this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2026
492 points (97.3% liked)
LinkedinLunatics
5939 readers
961 users here now
A place to post ridiculous posts from linkedIn.com
(Full transparency.. a mod for this sub happens to work there.. but that doesn't influence his moderation or laughter at a lot of posts.)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
When I was hunting for a job after being furloughed a year into COVID I was getting lots of callbacks for interviews.
After doing a few interviews and waiting until the job offer for compensation I got sick of all the clearly delusional people expecting a sysadmin to work for tier 1 support pay.
I switched gears. First question I asked to each callback was the salary range. I wasn't going to waste my time.
It saved me loads of time on bullshit positions and the "wear all these hats" postings with skewed pay.
I accidentally laughed and then apologized to one poor recruiter when she told me it was $15/hr.
I ended up at a place about $10k/year less than my last job but it was 80% work from home instead of 100% on site.
I once sat through a two-stage interview for fairly niche job that I was exceptionally skilled at and had 8 years experience in. Then they mentioned the $21.00 an hour while rattling off the rest of the job conditions and I stopped the guy and made him repeat it. We both sat in silence for like 20 seconds and then I was like "Alright, should I go? I'm gonna go." And just sort of awkwardly left.
A couple months later I got a salaried full-time position starting at more than twice that rate for the same sort of work.
Do it on purpose and don't apologize next time.
One company i worked at lost their contract and I got laid off. A week later the same company called me and offered a position under a different contract at a different site for a 20% pay cut. I laughed at them and said nah, i can't go backwards. Collected unemployment and found a different job at my previous rate a few weeks later.
I worked at a place that decided, because they were stupid in more ways than just this, that Systems Administrators were entry level, Systems Engineers were experienced, and DevOps were the top of the heap. (My preference is that these represent different sets of skills.) Many companies will pick a different random order.
(Actually, I interviewed many people with the same opinion.)
So it pays to mix up the words used. While they are all fools, no one is going to change based on my opinion.
Beyond the title. The list of responsibilities needs to match the salary.
The number of companies that mix and match responsibilities from different skillsets and expect below market rates is mind boggling.
I started applying to jobs outside my skillset. If I matched 40% of the requirements and tailored my resume to the posting I got better matches.
Landed a step down remote gig. Never stopped job hunting. Found a solid step up 6 months later. Jumped ship. I still kept shopping for a new gig. Stayed because they promoted me 3 times in a years.
At will employment. That means they can drop you when they want but you can also leave when you want.