Stay or join new company?

[nooewbie]

Hi everyone,

Need some opinion here.

I have been offered a 1year contract role with renewable/convert to perm depending on performance and headcount, but everything is good with my current job except the pay and also i may be due for a promotion next year to at first, a senior title. I was just trying my luck to see as I asked for a approximately 37% increment based on my current salary.

However, just recently, as my company is aligning title to HQ staff whereby degree holders will be holding a senior title, the promotion will be a Grade increase.

The push factor is that despite with promotion to higher grade next year, it is highly likely less than 10% increment as I happen to find out Grade promotion is 8-10% only.

The thing is default promotion path is: senior title --> Grade. However now that the automatically become senior with no pay increment, the next path is Grade, but that means it is like a double jump, will the increment % change?

I think my current Grade is the lower end of the salary spectrum, therefore when promoted to senior, it should be middle to higher end of current Grade. With the new title alignment thingy, its like skipping this senior title promotion. Therefore from lower end of old Grade to newer end of new Grade cannot be like 10% only? It's too narrow in my opinion.

The company I am working now is a govt related company whereby HQ is considered under stat board while we are not, it is still linked, so i highly doubt they will pay above that fixed % for Grade promotion.

Anyway, this new company decided to offer me 20% increment instead.

The dilemma here is that because of December AWS and also rumor of extra 1month due to company meeting management target, I may be missing out potential 2 months as well as the promotion/grade thingy though my promotion is not confirmed yet, only next April will know. All these are assumptions if i am promoted, which my boss say will try to fight for me.

The benefits of the new company is on par with my current company.

Right now I am a perm staff, but since it is converting to contract, I was hoping the increment % should be higher.

Should I go for it? or wait and stay like 7 more months after PB then decide from there? Can I assume 20% for new job is the norm?

Don't fall for it when potential employers tell you there is potential to be converted to perm when headcount expands....some companies are just out to "con" new hires and trick them with this.... at the end of the day the company may just rollover your contracts and you'll be forever a contractor...

Don't fall for the potential salary increase offered by your prospective new company because this only compensates for your loss of other benefits when you're only a contractor.. you may not be compensated when they decide to axe you..there is a reason why companies hire contractors because of their negative outlook...so they may one day ask you to leave and there goes your retrenchment package when you're a contractor...

Many american and big MNCs are starting to use this ''contractor'' trick...

Typically when a company is no confident on their growth and stable revenue, they look for contract employee. So it would not be wise to leave your permanent role with potential promotion opportunity for a contract role of 1 year unless 40-50% increment with at least 3 years contract. Even such case you need to consider if there will be relevant job after 3 years in the market with the pay you worth.

The reason contract is able to offer higher basic is they usually have little/no bonus, reduced benefits and are the first on the line to get the chop whenever there's cost pressure. 95% of the contract jobs out there will say its renewable or got chance to convert to perm, doesn't mean a thing.

My advice is don't take up any contract job unless you have a specific game plan in hand, i.e. you know some big shots in the new company who can help push for your conversion, or the new contract job can give you a chance to learn some specific special skills or niche network that you want strongly.

I sense you are tempted because of whatever unhappiness you feel over the current promotion process, that is regretable, but do not do stupid things like changing to a short term contractor just because you are slighly unhappy over your current situation.

[nooewbie]

Dear all, thank you for your kind advice.

I have decided to accept the contract offer over email, but have not sign the contract yet. If I decided to back out before contract signing, guess I would be blacklisted by HR already?

The new company I am joining is in the education industry with their certs recognized by the government. Currently I am doing IT, still going over there doing IT as well.

I had asked about the benefits and AWS, PB etc. Benefits wise is approximately same as my current company. There is AWS bonus, PB ballpark figure ~1.5mths.

I feel that as I am young (<30yrs old) with no major commitments except yearly insurance, I should be going out to learn more new things and know more people in order to build up my career.

Actually if I wanted, I could have waited for promotion before finding a new job. However, as I feel my manager treated us genuinely and with this new company as a job experience in my resume. I decided to go now rather than being promoted and decide to leave, burning my bridge.

Taking all these into considerations, will your opinion change?

Originally Posted by nooewbie

Dear all, thank you for your kind advice.

I have decided to accept the contract offer over email, but have not sign the contract yet. If I decided to back out before contract signing, guess I would be blacklisted by HR already?

The new company I am joining is in the education industry with their certs recognized by the government. Currently I am doing IT, still going over there doing IT as well.

I had asked about the benefits and AWS, PB etc. Benefits wise is approximately same as my current company. There is AWS bonus, PB ballpark figure ~1.5mths.

I feel that as I am young (<30yrs old) with no major commitments except yearly insurance, I should be going out to learn more new things and know more people in order to build up my career.

Actually if I wanted, I could have waited for promotion before finding a new job. However, as I feel my manager treated us genuinely and with this new company as a job experience in my resume. I decided to go now rather than being promoted and decide to leave, burning my bridge.

Taking all these into considerations, will your opinion change?

if you reject them now, don't think about joining them again in future. if you have real doubts, your best bet is to call the hr, tell them you need more time to think it over.

Originally Posted by nooewbie

Dear all, thank you for your kind advice.

I have decided to accept the contract offer over email, but have not sign the contract yet. If I decided to back out before contract signing, guess I would be blacklisted by HR already?

The new company I am joining is in the education industry with their certs recognized by the government. Currently I am doing IT, still going over there doing IT as well.

I had asked about the benefits and AWS, PB etc. Benefits wise is approximately same as my current company. There is AWS bonus, PB ballpark figure ~1.5mths.

I feel that as I am young (<30yrs old) with no major commitments except yearly insurance, I should be going out to learn more new things and know more people in order to build up my career.

Actually if I wanted, I could have waited for promotion before finding a new job. However, as I feel my manager treated us genuinely and with this new company as a job experience in my resume. I decided to go now rather than being promoted and decide to leave, burning my bridge.

Taking all these into considerations, will your opinion change?

I acknowledge you are young and want to learn more, but honestly I do not see how jumping into a new company doing the same IT stuff is in anyway meaningful. The package does not look attractive either. If you aspire to develop your career in IT, education industry is not really the right place.

This seems to be just another risk taking adventure that does not yield anything substantial. But still its your life, so take care and hope you get something. Worse thing is renew and renew going nowhere and damaging CV in the process.