GUEST COMMENT: I've discovered something ridiculous about the way banks hire people
The other day, I was at work when I received several telephone calls from several recruitment agencies attempting to persuade me to change jobs.
One of these recruitment industries attempted to sell me a job with a rival bank. It was in exactly the same business line as my own and required very similar experience.
I was just mulling this over, when I had a sudden revelation: this was the job previously occupied by one of my mates. He'd left it the week before because he hadn't been paid enough: neither he, nor his colleagues (most of whom I also knew from college), had received a pay rise NOR a bonus. Even worse, they'd found out that the newly recruited graduates were on a higher base than them. Most of them were indignant and quit.
Predictably, this left their previous employer in a difficult situation. It had large gap. And it needed to look for people in the open market to fill it.
The agent in question made enquiries about my compensation. Now, I happen to know that my base salary is considerably higher than my mate's; I also know that I received a bonus and he didn't. However, when I told the recruiter this, he said the bank would be prepared to more than match what I'm currently being paid.
Frankly, this seems ridiculous. I may, or may not, be suitable for this position, but if I were to accept the offer (which I won't), I would know nothing about the job. The best person to do that job is my mate, who knows precisely what's involved.
However, instead of paying him a sufficient amount to retain him, that bank forced him to leave by imposing an unfair pay policy. They did this after investing a huge amount of time and energy locating him for their graduate programme and then training him up. Now he's gone and they're flinging money at me instead.
How does that make sense?
