[tc_rides]

A good friend of mine working as a director in the IT of a global financial giant got laid off. Had been making close to 1.3 CR with 22 yrs of experience. What do you think, is he underpaid or can ask a bit more? What is the current demand? He is applying for an equivalent job title.

[selva2306]

Originally Posted by NiInJa

Today, the same thing that I created back in mid 2017 is marketed by Oracle solutions under the title 'BYOML' (Bring your own ML) while one can get Groovy scripts generated by ChatGPT !

Hey, do you mind sharing your thoughts on ML in Finance? Guess you're into FP&A using EPM..

[sunilch]

Originally Posted by tc_rides

A good friend of mine working as a director in the IT of a global financial giant got laid off. Had been making close to 1.3 CR with 22 yrs of experience. What do you think, is he underpaid or can ask a bit more? What is the current demand? He is applying for an equivalent job title.

Pay is not the issue any more. Job opportunities are now very limited. If an equivalent opportunity exists, pay won't be issue. But if not, then he may have to downgrade both - pay and position. Say a VP instead of the Director.

[Guna]

Originally Posted by sunilch

Pay is not the issue any more. Job opportunities are now very limited. If an equivalent opportunity exists, pay won't be issue. But if not, then he may have to downgrade both - pay and position. Say a VP instead of the Director.

VP is a role higher than a Director (But 'Director' as in the 'Board of Directors' is different altogether. It is not really a job role)

[sunilch]

Originally Posted by Guna

VP is a role higher than a Director (But 'Director' as in the 'Board of Directors' is different altogether. It is not really a job role)

No, in large MNC financial services firms, VP is more of a Team Lead or Engineering Manager role. You will find 100s of VPs there. The band is wide there for a VP but some very senior VPs become 'Directors' now (what was Executive Director earlier). I am saying this because I have worked for a few of such firms and they all follow the same hierarchy.

What you are referring to could be something in a different sector or type of company.

[Guna]

Originally Posted by sunilch

No, in large MNC financial services firms, VP is more of a Team Lead or Engineering Manager role. You will find 100s of VPs there. The band is wide there for a VP but some very senior VPs become 'Directors' now (what was Executive Director earlier). I am saying this because I have worked for a few of such firms and they all follow the same hierarchy.

What you are referring to could be something in a different sector or type of company.

Got it. Yes I have seen VP titles for the leads in many MNC Banks. I was talking about In IT/Product companies.

[tc_rides]

Thanks. I should have clarified it. The hierarchy is VP- Executive Director - Managing Director. A typical VP is a Team Lead, an ED could have an org of 50 odd and MD has an org of 500. This person is an ED in the IT of a global financial giant.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by tc_rides

A good friend of mine working as a director in the IT of a global financial giant got laid off. Had been making close to 1.3 CR with 22 yrs of experience.

Ok, this question needs a nuanced answer. Anyone who is in IT, and is making over 60L, is getting paid for his current skills, whatever they are. After crossing 15 years, it is not about years anyone. I have 33 years of experience, but what is relevance of my first 15 years in today's context? Yes, I can give you historical trivia from the 90s over a coffee break. But nobody gets paid for sharing historical trivia. In fact, nobody in the workplace wants to hear "In my younger days...", even from the boss.

Originally Posted by tc_rides

What do you think, is he underpaid or can ask a bit more? What is the current demand? He is applying for an equivalent job title.

There is no way we can answer this question. Again, it is not about his years of experience. Does he have very unique skills that is scarce in the market? Right now, most global companies are firing, not hiring. In this employment market, if a person who just got laid off at ₹1.3C thinks he was underpaid, he must have a very special skill set that financial companies very badly want. Maybe he does, then he can name his price.

But if he is an IT manager who can be replaced with someone with 12-15 years of experience, then he must be ready to drop his price drastically.

[charanreddy]

To be fair to the recruiters, an employee seeking a lower paying job is either keeping this job as a back up or using this as a transitional job until he finds something that pays more. I was genuinely looking for a work experience which added skills to my resume and was willing to take a pay cut, but HR politely said it’s a bad idea and did not consider my resume.

A typical hiring cycle takes 6 months, 3 months to float a req. , get leads from market / referrals , interview and then wait 3 months more for notice period in existing company. I understand why managers and HR do not want to take this risk.

The only exception I heard was during campus hiring from top tier B Schools during recessionary periods. A close acquaintance who had ~ 15 yrs of IT experience and then took a break to do 1 yr exec MBA from IIM A, was offered ~ 50% of his prior MBA salary during 2008- 09 by a reputed tech company. Obviously he declined and joined a real estate startup.

[sandeepmohan]

Originally Posted by am1m

He mentioned that he's interviewing with another major firm and also communicated to the HR folk there that he's ok with a pay reduction.

I maybe missing the full context here.
Should you be stressing on the pay cut part from the get go? I feel that will signal desperation more than anything else. Unless that really is the case, I would not say that. Let the recruiter or new firm come asking you that question. Why take a pay cut if you qualify for the role/job.

[Asish_VK]

Originally Posted by am1m

Was wondering what experiences people might have had with voluntary pay reductions? I've taken one myself, when I was desperate to leave a job with an awful commute. It was more than worth it- my quality of life improved dramatically
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.
.
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Has anyone else had any experience with this sort of thing? Say a pay reduction to switch job functions or to join a smaller company that is doing the kind of work one wants to do? (I'm not referring to entrepreneurs who quit jobs to startup, or those who leave corporate jobs to work in an NGO or something like that.) Thanks in advance for any information/discussion!

I had to face this struggle once. I was in a leading software service company at Bangalore, doing 5days a week and even though I had good amount of work pressure, I was enjoying the flexible timing and 2 day weekend.

During COVID, I was benched for 9months continuously without a project (full pay though). That made me a bit uneasy (having no work to do) and I took an opportunity in their sister concern which was a manufacturing firm being set up from ground.

It was literally hell for next one year, work pressure was insane (minimum 14-16 hours, 1+1 hour travel, Saturday working and even WFH on Sundays) + Politics everywhere.

Started looking for a change, and attended few interviews. Got cleared in tech rounds at infy, they offered me 30% less salary and I was seriously considering to take it.

But luckily I got referred to a product based IT firm in Hyderabad by a friend. Though I needed to accomodate complete change of working field, relocation to an unknown place, I got a good hike & my work life balance back.

As you said, we should not always see for money / salary. If the work or related travel is affecting you (mentally & physically), it's better to switch to a lesser paying job or shift your location or do both if the new job can give you peacefull life.

I'm sure I would've taken the job with 30% less pay if I didn't get the other job (Migration to a new location was a sacrifice I had to make - being a Keralite helped here I guess ).

[am1m]

Originally Posted by sandeepmohan

Should you be stressing on the pay cut part from the get go? I feel that will signal desperation more than anything else.

Yes, in my friend's case, he is getting a bit anxious. His spouse doesn't work, they have a child and loans.

Also, I understand where he's coming from, even without those pressures. At our age (both of us are in our mid-40s), its hard enough to get interview calls, and the salary is usually the only issue. As I posted earlier, I too was ready for a pay cut for a better work life balance. As such I had to be up front about that to even get to the next round and to avoid being filtered at the 'CTC' question. Despite that, most recruiters didn't believe me either.

[PreludeSH]

With reports of fresher hiring hitting a low, there will be more pressure on those who are not graduating from top colleges.

Companies might not visit many colleges for campus placements and it will be a disadvantage for such students however good they are. If opportunities don't exist, there is not much you can do even when you might have developed good skills and knowledge.

Puts more pressure to work hard when you got to, which is really difficult for everyone. Some people don't have the attitude or maturity enough to realize when to work hard in academics. Not everyone will behave the same at some age irrespective of their intelligence.

[Mystic]

My 2 cents here on how to survive the layoffs in IT industry.

1. We should always make our self very relevant at any point in time and give an impression to both our company and the clients that we can bring a value addition to the table any time ( My boss when I enter his cabin used to say “Thanks for coming to office today and making a difference “ on a lighter side). In my personal case, I worked in some of the biggest IT companies in the world for more than 3.5 decades and took a volunteer retirement at age 60. I can very well move to some other country where retirement age is 65 if I want within the same company by internal transfer. My skills are very niche and very difficult to replace me ( I agree that nobody is indispensable in this world but you can only survive if your company thinks that you cannot be easily replaced).

2. My game plan to be indispensable is always stick to my core skills and take the expertise to next level such that they are only a couple of people in the world who can match. Keep your self relevant always. Keep learning always. Even after 3.5 decades, my knowledge is only a small percentage in my area of expertise . In our consulting world , we call such people as platinum consultants and we typically charge clients an astronomical amount per hour if such guys are deployed on any project which is in deep trouble for a direction in your area of expertise.

3. I am amazed at the skills of the present millennials. They know how to work smart and not hard. In this world of layoffs, they are always people who are sought after to multiple jobs legally. I personally am not aware of this facility in USA until my son told me casually on his present activities. A tenured faculty in a university can do multiple jobs in addition to university job by sparing 20% of one’s time and get 100% salary from industry. This is allowed formally by Government because of the niche skills and the knowledge should be benefited by humanity and not by one organisation.

[sandeepmohan]

Originally Posted by am1m

At our age (both of us are in our mid-40s), its hard enough to get interview calls, and the salary is usually the only issue.

Sorry to hear that. That sounds hard.

I am out of touch with the Indian Job Market. With the Economy booming, you'd think that finding a job would be the least of your worries. What you describe sounds like the opposite, when it comes to finding work. I guess even the young who are just out of college are struggling as much.

I was in a similar position about 7 years ago. Company decided to shut shop one day, leaving ~300 out of work. I had no choice but to leave India. In fact, most of my friends and colleagues left India out of no option. A few stayed back and are doing well. I worked in Animation then, moved to Visual Effects with the new job. The latter is now thriving in India due to cheap labor. You have all best International Visual Effects houses operating out of India (Disney's ILM included). Looking back, I was in that same corner as you. I took whatever offer I got and left. Worked my way up slowly in a new country and have sort of found some steady ground.