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Monograph

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Job Interviews

Just had my first Dutch job interview with a blue chip. Now in business school you get taught about things like European labour markets and how they're inflexible and don't give companies enough control over the workforce and restrict management and so on. I mention this because the terms and conditions conversation for this job went like this

Them : We're a big company, so we don't negotiate salaries. Every job is fixed to a position on the Hayes scale. What would you be looking for in this role?

Me : xx thousand

Them : Thats fine. Now to explain what we offer...

You get your annual salary
Plus a 'thirteenth month' bonus in December
Plus another months bonus in May
Plus a small tax free amount each month for expenses
Plus a group performance bonus of maybe 5%
Plus an individual bonus which might be 1-2%
Company laptop and mobile phone
No company car
We offer 25 days holiday
Plus up to 16 days holiday which was agreed in lieu of past pay rises forgone. You can take those or be paid for them, or trade them in for 'stuff'

Now either I missed the bit about them getting my immortal soul or this is a quite incredibly generous compensation package. I was completely sold on the job anyway, since it appears to offer me the chance to do many many good things with a corporate website and have an impact on a whole company. Now of course I just have to brace myself for any disappointment and start looking for other jobs to do when I don't get this one...