6 Comments
 

Do some soul searching and try to understand if it was truly the firm screwing you over or if you under-performed in some areas you did not previously recognize. If you are happy with your tea and your long term prospects with the firm, then I would bite the bullet and try to improve performance and reassess after the next bonus. If you're not happy with your team or do not see a pathway to long term growth with this firm, I would start looking ASAP and crafting my story, as next few months are going to ripe for recruitment - otherwise you will likely have to stay another year at your current role.

 

Very fair points. I assumed that based upon my very good performance review (back in December) that I would be in a solid position for the comp discussion. We had significant senior mgmt turnover above my direct manager, which I sense has something to do with the poor result.

Appreciate the candid feedback. Any tips for a discussion with the manager who (effectively) made the dollar decision? (e.g. "Based up on my strong performance review, can you help me understand why there seems to be a disconnect with the resulting compensation?")

 
Best Response

I've never been in a situation where I've had to have a comp discussion with a direct superior so I can't comment on that, but I can say intuitively that speaking about comp 99% of the time accomplishes nothing for you money wise (you're probably not going to convince them of anything and they're obviously not going to just cut you a check). Only time comp ever gets discussed is negotiating the job offer and probably at the very senior / partner levels. Discussing it as a mid level or junior employee will probably tarnish any goodwill you have built up and probably paint you as a "non-team player" or selfish person.

Short version: You have to decide whether the bonus was egregious enough to warrant you looking for a new job. If it was that bad, that's nothing a conversation is going to help with. If it was just below expectations and you like your job, bite the bullet and see if it doesn't improve the next go-around.

 

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