I went on a job interview today. It was really nothing out of the ordinary until I did something uncharacteristic of me about 15 minutes in: I politely ended it.
Despite not having a good feeling in my gut about it, and being stuck in an hour’s worth of traffic, and arriving almost 20 minutes late, it was I who decided to walk away. That sounds bad, I realize, but let me explain. When I first spoke on the phone with this prospective employer about a week ago everything seemed great: Nice boss, what sounded like a good work environment, and a place on the ground floor of something that could be big. This was my element. I was excited.
Cut to today:
- I’m sitting down and discussing the ins and outs of the job in an apartment-living-room-turned-office – that I could deal with
- I glanced briefly at the “work machines”, running Windows XP, and saw more icons in the taskbar than I could readily count without seeming distracted – that I could deal with
- I was expected to display my coding proficiency in person while two people sat behind me, looking over my shoulder for a majority of the time – even that I could deal with
What I could not deal with, though, was going through every aforementioned thing and, in the end, turning down the job because we couldn’t arrive at an agreeable salary. At this point I politely took control of the conversation, right before my approximately hour long proficiency test, and asked what the pay would be for this position. After some “Well’s…” and talk about how it’s experience-based and commensurate with job responsibilities I finally posed this scenario to them: Assume I take the test and I’m the perfect candidate. I’m able to code exactly how you like and my design process jives with your business model. What’s the most you’re willing to pay me from day one?
I’ve been on enough interviews these past months to pick up a thing or two about what I can expect to be paid based on a lot of factors including environment, employer’s technical savvy, what kind of in-house equipment is being utilized, and, perhaps most importantly, language cues. The following terms/phrases don’t bode well for you getting adequate compensation: “start up”, “we’re just getting the ball rolling”, “we can offer you interest in the company”, “barter services”, “we’re currently seeking more capital”, etc. I’ve heard them all and have a rough idea of how to translate each.
I digress. Back to the question I asked…
As you can guess, there’s no way to really wiggle your way out of such a direct question and when I heard the answer I made my decision about working for them, as opposed to the other way around. I thanked them for their time, wished them luck in finding a suitable candidate, and went on my way.
It’s a difficult thing to do in this economy and especially since I haven’t had a full-time job since around November, but when I consider all of the productive things I could accomplish throughout the course of an eight hour day: learning a new programming language, brushing up on my video editing skills, or just becoming more knowledgeable of new technologies in general; it becomes increasingly frustrating to take a job where you’re being paid 20, sometimes 30 percent less than the value of your combined skills, especially when they’re asking to display hours of your proficiency for a job you’re not guaranteed to get. Do you grab at anything you can get your hands on or do you wait it out, often in difficult circumstances, until the right job comes along?
At the risk of sounding pretentious, the lesson here is: Never settle for less than you’re worth. Know your absolute minimum asking price and don’t haggle unless there’s something of equal value thrown into the ring, like insurance, 401K or something proportionately beneficial to keep you motivated.
Always be mindful that what you bank every week is not the most important thing.
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