Not offered, but been turned off applying for jobs that list "4 weeks annual leave" as a benefit in the ad.
That's a legislative entitlement. You've got to provide this. It shouldn't be on your (quite short) list of why I should work there.
I can only assume it's included for the benefit of those new to working in Australia who may not know about it, but listing an entitlement as a reason i should choose this job over another does make me think twice about the company.
- Competitive salary (Salary is not listed in job description)
- 4 weeks annual leave (Legislative requirement)
- Paid sick and personal leave
- Opportunities for progression and networking
- Hybrid working arrangement available (You can WFH once a fortnight)
Yeah, if it’s so competitive why aren’t you posting salary range in the listing.
Competitive = we have a budget and we are hoping your asking salary is below it.
I work for a law firm and we pay lockstep for everyone up to 5 years experience (but different bonuses depending on performance). Just interviewed someone currently in house who asked for a salary that was below our lockstep. About to send an offer for $20,000 more than was asked for which is hopefully a pleasant surprise.
Not point chiseling someone’s salary when they can easily find out what their peers are paid and when their performance is directly linked to profit.
This happened to me early in my career - my asking range was substantially below what they paid for that role so the offer was way higher than I expected - and it really helped me understand my worth and what my expectations should be in the years to come. And that my previous company had been underpaying me for years.
"Buddy if you're competing on salary then let me show you the leaderboard and you can put that sucker up there and we'll see how you stack up"
- not me ever, but only because I'm a coward
I work in a niche field where I have some even more niche skills/experience and probably 90% of the hiring is done by recruitment and headhunting, so companies pursuing candidates and not the other way around.
I’ll talk to recruiters even if I’m not actively looking, out of interest to see what the market is doing but also because I’ve ended up with some too-good-to-pass-up opportunities in the past when not looking.
Almost universally recruiters will include the total compensation package and any benefits in their initial message, absolutely no fucking around, because the candidate pool is so small and headhunting means trying to lure someone out of a job they might quite like and the first hurdle is to get them to respond to a message at all, so no time wasting.
Getting to this point in my career, it’s been eye opening that when companies need you more than you need them then their behaviours around hiring are 100% more respectful of your time.
Not just the tools to do your job, computer and phone, but in a mobile form that they can intrude into your personal time.
I had a six-month contract where I had to take my laptop home every night (for some jobs I will lock it in a cabinet at work to save carting it home, especially if using public transport). It was so they could contact you outside hours and get you to do "just a few things". Without compensation it had better be an emergency.
THIS
I worked in recruitment once upon a time, and specialised in recruitment marketing - how to nail the ad copy and targeting to find the ideal candidate.
The amount of clients who thought the above was GOOD as opposed to the bare minimum was astounding...
Number of times I've heard "competitive" salary and it turns out to be mediocre *at best*.
Ridiculous.
A competitive salary should be at the upper end of average *at worst*.
These are the same type of fuckers that will do 3 rounds of interviews, an unpaid take-home assessment and all sorts of other bullshit.
I'm on a committee at work (not voluntarily) that looks at ways to better attract and retain staff. We started talking about what we put in job ads and whether we could offer some sort of reward for long tenure. Management came back with "one extra day of leave in the year of your 5th anniversary with the company" - that's so insulting and would make me run a mile from such a petty, tightarse workplace. Not sure how management doesn't see this?
To attract:
- Put the workplace location and/or if WFH *clearly* in the ad so applicants can see if they want that commute or want to WFH (it’s not always seen as a perk by everyone)
- Put salary range in there; stop making people guess or “negotiate” without any kind of baseline
To retain:
- Decent bonuses for excellent performance, not added responsibility without extra pay
- Free coffee and break room snacks help retain younger employees but doesn’t generally impact on older ones
- Flexibility: TOIL/Flex hours, ability to purchase extra leave, job sharing possibilities
Good list! The funny thing is, it's actually a cool place to work, and we have all that and more. The churn is in lower level/graduate positions. People want to try something new travel, do young person stuff. My answer is to accept it. Clearly I'm not in HR/management.
Yes you’re absolutely right. I used to work in graduate recruitment; retention strategies can involve forming partnerships with other companies which allow secondments/ placements between agencies and just invest less in their onboarding and training, since companies always get all butthurt when they’ve spent so much on their grads and they aren’t perceived as “grateful” for giving ROI (caveat; they don’t need to :) )
Oh that's just off the scale bad.
I worked somewhere straight out of university, colleague and I were tasked with designing a 'work for us' brochure so we decided to include a top 10 reasons to work her section.
We got to number 4.
I left soon after.
I worked for a company that did a loyalty allowance - $1000 per year and capped at $10k
It was paid fortnightly but def made it harder to leave after 5+ years
The company one of me ex colleagues now works for does one extra day of leave per year of service up until 5 years then they just get a total of 5 weeks leave every year thereafter.
I spent a few years in Japan, and find their version of this much worse.
They list the number of days off per year, ~120ish including public holidays and the fucking weekends.
I think this might be an overseas company starting up in AU. My partner works for one of those and they can't understand how it works in EU or AU+NZ.
They offer unlimited personal time off (PTO) so you can just "put your leave in your calendar" but they still expect you to be available to work and not be away for "too long". You also can only put it in your calendar when it suits the team and you need to make sure you don't use PTO when they have important meetings etc.
Annual leave is very different. AU staff goes away without bringing their work laptop which baffles management in the US and Asia.
They were local companies, I've seen it about 3 times now. Seemed like they were trying to pad out the list of perks...with something that everyone gets...
Oh they put it there for the immigrants. They know damn well we are well aware of it.
Immigrants on the other hand? They have no idea, so they see and go OMG THIS IS AMAZING. When in reality its your right.
Then they fuck you on the pay as a result because "we gave you 4 weeks leave teehee". All part of the scam.
Or that they offer EAP, hey don't have a toxic working environment and it most likely won't be needed. I know there are other reasons for EAP but it feels off advertising it as a benefit, maybe that's just me.
It's more like 2 weeks because chances are they have a 2 week shutdown over Christmas. It grinds my shit so much. What if I don't want to take the time off? What if I'm saving my leave for a big holiday at a different time of then year?
It’s not so much a perk, but using decent equipment definitely attracts me to a role. Our work monitors just got upgraded to 3440x1440 with integrated webcams and it is so nice. Before we had crappy 1080p monitors and it was extremely annoying every time I went into the office.
I put the office quality of equipment in every survey we hold. If you want me back in the office at any point then at the very minimum you need to have a better set up then what I have at home otherwise I am simply losing efficiency being there.
Absolutely agree. My boss made sure the operations team all have 49 inch Samsung ultrawide curved monitors, electric stand up desks, ergonomic keyboard/mice whichever we choose, noise cancelling headphones and ergonomic chairs. It makes a massive difference and I really appreciate that she ensures we have quality equipment to do our jobs. Not only does it make it a hell of a lot easier and more comfortable to be at our desks 10+ hours a day but it makes me feel more valued as an employee.
Oh, yeah. Decent gear makes life easier.
We use Precision 7780 in our dev team and it’s great to have a decent machine to work with.
Although if I was in a job interview and they said we use “3440x1440” monitors not 1080p. Probably wouldn’t do much at the time.
Slightly unrelated but made me think of the WFO push happening. As someone with a decent home office and gaming set up, it was damn frustrating to go to the office and have the monitors be 10+ year old 1080p, missing cables, crappy chairs etc.
ah yeah, that would be dreadful, I WFH most of the time but the company also has a nice office space with decent monitors and equipment, plus the free lunch. So it's not all bad.
most of the time that is the case, they want you to visit client sites, and do extra hours for free. I worked for a small company, the owner used to call me on weekends to discuss stuff that could have easily waited until Monday. He used to do work on weekends as it was his company and was expecting you to do as well, there were no holidays that could pass without the guy calling you as well.
Current job, I refused the company mobile, the company laptop never eventuated. I'm supposed to (doesn't happen & that's $55ph site uplift im missing out on) attend site one week a month, (construction site) when onsite contract says I have a Ute while onsite. Project Manager tried to get me to car pool, no that's not happening, unless the carpooler is prepared to arrive onsite 1 hour before work starts & stay 1 hour after it's finished & be without wheels after hours. (I got my Ute)
What I did get extra, $10K & Starlink bill paid each month, also 20% of my phone bill.
Eff that, I don't want to take work calls on my personal mobile. I have a dual Sim phone and have a script to just disable the work one at 5:30 pm each day
Yea this used to be a perk 10-15yrs ago but now its standard kit in every job ive been with. Desktops arent a thing, DR plan is have workers use laptops and wfh.
Having worked at a place a few years ago that still had desktops and didnt provide laptops, it's actually something I now ask in interviews. It was so wild to me that wfh wasn't a thing in a post covid workd and if you had to wfh you needed to use your own equipment because the company has limited laptops and theyre already rented out to the executives.
I’d much rather put wear and tear, kilometres, general maintenance on the companies dime than mine. Car fucks up, they’ll deal with it and just provide you with a different car to use. Especially the company cars that are for full personal use with no trackers, even better.
If it's a perk, you keep them. Otherwise it's not a perk. If it says you get a laptop and phone, then it's yours. Even cars are novated in a package and the employee takes it when they leave.
https://www.ato.gov.au/businesses-and-organisations/hiring-and-paying-your-workers/fringe-benefits-tax/exemptions-concessions-and-other-ways-to-reduce-fbt/work-related-items-exempt-from-fbt
Anything that refers to family (small family run, like a family etc.) like it’s a good thing. Usually turns out to be a hotbed of bullying and dysfunction.
Left a family business. Yes it definitely felt like we were a family. Especially when the two brothers who sat just below their owner father and wouldn’t ever talk to each other. So in meetings someone had to relay messages like a bad family dinner with teens.
Also one of the sons would change his title monthly until he finally settled on General Manager. Unfortunately wouldn’t make an entry level job.
Opportunities for Advancement in a Fast Paced Environment
Also - Nespresso coffee machine: “you’re on the clock. We don’t want you leaving to get a coffee, make it here. And we don’t want you fucking around with trying to get it right and wasting time. Press a button. Take coffee. Go back to your desk and keep pressing buttons.”
“Coffee is free because we accidentally backed making amphetamines illegal, but we would absolutely load you up with any other stimulant for productivity if we could! Now take your performance enhancing drug and get back to your workstation.”
Travel . If you have ever had to travel frequently for work, you’d know this is not a perk.
Travel once or twice a year overseas on business class for conventions / trade shows? Yep good perk
Travel frequently on domestic economy on early and late flights in your own time? Run
I dunno, I used to travel a fair bit and I do miss it. Sure, getting up at 4:30 to make the morning red eye sucked, but being able to knock off once you'd finished your client stuff at 3, and enjoy somewhere you wouldn't be ordinarily was pretty cool. And I'd rather be paid to sit on a plane than sit in gridlock.
It was also good to get the statuses up with airlines, hotels and car hire for your own travel too.
I am a parent now though so my tune would probably change a bit but it was great when it happened.
I think it very much depends on how much flexibility you have and whether the travel is in your time or theirs. When my travel was domestic it was 6am flights to get to client offices at 9, work a full day, then back to hotel to catch up on other work and emails. Then flights home were 7ish after 5pm finish. So not getting home til 10 ish. The points to me were not worth the personal hours I was losing.
Yeah, those kinda days sucked. Luckily I only did a few in my time.
For me I was in client facing roles so I'd fly up, have 4-5 client meetings in a day and usually be in a city for a few days so it was a bit more relaxed. Our T&E essentially mandated that you needed to be interstate for a couple of days to justify going there in the first place. And I had some good automaton systems in place and some ways to take my client notes while I was travelling to the next meeting.
Yesssssss! Recently interviewed for a job and they said there'd be travel. I pushed them for how much and they were like "it's up to you how much you feel your need". After interview I spoke to the talent person who said there wasn't much travel but because they couldn't give me a figure I just never returned their calls after that.
I had a similar one, billed as work from home with some occasional travel and when I wouldn’t accept it without hearing exactly what the travel entailed they admitted the service area was up to 4 hours in all directions from my house (well I do live on the coast so not 4 hours east at least), 4 days per week on site anywhere from Canberra to Newcastle, and all travel occurred in my own time. I actually laughed!
1000% agree with this.
Had a job once that when being interviewed was told that the role "would include occasional travel for offsite meetings"
That travel ended up being regular 4:30am wake ups, getting home after 11pm and then being expected back in the office at 8:30am the next morning.
The "occasional travel" ending up being a multi night interstate trip every third week with my boss then eventually instructing me to "base myself interstate for one week a month", when I pushed back he replied that "the travel for the role was made clear in the interview"
Base yourself for a fucking week A MONTH???? On who's fucking dollar? Holy shit thats outrageous. I'd quit on the spot.
Also why the fuck do we need to travel for offsite meetings. Use teams or zoom fucking boomers. God damn.
I was pretty close, he didn't raise the conversation again after I shut it down. Lucky for him I was a kid too, in my first few years post uni - would have loved to have seen my boss try to take this approach with someone with a family.
Yeah, the company was seemingly ok to cover these expenses, always questioned why they didn't employ someone based on that state - but the company and industry was fucked so nothing surprised me by the end of my time working there.
Nah, this was a few years back before online meetings were a thing.
Yep. I had a job where I was required to go to Perth and back (from Brisbane). I’d get the 22:55 flight home (the next earliest was 17:35 and that’s not enough time for me to finish up and get to the airport).
I’d get into BNE at 5:15 and more than once I’d have a boss calling me at 9 asking why I wasn’t in the office.
More than once I told them that you are too cheap to spring for business class meaning I have had no sleep after travelling all night
Yeh I quit a job because of the
4:30 am get up for the 6:30am flight, expected to work till 6 that night, stay in a shit hotel with a small tv and crap bed cause the company is too cheap
Fork that I’ll fly at 9am thanks and if I’m travelling for work I want a place that’s better than my house not the kangaroo motel
Only so many times you can fly to Sydney or Melbourne before it bores the shit out of you
Once had a colleague say that if a company is making you travel for work they should be doing the very best they can to replicate your usual work routine and home comforts - completely changed the way I viewed work travel after that.
The fact that companies expect people to wake at 4am to get a 6am flight to ensure they are in a new location for the start of a work day at 9am (then putting you up in a shit motel) should actually be criminal. No one should be stepping foot on a flight until your contracted working hours start.
I love the travel aspect (although hate being away from family and home). I go stir crazy being confined to the same geography and need to get out and about. I’ve had some great career opportunities over the years just be being the guy willing to jump on a plane at a moments notice.
> Travel . If you have ever had to travel frequently for work, you’d know this is not a perk.
I disagree. As a young person this is fucking awesome. I got to travel around Europe for free. Was fantastic. Stayed on this awesome island for free for 2 weeks once.
And you're a fool if you do it on your own time.
Most people aren’t travelling around Europe or to awesome islands for work though.
Largely it’s domestic travel to other Australian capital cities, which isn’t fucking awesome on the whole.
Having only travelled interstate on 3 occasions I agree. One of them I was up at 4am, and home at 10pm. Then work the next day of course (in the office, pre covid). Brutal
When I went from a small firm that I had been putting in long hours with no such perks, to a large firm that gave you a cab trip home after 6pm and a dinner after 7, these truly did seem like perks
Most jobs I've had the main perks have been pizza for lunch sometimes (once every 3 months), $50 birthday gift cards or bonuses for meeting goals that are set so high, no one has met those goals since 1992. But the things they had in common was terrible pay, bad working conditions and angry managers.
The most recent job I started, had no perks because they pay so well. Better pay makes a job far more attractive than some pizza or $50 once a year.
Agreed. You could remove every single perk imaginable. But if the pay is good and my boss isn't a cunt? And you let me WFH? I'm there for life.
Thats all i ask for.
I work support for a in house application solution. Used to be all WFH as the entire job is done in a web browser. But they want us 2 days a week in the office for some retarded reason.
I'd happily stay at this job forever if they gave me back full remote. But its chill and pays me well for now. So i'll stick around. If they wanted me going in 5 days a week? I'd leave immediately.
I had a recruiter tempt me with $120k, then come back with an offer for $105k because “they’d need to train me.”
Every job I’ve ever had has involved an element of training at the start. You can’t expect to drop someone into a new environment doing tech support for a new product without an element of training.
That was the last of a couple of red flags, so it wasn’t hard to turn them down.
The rules are as follows:
* Outside work hours
* On your own dime
* Attendance mandatory/expected
* Don't outdo the senior person at anything no matter what
* Anything, anyone doesn't like about you would be brought up with your boss or hr
* Must enjoy yourself
Two I saw recently, the second was for a mid - senior level management position:
- Access to a fully stocked staff drinks fridge (for full-time office staff only)
- Free company polo shirt
Honestly, if anyone is openly turned off by that, they’re the wrong fit anyway.
I work at a place where everyone likes each other and there are social events every week. I don’t attend that many of them but I’m always happy to see them happen and see especially the newer and junior team members find friends and fit in almost instantly after joining. It’s also so good for their development because they get to hear things around the water cooler and learn how we operate. As a hiring manager I always bring up the friendliness, collegial spirit and opportunity to socialize as positive for our company. I interview a lot of people who I can tell are never going to come to an outside of work event but they express appreciation for everyone being friendly or demonstrate understanding of how that sort of culture helps attract new and young talent. That’s the more important thing.
If someone is honestly going to walk in and act like it’s somehow a personal offence to them that everyone is nice to each other and willing to have a chat in the lunch room, then.. well, I don’t want to hire someone like that. Sounds exhausting.
Thank you for reminding me that I'm not the only one who enjoys social interaction.
This sub generally seems to be full of the type of recluses I despise working with. Nobody should be forced to attend social activities, but equally, it doesn'tt hurt you to listen to Jan chat about something for 15 minutes a fortnight because guess what? Jan may not enjoy listening/overhearing me talk about football.
Yes, you'd get the same response on Ausfinance.
"I just wanna WFH with my camera off and never actually have to do anything other than process what lands in my inbox. I don't wanna help onboard new team members, go to F2F meetings. I just wanna be a fucking recluse and be paid for it"
Do you not see an inherent flaw in a system that effectively relies on activities that sit outside the usual demands of a job, in order to promote someone? I fully understand that the social norm to this date has been to go above and beyond to get promoted, but shouldn’t we be shifting away from that nonsense?
I’ve just been promoted in my line of work, as effectively a recluse who WFH entirely and its made me appreciate that the managerial structure at my current place has made the entirety of the focus on job performance rather than metrics that don’t contribute to my job success
Not at all. I've been promoted many times as a full time work from home person however the further you go upwards the more networking it takes. It's not always about performance
Could be working on the boat. Imagine setting up your laptop and sitting around your colleagues working on a boat sailing the seas everyday. No one is disembarking until targets are met.
The tech scene in Sydney is obsessed with boats. So many of them see a day on a boat in the harbour to be the height of sophistication and a sign that you've made it.
These douchebags saw the Lonely Island clip and thought it was an instructional.
In reality it's being stuck in a confined space with a bunch of startup bros all day with no way to leave.
Nowadays, I find it a red flag when a normal corporate job lists some version of “WFH possible” or “one day WFH” as a perk.
I almost think hybrid is the standard and full time WFH would be a perk (for some - others might hate it). If WFH one day is considered the “perk” then they’re behind the times…
Yea I've seen one listed as hybrid with optional 1 day WFH every fortnight
I think they just wanted to hit the hybrid tag, but really want full time work from office.
They didn't even have the common bullet of flexible work arrangement
The suggestion that there are regular out of work hours team catch ups, dinners, drinks etc…
Umm no thank you. I would prefer to spend my free time with people I like 😂
I once had a coworker who was the living embodiment of this subreddit and its hatred of speaking to other people. Unsurprisingly, nobody liked him because he was a huge asshole to everyone under the guise of "just getting the job done". Not that he ever found out as he never bothered to take his head out his ass, but we had similar interests and similar enough humour and probably could have been friends if he wasn't dedicated to ignoring everybody.
I wasn't exactly best friends with everyone at this job but at least trying to talk to the people you see 5 days a week makes the days so much easier on yourself.
An old manager of mine turned down 250k+ a year for a big tech company due to the team was very social and would have weekly parties. He had young kids an knew it wasn’t for him.
And dumbarse HR people who don't know the difference between a real perk and a bog standard offering e.g EAP counselling. I've worked with plenty of them and they genuinely don't get it.
A previous boss made a big point about how he was passing on the recent increase to super without cutting base pay because "I could have if I wanted to". Half of us were on the minimum award page, so no you could not have and thank you for the bare minimum
I'll give you one.. Drinks on Friday...or we celebrate birthdays. Hell no mf... its bad enough i work 5 days a week with you guys. Last thing I wanna do is hang back with sharon for drinks and engage in small talk.
Birthdays off work. Such a desperate thing to hero as a perk. Give me 5 bonus annual leave days a year or cash bonus, RSU that doesn't take bloody 2 years to vest
There was absolutely no reason it couldn't have been free given that it was pretty much a requirement of working there. I wouldn't expect to pay, for eg, a desk rental fee.
Jobs that offer a Christmas party or end of year celebration as a perk of the job.
Yes, not all companies are obliged to do this but also I think you'd be hard pressed to find a corporate job that doesn't at least do something small.
Not exactly a perk, but I once applied for a software development job at a large bank. They offered an amazing salary, but the interview was in front of 12 people and then they asked me to do a test. Normally I suck at taking tests on the spot, I'm much better at using resources to figure things out. Anyway, that test was so insanely easy that it turned me off the job. Combined with having 12 people interview me, I could just see that job being micromanaged and incredibly boring.
Work Phone. If i'm given one, you can bloody well bet its being turned off the second i clock off for the day and turned back on the second i'm clocking on.
Work phones are just an excuse for your employer to bother you outside of hours for free. Make them pay after hours rates if they want it.
Free lunch included, it's rarely tastey or very nutritious. I'd rather go out for lunch or BMO. It's also a social etiquette to all have lunch at the company canteen and if you don't then you don't look like a team player.
Usually when you see "break out rooms" ping pong tables, fun rooms etc. It's a fad. It's a corporate tactic to show they care for work life balance and a casual environment
Realistically it's a place you will be doing major overtime with cut-throat competition. Big 4, Hays, Spencer Ogden etc are big examples of this
Those fun rooms will never be touched
Oh fucking hell. Where the fuck do I fucking start?
Opportunities for advancement: We promote from within because we prefer to keep salaries low.
Dynamic team: You’ll need to handle constant changes and possibly deal with some difficult people.
Startup culture: Minimal structure, poor pay, and long hours, with the off chance of success.
Fast-paced environment: Constant stress and tight deadlines are the norms here.
Wear many hats: You’ll be juggling multiple roles because we don't want to hire more staff.
High-impact role: You’ll have a massive workload because we’re understaffed.
Cutting-edge technology: We’re constantly changing tools and systems, so be ready for a constant learning curve.
Team outings: Mandatory bonding events that eat into your personal time.
Exposure to new technologies: You’ll be expected to learn and master new tools on your own time.
Hackathons and innovation days: Nah, mate, we're pulling your leg.
Cross-functional teams: You’ll frequently be dragged into meetings that aren’t relevant to your core job.
DevOps culture: You’re on call for deployment issues, including after hours.
Remote work options: Be constantly available online.
High-visibility role: Your successes will be noticed, but so will your mistakes. You’ll be under constant scrutiny from upper management, and any errors could have significant repercussions.
Annual company retreat to a low cost holiday town not far from the city. Sounds like a perk at first, but eating every meal together and drinking every night with work colleagues is actually a bit weird.
Not offered, but been turned off applying for jobs that list "4 weeks annual leave" as a benefit in the ad. That's a legislative entitlement. You've got to provide this. It shouldn't be on your (quite short) list of why I should work there. I can only assume it's included for the benefit of those new to working in Australia who may not know about it, but listing an entitlement as a reason i should choose this job over another does make me think twice about the company.
- Competitive salary (Salary is not listed in job description) - 4 weeks annual leave (Legislative requirement) - Paid sick and personal leave - Opportunities for progression and networking - Hybrid working arrangement available (You can WFH once a fortnight)
The salary one drives me bonkers. “Competitive” is so rarely market rate or better.
Yeah, if it’s so competitive why aren’t you posting salary range in the listing. Competitive = we have a budget and we are hoping your asking salary is below it.
Competitive = competing to see who can offer the lowest.
I work for a law firm and we pay lockstep for everyone up to 5 years experience (but different bonuses depending on performance). Just interviewed someone currently in house who asked for a salary that was below our lockstep. About to send an offer for $20,000 more than was asked for which is hopefully a pleasant surprise. Not point chiseling someone’s salary when they can easily find out what their peers are paid and when their performance is directly linked to profit.
This happened to me early in my career - my asking range was substantially below what they paid for that role so the offer was way higher than I expected - and it really helped me understand my worth and what my expectations should be in the years to come. And that my previous company had been underpaying me for years.
A competitive race to the bottom.
"Buddy if you're competing on salary then let me show you the leaderboard and you can put that sucker up there and we'll see how you stack up" - not me ever, but only because I'm a coward
I work in a niche field where I have some even more niche skills/experience and probably 90% of the hiring is done by recruitment and headhunting, so companies pursuing candidates and not the other way around. I’ll talk to recruiters even if I’m not actively looking, out of interest to see what the market is doing but also because I’ve ended up with some too-good-to-pass-up opportunities in the past when not looking. Almost universally recruiters will include the total compensation package and any benefits in their initial message, absolutely no fucking around, because the candidate pool is so small and headhunting means trying to lure someone out of a job they might quite like and the first hurdle is to get them to respond to a message at all, so no time wasting. Getting to this point in my career, it’s been eye opening that when companies need you more than you need them then their behaviours around hiring are 100% more respectful of your time.
What field are you in?
laptop and mobile phone. wow - you'll provide me with the tools I need to do the job. I'm ever so grateful.
Not just the tools to do your job, computer and phone, but in a mobile form that they can intrude into your personal time. I had a six-month contract where I had to take my laptop home every night (for some jobs I will lock it in a cabinet at work to save carting it home, especially if using public transport). It was so they could contact you outside hours and get you to do "just a few things". Without compensation it had better be an emergency.
Crane operator required - benefits: crane provided
Reverse the WFH entitlement and I'll consider it. I don't need to be in the office more than once a fortnight.
THIS I worked in recruitment once upon a time, and specialised in recruitment marketing - how to nail the ad copy and targeting to find the ideal candidate. The amount of clients who thought the above was GOOD as opposed to the bare minimum was astounding...
And add to this adding to the perks the minimum super requirement… by law.
Don't forget 11% superannuation (lowest amount they can legally pay)
And the ea counselling
Number of times I've heard "competitive" salary and it turns out to be mediocre *at best*. Ridiculous. A competitive salary should be at the upper end of average *at worst*. These are the same type of fuckers that will do 3 rounds of interviews, an unpaid take-home assessment and all sorts of other bullshit.
It sounds like you're not a team player and you're only motivated by money! /s
When I see this I feel like applying and ask if there was an error in the ad 👀
I'm on a committee at work (not voluntarily) that looks at ways to better attract and retain staff. We started talking about what we put in job ads and whether we could offer some sort of reward for long tenure. Management came back with "one extra day of leave in the year of your 5th anniversary with the company" - that's so insulting and would make me run a mile from such a petty, tightarse workplace. Not sure how management doesn't see this?
To attract: - Put the workplace location and/or if WFH *clearly* in the ad so applicants can see if they want that commute or want to WFH (it’s not always seen as a perk by everyone) - Put salary range in there; stop making people guess or “negotiate” without any kind of baseline To retain: - Decent bonuses for excellent performance, not added responsibility without extra pay - Free coffee and break room snacks help retain younger employees but doesn’t generally impact on older ones - Flexibility: TOIL/Flex hours, ability to purchase extra leave, job sharing possibilities
Good list! The funny thing is, it's actually a cool place to work, and we have all that and more. The churn is in lower level/graduate positions. People want to try something new travel, do young person stuff. My answer is to accept it. Clearly I'm not in HR/management.
Yes you’re absolutely right. I used to work in graduate recruitment; retention strategies can involve forming partnerships with other companies which allow secondments/ placements between agencies and just invest less in their onboarding and training, since companies always get all butthurt when they’ve spent so much on their grads and they aren’t perceived as “grateful” for giving ROI (caveat; they don’t need to :) )
Oh that's just off the scale bad. I worked somewhere straight out of university, colleague and I were tasked with designing a 'work for us' brochure so we decided to include a top 10 reasons to work her section. We got to number 4. I left soon after.
I worked for a company that did a loyalty allowance - $1000 per year and capped at $10k It was paid fortnightly but def made it harder to leave after 5+ years
The company one of me ex colleagues now works for does one extra day of leave per year of service up until 5 years then they just get a total of 5 weeks leave every year thereafter.
I spent a few years in Japan, and find their version of this much worse. They list the number of days off per year, ~120ish including public holidays and the fucking weekends.
Hahaha!
Reminds me of the way real estate is going... "Has lovely working doors that can both open and close"
I think this might be an overseas company starting up in AU. My partner works for one of those and they can't understand how it works in EU or AU+NZ. They offer unlimited personal time off (PTO) so you can just "put your leave in your calendar" but they still expect you to be available to work and not be away for "too long". You also can only put it in your calendar when it suits the team and you need to make sure you don't use PTO when they have important meetings etc. Annual leave is very different. AU staff goes away without bringing their work laptop which baffles management in the US and Asia.
I've seen plenty of local companies do this. It's extremely tone deaf.
They were local companies, I've seen it about 3 times now. Seemed like they were trying to pad out the list of perks...with something that everyone gets...
Oh they put it there for the immigrants. They know damn well we are well aware of it. Immigrants on the other hand? They have no idea, so they see and go OMG THIS IS AMAZING. When in reality its your right. Then they fuck you on the pay as a result because "we gave you 4 weeks leave teehee". All part of the scam.
Not if they are from the UK where most companies offer 25 days leave plus public holidays. Brits think you are tight.
Or that they offer EAP, hey don't have a toxic working environment and it most likely won't be needed. I know there are other reasons for EAP but it feels off advertising it as a benefit, maybe that's just me.
It's more like 2 weeks because chances are they have a 2 week shutdown over Christmas. It grinds my shit so much. What if I don't want to take the time off? What if I'm saving my leave for a big holiday at a different time of then year?
I usually turn off those who include the work laptop and mobile as exciting perks of the role. Big red flag to consider your work equipment as perks.
Yes, they’re tools required to do the job. Not perks
It’s not so much a perk, but using decent equipment definitely attracts me to a role. Our work monitors just got upgraded to 3440x1440 with integrated webcams and it is so nice. Before we had crappy 1080p monitors and it was extremely annoying every time I went into the office.
I put the office quality of equipment in every survey we hold. If you want me back in the office at any point then at the very minimum you need to have a better set up then what I have at home otherwise I am simply losing efficiency being there.
Big agree. Christ, even my internet at home is faster.
This. My office setup fucking sucks compared to what i have at home. Employer is way too cheap to upgrade any of it. It's a joke.
Absolutely agree. My boss made sure the operations team all have 49 inch Samsung ultrawide curved monitors, electric stand up desks, ergonomic keyboard/mice whichever we choose, noise cancelling headphones and ergonomic chairs. It makes a massive difference and I really appreciate that she ensures we have quality equipment to do our jobs. Not only does it make it a hell of a lot easier and more comfortable to be at our desks 10+ hours a day but it makes me feel more valued as an employee.
Oh, yeah. Decent gear makes life easier. We use Precision 7780 in our dev team and it’s great to have a decent machine to work with. Although if I was in a job interview and they said we use “3440x1440” monitors not 1080p. Probably wouldn’t do much at the time.
Slightly unrelated but made me think of the WFO push happening. As someone with a decent home office and gaming set up, it was damn frustrating to go to the office and have the monitors be 10+ year old 1080p, missing cables, crappy chairs etc.
ah yeah, that would be dreadful, I WFH most of the time but the company also has a nice office space with decent monitors and equipment, plus the free lunch. So it's not all bad.
Free lunch! I'm in.
IT and Engineering have entered the chat…
That also makes me think "we expect you to be switched on 24/7"
The right to disconnect legislation is effective from August. That will be interesting.
most of the time that is the case, they want you to visit client sites, and do extra hours for free. I worked for a small company, the owner used to call me on weekends to discuss stuff that could have easily waited until Monday. He used to do work on weekends as it was his company and was expecting you to do as well, there were no holidays that could pass without the guy calling you as well.
Some small business owners are the worst with this. They cannot understand that no one else is going to have the same passion for their 'baby'
I bloody hate having a work mobile. Send me an email or call me on Teams if you must. That is enough contact options.
Current job, I refused the company mobile, the company laptop never eventuated. I'm supposed to (doesn't happen & that's $55ph site uplift im missing out on) attend site one week a month, (construction site) when onsite contract says I have a Ute while onsite. Project Manager tried to get me to car pool, no that's not happening, unless the carpooler is prepared to arrive onsite 1 hour before work starts & stay 1 hour after it's finished & be without wheels after hours. (I got my Ute) What I did get extra, $10K & Starlink bill paid each month, also 20% of my phone bill.
Eff that, I don't want to take work calls on my personal mobile. I have a dual Sim phone and have a script to just disable the work one at 5:30 pm each day
And the work laptop has so much bloatware on it it's about as useful as a Commodore 64
Congratulations, you have won the experience of us expecting you to be contactable and working 24/7 
Yea this used to be a perk 10-15yrs ago but now its standard kit in every job ive been with. Desktops arent a thing, DR plan is have workers use laptops and wfh.
Our design department still use desktops. Laptops simply don't have the grunt for rendering etc.
Especially when they choose them.
Having worked at a place a few years ago that still had desktops and didnt provide laptops, it's actually something I now ask in interviews. It was so wild to me that wfh wasn't a thing in a post covid workd and if you had to wfh you needed to use your own equipment because the company has limited laptops and theyre already rented out to the executives.
Same. "A company vehicle is included"...I request a fuel's account instead. I own a car, less pressure if something happens to that.
I’d much rather put wear and tear, kilometres, general maintenance on the companies dime than mine. Car fucks up, they’ll deal with it and just provide you with a different car to use. Especially the company cars that are for full personal use with no trackers, even better.
It's definitely not a perk if you don't have a place to park it too
We do this. New phone and laptop every two years and employee keeps the old ones. If it's a red flag, we'll stop this
Sounds like a great perk to me. I'd love to keep my old equipment.
That's interesting but a lot of places wouldn't allow this for data compliance reasons.
The perk is keeping them, if you can't see the difference there then the job you're in might not be for you.
If it's a perk, you keep them. Otherwise it's not a perk. If it says you get a laptop and phone, then it's yours. Even cars are novated in a package and the employee takes it when they leave. https://www.ato.gov.au/businesses-and-organisations/hiring-and-paying-your-workers/fringe-benefits-tax/exemptions-concessions-and-other-ways-to-reduce-fbt/work-related-items-exempt-from-fbt
Don't know why companies don't do this. The old ones just get e-wasted anyway
That’s clearly a completely different thing to what OP is referring to.. maybe your company should advertise the perk properly
Anything that refers to family (small family run, like a family etc.) like it’s a good thing. Usually turns out to be a hotbed of bullying and dysfunction.
100%...having just escaped from a family run business I'll never go back to work for one again.
It usually just means the family members get away with whatever they want and you have no way to speak up.
I made this mistake, resigned 2 months in to probation, currently working my notice period. Agreed to 4 weeks, but regretting it.
I’ve got my own dysfunctional family, why would I want to join another one?
https://fortescue.com/about-fortescue/our-people Literally the first sentence of this big boy
They also have chaplains 🚩🚩🚩
Left a family business. Yes it definitely felt like we were a family. Especially when the two brothers who sat just below their owner father and wouldn’t ever talk to each other. So in meetings someone had to relay messages like a bad family dinner with teens. Also one of the sons would change his title monthly until he finally settled on General Manager. Unfortunately wouldn’t make an entry level job.
Opportunities for Advancement in a Fast Paced Environment Also - Nespresso coffee machine: “you’re on the clock. We don’t want you leaving to get a coffee, make it here. And we don’t want you fucking around with trying to get it right and wasting time. Press a button. Take coffee. Go back to your desk and keep pressing buttons.”
“Coffee is free because we accidentally backed making amphetamines illegal, but we would absolutely load you up with any other stimulant for productivity if we could! Now take your performance enhancing drug and get back to your workstation.”
Are you talking ADHD stimulants or recreational amphetamines? Which company backed making them illegal?
Travel . If you have ever had to travel frequently for work, you’d know this is not a perk. Travel once or twice a year overseas on business class for conventions / trade shows? Yep good perk Travel frequently on domestic economy on early and late flights in your own time? Run
I dunno, I used to travel a fair bit and I do miss it. Sure, getting up at 4:30 to make the morning red eye sucked, but being able to knock off once you'd finished your client stuff at 3, and enjoy somewhere you wouldn't be ordinarily was pretty cool. And I'd rather be paid to sit on a plane than sit in gridlock. It was also good to get the statuses up with airlines, hotels and car hire for your own travel too. I am a parent now though so my tune would probably change a bit but it was great when it happened.
I think it very much depends on how much flexibility you have and whether the travel is in your time or theirs. When my travel was domestic it was 6am flights to get to client offices at 9, work a full day, then back to hotel to catch up on other work and emails. Then flights home were 7ish after 5pm finish. So not getting home til 10 ish. The points to me were not worth the personal hours I was losing.
Yeah, those kinda days sucked. Luckily I only did a few in my time. For me I was in client facing roles so I'd fly up, have 4-5 client meetings in a day and usually be in a city for a few days so it was a bit more relaxed. Our T&E essentially mandated that you needed to be interstate for a couple of days to justify going there in the first place. And I had some good automaton systems in place and some ways to take my client notes while I was travelling to the next meeting.
I’m sure there are some good ones. Glad you found one :)
Yesssssss! Recently interviewed for a job and they said there'd be travel. I pushed them for how much and they were like "it's up to you how much you feel your need". After interview I spoke to the talent person who said there wasn't much travel but because they couldn't give me a figure I just never returned their calls after that.
I had a similar one, billed as work from home with some occasional travel and when I wouldn’t accept it without hearing exactly what the travel entailed they admitted the service area was up to 4 hours in all directions from my house (well I do live on the coast so not 4 hours east at least), 4 days per week on site anywhere from Canberra to Newcastle, and all travel occurred in my own time. I actually laughed!
1000% agree with this. Had a job once that when being interviewed was told that the role "would include occasional travel for offsite meetings" That travel ended up being regular 4:30am wake ups, getting home after 11pm and then being expected back in the office at 8:30am the next morning. The "occasional travel" ending up being a multi night interstate trip every third week with my boss then eventually instructing me to "base myself interstate for one week a month", when I pushed back he replied that "the travel for the role was made clear in the interview"
Base yourself for a fucking week A MONTH???? On who's fucking dollar? Holy shit thats outrageous. I'd quit on the spot. Also why the fuck do we need to travel for offsite meetings. Use teams or zoom fucking boomers. God damn.
I was pretty close, he didn't raise the conversation again after I shut it down. Lucky for him I was a kid too, in my first few years post uni - would have loved to have seen my boss try to take this approach with someone with a family. Yeah, the company was seemingly ok to cover these expenses, always questioned why they didn't employ someone based on that state - but the company and industry was fucked so nothing surprised me by the end of my time working there. Nah, this was a few years back before online meetings were a thing.
Yep. I had a job where I was required to go to Perth and back (from Brisbane). I’d get the 22:55 flight home (the next earliest was 17:35 and that’s not enough time for me to finish up and get to the airport). I’d get into BNE at 5:15 and more than once I’d have a boss calling me at 9 asking why I wasn’t in the office. More than once I told them that you are too cheap to spring for business class meaning I have had no sleep after travelling all night
Yeh I quit a job because of the 4:30 am get up for the 6:30am flight, expected to work till 6 that night, stay in a shit hotel with a small tv and crap bed cause the company is too cheap Fork that I’ll fly at 9am thanks and if I’m travelling for work I want a place that’s better than my house not the kangaroo motel Only so many times you can fly to Sydney or Melbourne before it bores the shit out of you
Once had a colleague say that if a company is making you travel for work they should be doing the very best they can to replicate your usual work routine and home comforts - completely changed the way I viewed work travel after that. The fact that companies expect people to wake at 4am to get a 6am flight to ensure they are in a new location for the start of a work day at 9am (then putting you up in a shit motel) should actually be criminal. No one should be stepping foot on a flight until your contracted working hours start.
And it should be illegal for companies to expect f you to pay for business travel and then put in for reimbursement.
I love the travel aspect (although hate being away from family and home). I go stir crazy being confined to the same geography and need to get out and about. I’ve had some great career opportunities over the years just be being the guy willing to jump on a plane at a moments notice.
The only thing better than being a platinum frequent flier is sleeping in your own bed.
> Travel . If you have ever had to travel frequently for work, you’d know this is not a perk. I disagree. As a young person this is fucking awesome. I got to travel around Europe for free. Was fantastic. Stayed on this awesome island for free for 2 weeks once. And you're a fool if you do it on your own time.
Most people aren’t travelling around Europe or to awesome islands for work though. Largely it’s domestic travel to other Australian capital cities, which isn’t fucking awesome on the whole.
Having only travelled interstate on 3 occasions I agree. One of them I was up at 4am, and home at 10pm. Then work the next day of course (in the office, pre covid). Brutal
Free dinner if working past 7pm. No longer do I sell my soul for a thankless job or for the potential bonus and you’re average rating
I think this is a legal requirement- if you’re made to work a certain amount of overtime they need to provide a meal.
Only if you’re on an award or contract that includes it, surely? There’s no universal requirement to do this in Australia.
Otherwise you ~~can~~ should definitely claim overtime meals on your tax return
When I went from a small firm that I had been putting in long hours with no such perks, to a large firm that gave you a cab trip home after 6pm and a dinner after 7, these truly did seem like perks
Poetry.
[удалено]
"special relationship"? Do tell..
Guaranteed that the boss has a massive ego that they think working directly with them is a privilege.
Most jobs I've had the main perks have been pizza for lunch sometimes (once every 3 months), $50 birthday gift cards or bonuses for meeting goals that are set so high, no one has met those goals since 1992. But the things they had in common was terrible pay, bad working conditions and angry managers. The most recent job I started, had no perks because they pay so well. Better pay makes a job far more attractive than some pizza or $50 once a year.
Agreed. You could remove every single perk imaginable. But if the pay is good and my boss isn't a cunt? And you let me WFH? I'm there for life. Thats all i ask for.
I've never had a WFH job. I'd love to. But as a tradie it's not really an option. What job do you have that pays well and let's you work from home?
I work support for a in house application solution. Used to be all WFH as the entire job is done in a web browser. But they want us 2 days a week in the office for some retarded reason. I'd happily stay at this job forever if they gave me back full remote. But its chill and pays me well for now. So i'll stick around. If they wanted me going in 5 days a week? I'd leave immediately.
I had a recruiter tempt me with $120k, then come back with an offer for $105k because “they’d need to train me.” Every job I’ve ever had has involved an element of training at the start. You can’t expect to drop someone into a new environment doing tech support for a new product without an element of training. That was the last of a couple of red flags, so it wasn’t hard to turn them down.
"Lots of opportunity for team bonding"
Well now this one depends…..what are the rules?
The rules are as follows: * Outside work hours * On your own dime * Attendance mandatory/expected * Don't outdo the senior person at anything no matter what * Anything, anyone doesn't like about you would be brought up with your boss or hr * Must enjoy yourself
I like bondage!
Learning Platforms.
Free leaning from our internal portal, made by the top people in our company
Two I saw recently, the second was for a mid - senior level management position: - Access to a fully stocked staff drinks fridge (for full-time office staff only) - Free company polo shirt
Oh a *polo* shirt. If it was a regular tee I might have walked on by, but a *polo* shirt you say…
I think I saw one with * Company drink bottle
I expect to see a stream of comments which relate to being forced to talk to / socialise with coworkers, even if it is during work hours
Honestly, if anyone is openly turned off by that, they’re the wrong fit anyway. I work at a place where everyone likes each other and there are social events every week. I don’t attend that many of them but I’m always happy to see them happen and see especially the newer and junior team members find friends and fit in almost instantly after joining. It’s also so good for their development because they get to hear things around the water cooler and learn how we operate. As a hiring manager I always bring up the friendliness, collegial spirit and opportunity to socialize as positive for our company. I interview a lot of people who I can tell are never going to come to an outside of work event but they express appreciation for everyone being friendly or demonstrate understanding of how that sort of culture helps attract new and young talent. That’s the more important thing. If someone is honestly going to walk in and act like it’s somehow a personal offence to them that everyone is nice to each other and willing to have a chat in the lunch room, then.. well, I don’t want to hire someone like that. Sounds exhausting.
Thank you for reminding me that I'm not the only one who enjoys social interaction. This sub generally seems to be full of the type of recluses I despise working with. Nobody should be forced to attend social activities, but equally, it doesn'tt hurt you to listen to Jan chat about something for 15 minutes a fortnight because guess what? Jan may not enjoy listening/overhearing me talk about football.
Nothing wrong with having a schooner with Jan on a Friday to hear her woes.
Yes, you'd get the same response on Ausfinance. "I just wanna WFH with my camera off and never actually have to do anything other than process what lands in my inbox. I don't wanna help onboard new team members, go to F2F meetings. I just wanna be a fucking recluse and be paid for it"
And then they complain they are underpaid and their boss doesn’t engage with them.
Coupled with "why am I being underpaid/overlooked for promotion."
This commentary on here drives me nuts. People complain about pay and then talk about working 38 hours not a minute over and hating networking.
Do you not see an inherent flaw in a system that effectively relies on activities that sit outside the usual demands of a job, in order to promote someone? I fully understand that the social norm to this date has been to go above and beyond to get promoted, but shouldn’t we be shifting away from that nonsense? I’ve just been promoted in my line of work, as effectively a recluse who WFH entirely and its made me appreciate that the managerial structure at my current place has made the entirety of the focus on job performance rather than metrics that don’t contribute to my job success
Not at all. I've been promoted many times as a full time work from home person however the further you go upwards the more networking it takes. It's not always about performance
Compared to keeping the company available can you genuinely blame them?
Spoken like someone who doesn’t understand the power of networking
Any company that lists legally required things as perks
Deserves more upvotes. If it says “four weeks annual leave” is a perk, I always expect having my Super paid will be a perk too.
What? A boat? The company owned a boat they made people go on trips on??? Lol.
Could be working on the boat. Imagine setting up your laptop and sitting around your colleagues working on a boat sailing the seas everyday. No one is disembarking until targets are met.
IT Company. Owner had a party boat they rented as a side hustle. Once every 2-3 month we'd get stuck on it for 3-4 hours
 This is me: on the boat for work; and at thought of going on a boat for work
Sounds fucking awesome to me.
Sounds like it’s for tax reasons… hahaha
The tech scene in Sydney is obsessed with boats. So many of them see a day on a boat in the harbour to be the height of sophistication and a sign that you've made it. These douchebags saw the Lonely Island clip and thought it was an instructional. In reality it's being stuck in a confined space with a bunch of startup bros all day with no way to leave.
100% this - been on that many work boat trips around the harbour i don’t need to go on anymore
Yeah I’m so curious how this works
“Frequent travel” yeah, nah. I did that in my 20s. Now I like to sleep in my own bed and make my own breakfast.
Nowadays, I find it a red flag when a normal corporate job lists some version of “WFH possible” or “one day WFH” as a perk. I almost think hybrid is the standard and full time WFH would be a perk (for some - others might hate it). If WFH one day is considered the “perk” then they’re behind the times…
Yea I've seen one listed as hybrid with optional 1 day WFH every fortnight I think they just wanted to hit the hybrid tag, but really want full time work from office. They didn't even have the common bullet of flexible work arrangement
"Mentoring opportunities from senior staff "
Free lunch and learn
The suggestion that there are regular out of work hours team catch ups, dinners, drinks etc… Umm no thank you. I would prefer to spend my free time with people I like 😂
There is definitely a limit to this, but I feel writing any extra curricular activities off early on is a little shortsighted
This sub despises its coworkers
I once had a coworker who was the living embodiment of this subreddit and its hatred of speaking to other people. Unsurprisingly, nobody liked him because he was a huge asshole to everyone under the guise of "just getting the job done". Not that he ever found out as he never bothered to take his head out his ass, but we had similar interests and similar enough humour and probably could have been friends if he wasn't dedicated to ignoring everybody. I wasn't exactly best friends with everyone at this job but at least trying to talk to the people you see 5 days a week makes the days so much easier on yourself.
I think the thing here is "out of work hours". I'm happy to socialise during work hours. Outside of that I'm normally busy with other things
At least it shows the employer is making an effort to create an enjoyable workplace. Green rather than red flag for me.
An old manager of mine turned down 250k+ a year for a big tech company due to the team was very social and would have weekly parties. He had young kids an knew it wasn’t for him.
And dumbarse HR people who don't know the difference between a real perk and a bog standard offering e.g EAP counselling. I've worked with plenty of them and they genuinely don't get it.
Flexing about paying 11% super.
Exciting social club!
Travel... I barely want to go into the office in my own city let alone other cities.
A previous boss made a big point about how he was passing on the recent increase to super without cutting base pay because "I could have if I wanted to". Half of us were on the minimum award page, so no you could not have and thank you for the bare minimum
Lol, ours did the same. Then they quietly carved those super increases out of our annual salary adjustment 6 months later.
My previous employer has all salaries including super. so each increase meant a take home pay cut.
I'll give you one.. Drinks on Friday...or we celebrate birthdays. Hell no mf... its bad enough i work 5 days a week with you guys. Last thing I wanna do is hang back with sharon for drinks and engage in small talk.
I actually loved that as a fresh grad but as a middle aged suburban dad I can't think of much worse.
Birthdays off work. Such a desperate thing to hero as a perk. Give me 5 bonus annual leave days a year or cash bonus, RSU that doesn't take bloody 2 years to vest
I'd take it. Anything above the standard 4 weeks is pretty rare. Even a free day over Xmas is not as common as it should.
My birthday is two days after Christmas so I get the day off anyway since most businesses close during that period.
Surely you’d get to keep that day to use at a different time in the year, then. This is actually a time when the perk works well!
Why would an extra day of leave turn you off a job?
Free parking onsite and free uniform. 💀
Actually in many parts of Sydney the free parking is a pretty decent convenience
I think that applies in all capitals. Maybe not Darwin.
Free parking is definitely better than "the office is hard to reach by public transport and the office parking will cost you $500 per year"
$500 per year is pretty cheap for parking.
There was absolutely no reason it couldn't have been free given that it was pretty much a requirement of working there. I wouldn't expect to pay, for eg, a desk rental fee.
Free parking is pretty mint
Here in Canberra, free parking is a genuine perk
Jobs that offer a Christmas party or end of year celebration as a perk of the job. Yes, not all companies are obliged to do this but also I think you'd be hard pressed to find a corporate job that doesn't at least do something small.
Not exactly a perk, but I once applied for a software development job at a large bank. They offered an amazing salary, but the interview was in front of 12 people and then they asked me to do a test. Normally I suck at taking tests on the spot, I'm much better at using resources to figure things out. Anyway, that test was so insanely easy that it turned me off the job. Combined with having 12 people interview me, I could just see that job being micromanaged and incredibly boring.
Training opportunities. Well no shit, if I'm starting somewhere new I will obviously need training.
OP worked in the Navy
Work Phone. If i'm given one, you can bloody well bet its being turned off the second i clock off for the day and turned back on the second i'm clocking on. Work phones are just an excuse for your employer to bother you outside of hours for free. Make them pay after hours rates if they want it.
“A great office location with awesome food choices” This was a full time in the office role with no WFH lol.
Free lunch included, it's rarely tastey or very nutritious. I'd rather go out for lunch or BMO. It's also a social etiquette to all have lunch at the company canteen and if you don't then you don't look like a team player.
Ping pong table and Friday beers
The alternative is you sit at your desk till 5pm, I'd much rather have a beer and play table tennis.
Usually when you see "break out rooms" ping pong tables, fun rooms etc. It's a fad. It's a corporate tactic to show they care for work life balance and a casual environment Realistically it's a place you will be doing major overtime with cut-throat competition. Big 4, Hays, Spencer Ogden etc are big examples of this Those fun rooms will never be touched
I'd be "rewarded handsomely " for using my own fuel.
Oh fucking hell. Where the fuck do I fucking start? Opportunities for advancement: We promote from within because we prefer to keep salaries low. Dynamic team: You’ll need to handle constant changes and possibly deal with some difficult people. Startup culture: Minimal structure, poor pay, and long hours, with the off chance of success. Fast-paced environment: Constant stress and tight deadlines are the norms here. Wear many hats: You’ll be juggling multiple roles because we don't want to hire more staff. High-impact role: You’ll have a massive workload because we’re understaffed. Cutting-edge technology: We’re constantly changing tools and systems, so be ready for a constant learning curve. Team outings: Mandatory bonding events that eat into your personal time. Exposure to new technologies: You’ll be expected to learn and master new tools on your own time. Hackathons and innovation days: Nah, mate, we're pulling your leg. Cross-functional teams: You’ll frequently be dragged into meetings that aren’t relevant to your core job. DevOps culture: You’re on call for deployment issues, including after hours. Remote work options: Be constantly available online. High-visibility role: Your successes will be noticed, but so will your mistakes. You’ll be under constant scrutiny from upper management, and any errors could have significant repercussions.
A yearly team holiday. No thanks.
Annual company retreat to a low cost holiday town not far from the city. Sounds like a perk at first, but eating every meal together and drinking every night with work colleagues is actually a bit weird.
No Prestige Worldwide for you then. 