I’m interested in hearing your opinions on this and wondering what you would do in my situation:
I’m a 33-year-old male working as a project manager in a tech company. My base gross salary is 115,000 CHF + 10% bonus (5% based on personal goals and 5% based on company goals). I’ve been in this role for two years and have always received 100% of the bonus.
Lately, I’ve become unhappy with my work due to the extremely trivial tasks and an average of 48 hours of work a week. Additionally, my line manager has been ignoring or postponing all discussions about career development for the past 6 months. As a result, I’ve started looking outside the company.
I got now an offer for a position that interests me both task-wise and in terms of learning opportunities. It offers a total base salary of 135,000 CHF (fix, no bonus). While I understand that money isn’t everything, I have to be honest – it’s a significant motivator for me. So, I’m unsure whether I should take this offer. It’s only a 6% increase in total salary, (assuming I get the full bonus each year in my current position). I know that common salary increases when leaving a company can often be as high as 20%.
Given this, I’m questioning whether I should continue looking for something better. After all, a 6% increase doesn’t seem substantial when compared to the typical 20% increase. On the other hand, finding a position that offers a full 20% salary increase to 150,000 CHF doesn’t seem easy, and I don’t want to remain in my current job any longer than necessary.
So, I’m curious to hear your opinions. What would you do in my shoes?
Jumping from 115 k to 150 k seems a more than unusual salary jump without any significant role change and in responsibilities (except if you were paid less than market beforehand). Did you do a market check what you can actually realistically ask for (and what kind of positions are actually realistic) ? There is nothing such as an automatic salary increase with a job switch.
Currently, I am at CHF 126,000 including bonus (CHF 115,000 without bonus). I was “officially” hired as a project manager, but my responsibilities have become very blurred lately, so a role like operational excellence manager (Or, Mr. fix everything that doesn’t work ) better reflects my current activities. That’s why I’m looking for something other than a project manager position—such as a consultant or innovation manager. In fact, the offer I have is for the latter.
That looks great, however did you research the market rate for such a position ?
I can’t tell for tech. For sure they have good to excellent salaries. In my world (construction and engineering offices, a 150k salary would warrant a senior manager position with several direct reports (where i am at right now).
CHF 135,000 for the offered position is competitive. In general, a base salary of this amount is excellent in my field and age. However, I’m also considering a change to a new field, such as insurance or finance, as I have also relevant skills and experience for this. In those fields, I believe I could maybe get a position with a lower base salary but a higher bonus, ultimately resulting in a higher total compensation—perhaps something like a 120,000 base and a 30,000 bonus.
It seems that you are not staying at your current job. The question is what set of factors would make your new job fulfilling. If the offered salary is a no go, go for another round of negociations and ask for more.
Your move can be for a longer term commitment or it can be just a short term pivot. You can move and keep being on the lookout for a better position still.
It seems the salary offered fits the position and your experience. I would leave a position where I can’t achieve my personal goals and give the position that seems to fit several of my criteria a chance, myself.
If you really - for some untold reason - like your current employer but not the task or salary, you could tell your unresponsive boss that you have an offer. As stupid as it is, bosses sometimes only move when it cannot be avoided. You might find yourself with new task and even a raise in the same old company, who knows?
Tell the new company that this only represents a 6% increase and ask if there is anything more than can do on the salary saying 10% would be great. Then also ask what the salary and career trajectory might be so you don’t end up back in the current situation again.
Then if and when you leave the old company BE SURE to tell them why you are leaving - mundane work and repeatedly ignoring your requests for career development conversations. If they offer more money to stay, SAY NO!
As others pointed out, it doesn’t seem like it’d make sense for you to stay at your current company.
It sounds like you’re hesitating because the bump is not significant. Just a reminder that you don’t have to stick around that long at the new company either if you manage to find something even better.
Telling your current company that you have a competing offer is really a double-edged sword and tricky to actually do, I think it’s less risky to just switch and part on good terms.
I agree! This isn’t just a 6% increase, not when you consider the hours and the base salary. Bonuses are never guaranteed, so if you have to overwork just to get them, I’d take the 135K base salary immediately.
Also, if you plan to take a mortgage one day, having a base salary of 135K is a better guarantee to the bank than 115K plus bonuses. In case of the unfortunate event of being laid off, the base salary will guarantee you compensation while you’re unemployed, since I don’t think unemployment benefits would cover the bonus part. And last but not least, check the 2nd pillar contributions, as this could be a significant factor as well.
While I encourage you to change jobs, I didn’t fully understand if you’re moving into a consulting role. If so, be aware that it’s usually more demanding and comes with more pressure. I know someone who recently changed jobs out of frustration and went to a service provider (thus consulting) and ultimately wasn’t really happy, even though the salary was better.
I was in one org which refused to increase salary of one lady (who they were taking advantage of with a low salary having moved to Switzerland from abroad) after repeated requests. She quit. Not only did they have to replace her with someone at market rates, they had to replace her with 3 people given the responsibilities and extra hours she was putting in!
Facing this situation as well that means you have no other negotiation power with HR.
Whatever how hard you work in big corporations, your line manager as almost no power to increase your based salary.
The last option is changing company.
Thank you all for your valuable input! It helped me a lot in weighing the pros and cons. I approached my boss’s boss about it, and now we have a meeting next week to discuss the situation. They are aware that I have another offer and will need to make a decision by the end of next week. Let’s see what that brings.
Whatever they promise, it can go either way. There’s no way to tell beforehand if the relationship will be strained on their side as they feel their hand is forced by you having looked elsewhere, no matter how friendly and open they appear to be during the meeting. One of my colleagues who’s quit this month did that, got his salary increase but couldn’t bear to stay for long after that as the work relationship had become toxic.
My personal take is: when you see your employer and you are not aligned, discuss things with them thoroughly once. See if things improve. Get back on the topic a second time. Weigh their potential promises and how genuine their interest in helping you seems to be. If they don’t show genuine interest in helping me before I’ve got another offer on the table, that’s my cue that the relationship is strained right there → when I’m searching outside for an offer, I’m negociating for terms I am happy and willing to agree with and once I’ve got that, I sign the new contract and give my resignation.
That being said, it can still be a temporary situation too as you can still search for a better offer after agreeing to better terms with your current employer. I just wouldn’t get my hopes too high and keep looking for alternatives.
The one thing I absolutely wouldn’t do is signing a new contract, giving my resignation, getting a counter-offer and reneging on the new contract I’ve signed to take that counter-offer. That, to me, would actually burn bridges and harm my reputation.
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) better reflects my current activities. That’s why I’m looking for something other than a project manager position—such as a consultant or innovation manager. In fact, the offer I have is for the latter.