The result? I was offered 2%-3%, to be discussed on the next annual review (still some months to go), and the PM said strictly that it would depend on my performance. That happened on a Friday, and I quit the job next Monday. My conclusion: never accept verbal agreements again..
> My conclusion: never accept verbal agreements again.
Was the verbal agreement not honored? 2-3% after 6 months is not nothing.
It seems your problem was accepted an offer 20% below what you should.
Actual was at 6/7 month be told that contingent on performance you would get a raise of 2-3% at 12 months.
Being 20% lower than market rate is definitely the problem and a signal that they don't want to pay appropriately.
Edit: if you don't value your worth appropriately from the get go, why would the employer?
Ah, I missed that was delayed.
Yes, that was indeed his mistake.
And so was expecting a 20% raise six months after being hired. That is, frankly, a ridiculous proposition.
2. Your conclusion is spot on. I've never seen this kind of agreement actually work: it's almost always FUD. If they're not willing to put it in an offer letter, it's not real.
After 6/7 months I went to talk to one of the founders about that specific issue, i.e. that I was promised a raise, and that I wasn't expecting anything below 20%. I came to know during the time that I work there that was being paid well below my coworkers (and the market rate in general for my position).
Their response was that I would only get raised on the next company review (still some months to go, but note that I was promised a raise after 6 months), the raise would be around 2%-3% (note that I said to them, quite direct, that I was being underpaid, at least 20%), and the project manager even said that I would be subjected to a performance review before they would give me a raise.
So they failed me at least with 3 things: no raise after 6 months as agreed (still some months to next review), would not raise me enough so I would still be underpaid, and I could even not get raised because I would have to be reviewed first..
Basically, I quit on the next working day, and one or two months later, most of the team got laid off, so there was bigger problems on that specific company..
I can't imagine the majority of managers fixing it and I can't imagine an employee doing anything other than finding a new job. Everyone loses this one.
Plenty of companies do, because HR does the negotiations & their motivation is to minimise employee costs. If you're not negotiating with the recruiter/hiring manager, you're likely to get a poor offer.
If they aren't willing to put it on paper, it doesn't exist.
> My conclusion: never accept verbal agreements again.
Was the verbal agreement not honored? 2-3% after 6 months is not nothing.
I got 60k raise over 2 years because I pushed for it.
Which was probably an honest statement. Raises were centrally managed by 'Human Capital Management', and individual supervisors had pretty much zero say in the size of their employees raises.
As it happened, my departure was ill-timed (for them) and I'm pretty sure it cost them far more than it would have to just give me a decent frickin' raise (seriously, 3-5% and I would have stayed).
The previous job gave me back-to-back 1% raises. Left that job after two years as well. Should have left at the one year mark.
I've been in my current job a few months. I'll stick around till the first annual raise cycle to see how they treat me. I don't think I'll give this employer a second chance if they screw up the first one (Hint: if your raise doesn't at least cover inflation + offset the costs associated with your annual medical benefits cuts -- I consider it a pay cut, and I'm not going to be happy. In fact, getting a "Congratulations on your (1%) annual raise" email from corporate HR is probably not going to get the reaction you were anticipating).
I actually had one employer that gave me an 8% raise at the two-year mark. So they got another year out of me (until the mass layoffs came).