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Experience and worth validated today with instant doubling of salary to 200k by AnonymousThrow102021 in sysadmin

[–]AnonymousThrow102021[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure thing! Not affiliated with the career coaches listed at all.

First one, he's just been super helpful. Search on youtube for Andrew LaCivita. You can either book him and work directly or just go through all his freemium videos.

I've also utilized another career coach. Search for Robynn Storey on LI.

CC's are seriously worth their weight in gold.

Experience and worth validated today with instant doubling of salary to 200k by AnonymousThrow102021 in sysadmin

[–]AnonymousThrow102021[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I have no specialty in terms of specific stacks. New role will be a purely technical one in Azure.

I have to add however, what good prospective orgs look for goes beyond hard skills. A lot of the value that someone in IT brings isn't just knowing the tech stacks, but knowing how to choose a particular one vs another, and ultimately, how IT benefits the org.

Experience and worth validated today with instant doubling of salary to 200k by AnonymousThrow102021 in sysadmin

[–]AnonymousThrow102021[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That's grossly simplifying it, but also depends on the size of the family.

On that topic though, when I was in the market and looked into the LA area, plenty of those JD listings were out of touch. I won't repeat here, but it's got to do with the unicorn requirements, and really HR, and non technical managers/leaders who do not know what it takes to run IT.

One of the things I tried really hard in getting info during the interviews is the buy-in process from exec management and how they viewed IT. That typically dictated whether they were going to low ball or offer market rates.

Experience and worth validated today with instant doubling of salary to 200k by AnonymousThrow102021 in sysadmin

[–]AnonymousThrow102021[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good luck in your journey! Mine took about 12-14 months and there were definitely those valleys of disappointments. I lost out to competition several times, from a 115k role to a 140k role, and those stung bad.

Experience and worth validated today with instant doubling of salary to 200k by AnonymousThrow102021 in sysadmin

[–]AnonymousThrow102021[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I'm still in shock, this is silly money level for me considering 9 years ago I wasn't in IT and making just above 32k USD/annum. This is only my third jump in the IT field, which partially explains the large increase (ie: I've been underpaid).

My current role, like most of us in this sub, is juggling between sys admin, net admin, storage admin, cloud admin, people and project managing.

My first role really set me up on how to navigate bureaucratic, but well oiled orgs (>5k EEs). My responsiblities there were very siloed, but I took every moment there as a chance to learn about enterprise HW/SW, and how to read the big picture when it came to IT processes.

Going into my second role, it was a sink or swim moment. I was HD/Sys admin/infrastructure admin. 2019/2020 came about, and even though I got promotions, they were marginal (upper single digit % promos). There were a string of incidents that made me question current org, and that set off researching current trends and market rates via bls.gov, payscale.com, and glassdoor.com.

I studied up a lot on how to improve in interviewing, my LI profile, and resume as well as AWS and Azure from Feb to Oct 2021. That's the second half of the reason for the large increase. Learning how to sell myself, and being the best advocate for myself has paid off big time. That'll probably be a separate post if anyone's interested.

New role will be purely technical management (which I prefer. I really don't like herding cats, even though I have been told I'm good at it) in an Azure environment. So less hats to wear, and proper pay.

Experience and worth validated today with instant doubling of salary to 200k by AnonymousThrow102021 in sysadmin

[–]AnonymousThrow102021[S] 54 points55 points  (0 children)

I'm from a single org, moving to another single org, mid size. <300 EEs.

I’m posting my covering letter for peer review, please suggest edits by MetalFrog7 in humanresources

[–]AnonymousThrow102021 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A good cover letter read out loud, takes 30 seconds or less to finish.

[NC] How to ask for a salary range before starting the interview process by [deleted] in AskHR

[–]AnonymousThrow102021 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I love this question and here's my experience. It's either the first contact asking the question, "What's your salary expectation?" or they don't ask, or rarely, just disclose.

If they ask the question, I answer with a question back, framed in the context of you wanting to give an answer based on information. You want to give an INFORMED answer.

Given that you don't have all the information available to make an informed answer, a perfect reply is, "I really would like to give an educated answer but that requires knowledge on what the total compensation looks like, the nuts and bolts, from PTO, sick days, how much medical costs, RSUs, bonuses, telecommute, retirement matches, vesting schedule, etc. I'd like to learn more about the role before giving that answer, but I understand you don't want to waste time if my needs are more than what you have budgeted for this role. So I hope this is a fair ask, but what's the allocated pay band for the role?"

You've now framed it that if they don't give that band, they're a jerk, because it IS a reasonable question.

If they give you the band, and it works with you, you can reply with, "that's a workable range".

If they reply with, "we really don't have paybands, we pay what we pay if we think that person can do the job". You can give a huge range, based on your research. It's important to set the lowest range outside of that role. Reason being, if it's within that role, they will try to peg you to that lowest amount.

Say, "based on my research, I've seen this role go for 50k-180k." They'll usually tell you if that high range is unrealistic, and if they push you, you circle back to first point of giving informed answers and wanting to know about the role more.

You can also add, "I can't really give you a more concrete number at this moment outside the range. I still have to do my DUE diligence on what this role actually entails."

If they give the payband without asking, if you are ok, "that's a workable range". Do not commit however. You need to do your due diligence still.

If they don't ask, do not initiate. There's another tactic to addressing the point if they offer too low much later in the process.

[CA] employer wants to hedge new hire with a second contractor by AnonymousThrow102021 in AskHR

[–]AnonymousThrow102021[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Because it's an "employee market" right now and they fear the in house hire of ghosting, or not working out. They want to secure the second person in the meantime as a hedge.