonest things like this. Knowing this makes you a better negotiator. Sometimes companies have internal or external reasons for keeping a job req open or unfillable... – smci Jan 19 '15 at 23:40
  • ...and sometimes they use "composite" job reqs of multiple actual positions due to a) lack of internal clarity or agreement b) laziness c) unrealistic expectations d) internal uncertainty on headcounts or budgets, hiring reqs, anticipated hiring freezes/transfers/layoffs/quarterly deadlines or e) inertia and inflexibility in the HR process wrt hiring. Playing games with job reqs is one way to punt on all of these. Of course it can negatively affect the candidate, that's why they need to be aware of all this. – smci Jan 19 '15 at 23:44
  • I've also had recruiters tell me of cases where a hiring manager deliberately kept an unfillable (overqualified/undercompensated) job req open (and burned the recruiters and multiple candidates who interviewed for it, over the best part of a year) as a political tactic to senior management that in their opinion they deserved to be allocated job req at a higher compensation level. Very bad behavior. – smci Jan 20 '15 at 00:33
  • If the OP wouldn't met some requirements, he wouldn't be assigned to the same grade. I don't think you answer matches the question. –  Jan 20 '15 at 07:38
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    @РСТȢѸФХѾЦЧШЩЪЫЬѢѤЮѦѪѨѬѠѺѮѰѲѴ but that's exactly what OP says: it was posted at a higher grade than what the OP is receiving – Kate Gregory Jan 20 '15 at 14:03
  • "It's possible they decided you were perfectly qualified and deserved X, but they tried hiring you for less and it worked. That's that." Right. I'd even say "deserved" is irrelevant. You have a minimum amount you can work for. They have a maximum they can pay. The difference is the pie that you and your employer are going to divide based on negotiation. You both want as much as possible, but "fair" is anything you both agree to. The grocery store doesn't try to renegotiate their banana price after checkout if I mention I've bought them for more elsewhere. – Nathan Long Jan 20 '15 at 19:42
  • @NathanLong: the crucial difference being the grocery store can't sell you a bottle of champagne, you buy it, then found out you got sold a banana, for a champagne price. There is sometimes bad behavior about job descriptions. Frequently the job req externally shown or used by the recruiter or HR is not the internal one nor the legally binding one in your offer paperwork or H1B paperwork, nor the one subsequently used in your performance review... there is no career equivalent of a county consumer affairs and weights-and-measures dept to prevent you being missold a banana. – smci Jan 20 '15 at 22:30
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One thing which hasn't been pointed is out is that an internal person will probably already have familiarity with some of the things you'll encountered on the job - saving them training time and effort.

If it takes you (probably underestimating here) 2 months to get properly integrated into the environment at the company and find your feet, but an internal person say just 1 month, that's probably quite a bit of extra working time this hypothetical internal person could do.

This doesn't even consider the fact you might need to have a supervisor who will help you with tasks etc that the internal person wouldn't need to ask.

Michael Thorpe
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Should I discuss this with my manager now or in the yearly review?

Bring it up now.

Anything that bothers you that much should be brought up with your manager reasonably quickly. Waiting until your yearly review would push the issue too far out - perhaps so far that the details have been forgotten. In addition, if it bothers you this much, there's no sense in letting it fester for months.

If you have a regular one-on-one meeting with your manager, that would be an appropriate time for this discussion.

If not, just say something on the order of "Hey boss. Do you have a few minutes to chat? I have something that's bothering me that I'd like to discuss."

During your conversation, try to stick to the issue that bothers you. In your case, it sounds like you are bothered by the fact that the position was initially targeted at one grade higher than you chose to accept.

Remember that there might be many reasons why this happened. It's possible that they re-graded the position before you were interviewed. It's possible that they thought they needed someone with more experience and abilities than you currently possess, but that they view you as capable of eventually getting to that level. Also remember that you accepted your current compensation, and presumably were content until you happened to see the old internal job posting.

Try to go in with the attitude that you just want to understand what happened, rather than just "I'm frustrated". After all, you did accept the offer for several reasons.

And try to be clear in your own head now what you hope to accomplish from your discussion with your manager. It's unlikely you'll be bumped up a grade just because you became frustrated - that's not likely to be a reasonable expectation.

Joe Strazzere
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While it's true that the negotiations have concluded, you are always free to challenge what happened, based on what you now know. Your boss is free to think of you negatively as a result (which may or may not happen). It's a risk. Assuming you work in a larger company, you'd put him/her in a difficult position by pushing for something that they probably won't be able to deliver; after all, what's done is done. Large companies are notoriously bureaucratic and systematic (which is not necessarily a bad thing). So I don't think you'd be successful if you were aggressive about the situation.

But the news is not all bad. You now have knowledge, and knowledge is power.

I once had a job where I discovered that my underling was making more money than me. This angered me to no end. Once I relaxed, I strategized: Ok, said I, now that I know what the company is thinking (ie, "The position is worth at least $X"), I have to squeeze the cash out of them but proving that I am underpaid and deserving of a raise. So I went out to job sites and so on and created/documented my case. It was a lot of work, but in the end I went to my boss and very nicely said, "Boy working here is great but I think I'm not up to industry standards, and here's why..." He went and got me a mid-year salary increase which was highly unusual.

So, the moral is: Prove your worth, prove you're worth it, and hope for the best. If it doesn't turn out, ask the Market for its opinion (ie, look for another position for more money).

Mike S
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Instead of a negative, look at this as a positive. It means there is room for growth once you prove yourself.

There could be many reasons why the salary offered to you is lower - they are taking a bigger chance on you coming from the outside. But the reason is irrelevant really.

However, now that you know they view the job as a higher level job, you can use that knowledge to ask for the promotion once you have proven yourself. You don't need to wait until performance apprasials are done, but you do need to wait until you have some solid accomplishments at this job under your belt.

No manager anywhere is going to give a pay raise to someone they have just hired. It is a perceptual negative to ask at this point. By this I mean the manager will think less of you and will be far less likely to give you the money and will be more likely to give greater weight your errors if you ask now. It is a lose-lose situation for you to ask until you have proven to be valuable.

However, once you are valuable, you know they have already determined that this job can pay more. So if you do a good job of showing your manager that you are a valuable team member who is contributing beyond your current grade level, there is a good chance of getting that promotion.

HLGEM
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0

Depends on your personality. If you are the type of person who will not let this go, boiling inside for a year and waiting for the yearly review to "prove" yourself is not going to be good for you. Let's fast-forward one year from now, best case scenario:

Say you were excellent, worked overtime, achieved results and you ask for a raise. Because of how companies work, the raise you can realistically ask for may be less than the difference between the higher paygrade. Also, if they don't give you the raise, what can you do? You already did the work. You can only threaten to go or just go or accept it.

The time an employee is most powerful in the negotiations is when they haven't accepted the offer yet. You didn't have enough information to counter their offer and they got you to accept it. This doesn't bode well for your next performance review - maybe they will see that you have done commendable work but still give you less than they could/should, just because they can. I think, instead of putting in long hours to "prove" your worth, you start looking elsewhere. Put the long hours into becoming a better negotiator instead, because you probably didn't do as good job as you could have in that matter. You switched positions and accepted a job with a very small salary difference - most people switch up. They probably fed you the "the job is so interesting!" line too to get you to accept their offer.

Working for a year feeling underpaid and hoping that after that it will all be fixed is not a good strategy. You put effort into an organization that tricked you in the hopes that you will be so good they can't trick you anymore. If you feel you are worth more and they tricked you, you need to either let go of the feeling and appreciate the good parts about your current situation or let go of the job.

PS: I assumed that the OP was offered a low-ball offer intentionally in my answer. There are other good answers who explain why this may not be the case.

Source: Personal experience, Books on negotiation

grasshopper
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