Thread regarding Bank of New York Mellon Corp. layoffs

That’s an utterly normal career progression and I hope that the negative nellies here will read and take it to heart.

Work your way up the chain and take risks and job hop.

Don’t whine about the lack of opportunities. You own your career, not your manager.

@8suu, companies should to remain completive and reduce the expense of hiring and training new people.

This should be required reading for all lifers. Take risks, network and jump jobs, don’t allow your fears to control you. Knock down the negative thoughts that control you.

If you don’t take control of your career it’s a much harder life.

@1nvi

Nobody factors in inflation, and why should they? The Bank doesn’t cause inflation and employees don’t cause inflation. We’re all in the same boat.

I will note that Bankers almost exclusively vote Democrat, and that is always the source of inflation. So your anger should be directed at the man in your mirror.

I was the OP in the thread. I mainly started with the usual peers like JPM, Citi, MS, etc and ended up accepting one of their offers. Failing that, I would've considered checking out IM firms. Look at what a VP gets paid at any of these big banks (use Linkedin - they have to post the range for NY) and what I said in the OP is in line with people of at least 8 years of experience. Now look at BNYM jobs in NYC on Linkedin and most VP jobs have an absurd range of 79K to 200K and require 10 years minimum experience. How are they ever going to attract talent with those measly prices?

The problem I had was that I always knew I was underpaid, but despite money generally being tight, the bills got paid and I've been lucky enough to have good managers to sponsor my growth. I moved up to a new level like every 2-3 years so I knew I was doing something right. All it took to change that was getting my first really bad manager (couldn't manage, wasn't a good person, worst of both worlds really) and giving me new perspective on how I should think about my career. It was awful working under her, but at the end of the day it was a blessing in disguise.

Congrats on seeing the light OP!
I was at BNYM for 5 years and left for another job last year as a soft dev for a tech company. The pay was a bit more than double what I got at BNYM in a similar cost location. I was at 100K, and now with the new job I am $200K+. Super happy for you and go live your life and treat your family well!

I regret that I spent 4 years at bny, took a long time to understand toxic culture around me and trusted senior managers at this company.
In the division that I worked at, over the last two years, people were literally fighting over work, all maintenance projects - only being fluffed up — they are still touting the work they did in 2015. To top it off, there is a lot of artificial stress generated by a tech MD, very archaic testing methods, no automation. There are people in this department who are running same test automation commands since 10 years :)

Care to share which companies gave you those offers? I'm in a similar situation and looking to leave

I was making $73k when I was hired in 2004 and $100k when I quit in 2021. SO I was earning 5 grand LESS when I left if you factor in inflation.

@kza+
Well said , especially the last line. There is a comfort factor and we never put a price tag on that. OP's price tag was 50k a bit steep but that is reality

Honestly, I think this situation is common in most big companies.

If you progress inside one company, your comp falls behind peers who move from employer to employer. You didn’t get those jumps available when you take a job across the street. Companies tend to pay totally unproven external hires a much better salary than many of the comparable long-time employees, even the best. And when they have to do that to attract talent, they never ever adjust the salaries of the rest of the team.

At BNY Mellon I inherited a lot of teams. It was stunning the lack of correlation between role, performance and compensation. I would have stellar people earning $80k taking on the most important work and then wastes of space earning half a mill. And the new manager is never allowed to radically adjust the underpaid.

The lesson: we tend to assume we can’t be earning that much less than our peers. You’d be shocked how often the variances are huge.

If you start in the same place for an extended time, you are accepting a discount for security.