I've been unemployed for a while. And after posting about it on LinkedIn I got invited by a company to apply for a medior function that sounded perfect for me. The vacancy described me >100%. I had more than the asked years of experience, met all the requirements and even all the bonus points. And on top of that, the salary indication was 2500-3000 monthly based on experience. I was pretty confident I was on the higher side of the salary indication.
It sounded perfect for me, so obviously i applied.
Then after many calls with basically everyone from the team. I got an offer.
The offer was “junior, 1800 monthly”, no pension, no bonuses.
I told them that was a ridiculous offer, and that they insulted me. Asked why they think I'm a junior, and said I can't accept an offer that is basically minimum wage, for a stressful high skill job like this.
A lot of back and forth mailing later. They decided to higher their offer, while calling me greedy.
They said they don't want to “promise fortunes” to new hires, but instead reward people for good work. They ended up offering 2200 monthly (no pension, no bonuses, minimum required days off, still a junior title), saying I'd probably get a raise in no time if I could proof myself worthy.
Because i have been unemployed for a long time, and wasn't in a financial position to reject the only job offer I got in months, I accepted it. At least the work would be something I enjoy and that I'm good at.
So I worked hard, had to crunch and do unpaid overtime a lot, got praised for my knowledge, good work and productivity by literally everyone in the team. To the point that it felt weird/ annoying.
During the first meeting where we all came together in the office (everyone was WFH). They looked back on 'accomplishments' of the year. One of them was diversify the team. Where they literally dropped my name, calling me the diversity hire.
The team was pretty awful too. I always got the tasks assigned, that my coworker with the same function, didn't like. I always had to wait hours for people to respond to questions, frequently got completely ignored. Then got called out for not asking for feedback enough.
I wasn't happy, I didn't feel like I got respected.
I confided in my coworker with the same function. I told him I was thinking of quitting, and not to discuss it with others. But I got a call from the CEO right after I told him. Not only made it things more complicated, it also meant I could not trust anyone there.
Not much later we had performance reviews, I got praised by the CEO, she told me everyone likes me and my work. So I asked for a raise. And she said “NO, that would be a bad investment, since you think about quitting”.
The next days, I was very infuriated, it made me too upset to join in standup, and I ended up not being able to finish the assignment i got that sprint, which I told to my coworker.
I then got a mail from my CEO, that basically threatening to fire me for neglecting work.
Also learned my coworker with the exact same function, who was not much older, had a similar amount of experience, wasn't even able to do certain things that I could, was less productive than me, got over €3k monthly. He was shocked when I told him about my wage, and the initial 1800€ offer.
I decided to give the CEO my one week notice, and finished up my task and quit.
That same week, they put up the vacancy to replace me.
It was the exact same “Medior €2500-3000” vacancy. Money that I never got, and a title they didn't give me, without reasoning why.
It happened last year, but I'm still furious (and sadly, also still unemployed).
Luckily the function is not filled yet either! Hah.