I stalled in comp and title for about 2 years due to an acquisition. While I was definitely maximizing my compensation, it was a miserable experience. Perhaps I lack the mental fortitude to not skip in to complacency, but for those two years there was no difference between an excellent job done and a mediocre one. After about 12 months of erring on the side of excellent, I just gave up. I did the minimum required and got paid handsomely for it. I eventually left and took a pay cut.
It may have been extenuating circumstances but I do wonder if I would have been happier with less compensation and more room to grow.
That being said, the burden of preventing overcompensation lies on the hiring manager. The candidate should push for as much as possible and the hiring manager should make a judgement call about whether the employee will have room to grow.
Taking a cut in salary in lieu of room to grow or anything else should be decided very very carefully. You must really understand that you actually do have an opportunity to grow; at the very least, you should know that its risky and have evaluated the risk as one worth taking.
Very true. In this case, it was actually an increase in salary but a loss of liquid stock compensation in favor of illiquid stock options.
Overall cashflow, it was a pay cut. Median/Mode outcome, probably still a pay cut. With extremely high variance, I believe the Mean outcome is probably a break even.
As far as not having room to grow, I can probably sum that up in a single word: Yahoo!
It may have been extenuating circumstances but I do wonder if I would have been happier with less compensation and more room to grow.
That being said, the burden of preventing overcompensation lies on the hiring manager. The candidate should push for as much as possible and the hiring manager should make a judgement call about whether the employee will have room to grow.