High salary and poor benefits or stick with what I have?

September 7, 2021 6:20 AM

Should I move from my job of 3 years to a new much higher paying job for the money, despite not necessarily being the best job for me? Or stay and I hope I find a similarly good opportunity?

I’ve just been offered a job with a very good salary. Not in US, but think 100,000USD. Currently I earn around 57,000USD base salary plus bonuses which before the pandemic was about 1.5 months worth, but 0 during. I also have 19days pto plus 5 sick days. The new job is just 10 days pto, and sick days come out of this. Raising to 20 days after 6.5 years. I’m told there’s no way it would change as it is standard for all staff, and judging by glassdoor reviews it is correct.

I’m having a hard time reconciling this. As a father of two. The extra money would be life changing for the positive. The PTO would be for the negative.

The new job doesn’t really seem like it would advance my career, but then probably neither would my current position.

The glassdoor reviews for the new company are not particularly amazing, and the hr guy I’ve been talking to has been less than helpful. Which gives me pause about starting with the company.

What would you do?

Just to add to the quandry I was also recently contacted by a recruiter for a similar job, which interests me more. I’ve had a brief introductory meeting with them and just waiting on a full interview. No idea what salary or benefits they would offer, but it seems like it would fit me and my career better if I were to get the position.

posted by iamcrispy to Work & Money (21 answers total)

Personally that little PTO would slowly kill me, so I'd keep hunting for something better financially that came with good benefits.
posted by DoubleLune at 6:25 AM on September 7, 2021 [14 favorites]

You are in demand! I think you should trust that, since it sounds like your current job isn't something you're clawing at the walls to escape.

Go ahead and tell the 100K Lousy Place that the cut in PTO is a dealbreaker for you; can they match what you get at your current position? If they say yes, GET IT IN WRITING, because a place that chintzy may well bait-and-switch you. If they say no, say "sorry, that won't work for me; I wish you the best filling the position!" and keep looking.

You might also want to do a market analysis for your current position, or look for an upward opportunity at your org. Are you being underpaid? If so, fixing that might be the best option.
posted by humbug at 6:26 AM on September 7, 2021 [14 favorites]

What is their position on taking non-paid vacation leave? Because, I mean, you can take a lot of unpaid days of leave without coming close to using up the $43K in salary difference.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:32 AM on September 7, 2021 [30 favorites]

you can take a lot of unpaid days of leave without coming close to using up the $43K in salary difference

Yeah, I was talking to a relative of mine who works at a place with similarly-crappy leave (I think it's 1 week for new employees, rising to 3 after 10 YEARS!), and he just takes a lot of unpaid leave. He thinks it's a terrible policy, but it still works out OK enough for him.
posted by mskyle at 6:38 AM on September 7, 2021 [4 favorites]

Personally, I would not accept less than 15 days of vacation (not counting sick!) per year.

10 days of combined time-off would be a nonstarter. Hard pass.
posted by vitout at 6:55 AM on September 7, 2021 [5 favorites]

This is a good market for job seekers. If these folks will pay you $100K, others will too and those others may also have better paid leave.

But for now I agree with others that taking this new job is worth it because you can take unpaid time off as needed. Unless there are actual red flags (evidence of nasty work culture, shrinking company or industry, non-communicative team members, multiple predecessors in your role within the last few years), go ahead and take the money! IMO 80% of the point of a job is money, once basic criteria such as safety and lack of hostility have been met. Even if you end up leaving for a better place after a year, you'll be negotiating within a much higher salary bracket by default. There's very little downside.
posted by MiraK at 6:59 AM on September 7, 2021 [5 favorites]

Also do they have any company holidays? If they do national holidays off in addition to PTO it could offset how limited it is.
posted by brilliantine at 7:11 AM on September 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

I took a job with less PTO and higher pay a few years back. The pay increase was great at first and is still good, but I've just hit the two year mark and that PTO cut I took (and the fact that there's no rollover) has definitely started to weigh on me more. If the sick leave was rolled into the PTO or if they were less flexible about occasionally needing to leave early to take care of things, I would have left a long time ago.

That paycheck sounds great but the amount of PTO seems INCREDIBLY low for anyone, but especially someone with kids. If they are not otherwise flexible about things like unpaid leave or having to occasionally do parent stuff, I don't know if I'd take it, especially since it's not furthering your career. Not sure what you do, but if you have recruiters coming to you with other viable offers, it might be worth holding out to find something with better balance.
posted by helloimjennsco at 7:34 AM on September 7, 2021 [2 favorites]

That level of PTO/sick days would be unworkable for me, and I would not want to be willing to bet on being allowed to make up the difference with unpaid time off. Even if you could get the new manager to agree in writing that it's fine, you just need a change in manager to find you're suddenly on a performance plan for what was previously okay. I'd be worried about finding myself with no job before too long.

If your current job is a trashfire and you need to get out then take the new job and see how it goes, but if you can afford to keep looking, I would. It sounds like you're in demand and can be a little picky.
posted by Stacey at 7:55 AM on September 7, 2021 [3 favorites]

One thing you didn't touch upon was whether the $100k place would be flexible about where/when you work. If you could shift hours and work from home (or wherever), the practical result would be more flexibility vis-a-vis your parenting responsibilities and ability to travel. Similarly, if your obligations are based on billable time, rather than hours sitting at your desk, a whole new world for negotiation opens up. I've had jobs where people met their billable time obligations in all sorts of ways, including jamming it all in during tax season and then taking months off.
posted by carmicha at 7:56 AM on September 7, 2021 [3 favorites]

You're overthinking this. How many days unpaid days off would you have to take before you'd net less money? At 57k vs 100k, you'd have to take two days off every single week. And honestly, if you're taking two or more days off on a regular basis, you might want to consider short term leave or FMLA rather than PTO anyway. Take the new job, and use the extra money to build a Scrooge McDuck money bin. Your kids will enjoy that. Then keep looking for an even better opportunity.
posted by kevinbelt at 8:05 AM on September 7, 2021 [3 favorites]

It's a job not a marriage, so you can do it for two years and then move on with 80K in the bank. If the third job is even better when the new offer comes through, you can bail for that job and just leave this one off you resume.
posted by DarlingBri at 8:10 AM on September 7, 2021 [6 favorites]

If you expect that you'd be working physically in an office for the new job, keep in mind that one thing that combining sick and PTO into the same pool incentivizes is coming into the office sick, particularly when there's so little of it. It also means that your new coworkers are likely going to be higher stress because they don't get breaks from work. Companies like that also tend to have people who figure out ways to game the system in ways that dump some of their work into other people, which can be infuriating.

The points about taking unpaid leave are good, both that it might be the solution but also that it might require management signoff and that at a certain point they might just not decide to grant it. At certain thresholds, it might do things like affect your benefits.

If there's not an option to take unpaid leave, 10 days as a father of two sounds hellish to me and I'd personally take the information as a benchmark of market value and look for a place paying $85K (or whatever) plus a rational amount of sick and PTO.
posted by Candleman at 8:13 AM on September 7, 2021 [2 favorites]

Make sure unpaid time off is allowed. Are you disciplined enough to save at least 1/2 of the increase as a cushion for leaving if you're miserable? Companies with crappy benefits are often crappy companies.

You don't mention loving your current position. You're getting recruited. Take your time, and find a great new job that you'll love. This one might be it, if you tell them bluntly that you'll be taking at least 15 unpaid days off, and may need need more money to cover some of that. Companies tend to respect people who value themselves; ask for more.
posted by theora55 at 8:19 AM on September 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

Definitely check about unpaid PTO. A week of unpaid PTO is about 2% of your salary. Would you take this job if it was 25 days PTO (including sick time) but the salary was $94k? 15 extra days (3 weeks) is about 6%, or 6k.

If you would and unpaid PTO is ok, I'd take the job, plan on unpaid PTO, save the difference from your old salary, and keep looking. Maybe this job will turn out better than expected. Maybe it wont. Assuming your bonus pre-pandemic was 7k, you're looking at 64k vs 94k. Thats still a 46% raise!
posted by cgg at 8:31 AM on September 7, 2021 [2 favorites]

This offer is an opportunity to re-set your compensation bracket.
posted by aramaic at 8:40 AM on September 7, 2021 [16 favorites]

This PTO is a red flag for a work environment that is toxic in other ways. I think that in a lot of white-collar jobs in the USA, employers grant PTO with the expectation that their employees will not use it all up in a year (hence the commonplace “roll-over” policies regarding PTO). I would be worried about the work-life expectations/office culture of an employer that granted essentially no more than a week’s paid vacation plus allowance for one mild sickness a year, especially if they expect that you would not take all of this very meager leave in one year. The office culture may in that case be particular unwelcoming of taking unpaid leave, as some are suggesting here.
posted by hhc5 at 9:11 AM on September 7, 2021 [7 favorites]

I tend to agree that a company that has such low PTO offerings doesn't value their workers in a way that creates a company I'd want to work for long term. HOWEVER. I have worked at some jobs where I had limited PTO, in theory, but in reality I only had to use that time if I was taking big chunks off. Like, my two week long vacations a year. Otherwise, my boss chalked a long weekend here or there or a sick day up to knowing that I was working more than my 40 frequently enough for it to wash out. I also have always had the flexibility to schedule doctor appointments or classroom volunteering in the middle of the work day, and to work from home pretty much whenever I want after building up some capital.

So, there's a lot of stuff that matters here, not the least of which is who your direct boss and teammates would be. Lack of PTO wouldn't necessarily scare me if I knew the rest would follow.
posted by dpx.mfx at 10:12 AM on September 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

Came here to say what aramaic said. Basically your claim that "The new job doesn’t really seem like it would advance my career," is missing that it will make it much easier for you to demand larger salaries in the future. It proves you're "worth" much more than your current job suggests. I'd take it - you can always apply for a better job with more PTO in a few years.
posted by coffeecat at 10:19 AM on September 7, 2021 [8 favorites]

Or even a few months.
posted by kevinbelt at 10:55 AM on September 7, 2021 [2 favorites]

As someone who recently switched employers and nearly doubled her salary, I can say the extra money is certainly great. BUT the amount of PTO is similarly high -- I'm a teacher and that'd be a big deal for me. It doesn't sound like this new job has a great work environment but that you are in demand and hopefully more and better offers will come your way soon!
posted by smorgasbord at 4:42 PM on September 7, 2021