I was looking at a potential new job until it occurred to me to ask about dealing with “on-call” support.
As I work in tech, there is usually an expectation that some level of support is handled off hours in case systems go down. However this position didn’t have any compensation for making yourself available and generally only 15 mins from a phone or computer to support the systems. The best they could offer was “time in-lieu” if you get called, which is basically saying they’ll let you work your contracted maximum hours despite it being unsociable hours.
Fuck that.
After seeing elsewhere someone commenting that they would refuse to on-call if there was also a “return to office”, because if they had to go to the office to work, then how could they possibly support it from home, it made me wonder what other things should I remember to enquire about when interviewing and asking the hiring company?
When the benefits listed are the legally required minimum holiday and pension, plus on site parking. Usually these are also paired with a competitive salary.
Edit: it’s late, I can’t read and wrote about things in a job advert rather than an interview. I’m going to bed, maybe I’ll try do some Internet tomorrow.
The main thing I ask about on-call is what the scope is and how many people are covering it.
There’s one end where they have a kid who takes calls and literally 70% of them go to you, plus you are on call every other week because there’s only three on the rota and one guy quit/is on holiday.
And then there’s the other end where there’s multiple on call teams and your team only gets called for very specific reasons, you are one of 5-6 people on the rota, on call bonus is massive plus 1.5*wage for every call out.
Some warning words in job listings:
- “hit the ground running” : there’s no time or people to train you, you have a day to learn the whole system.
- ”we’re looking for a rock star…” : the one guy who knew how it all worked rage quit, we need someone who can do it all
- ”open to graduate engineers” : we don’t want to pay a high salary for an experienced engineer so we’ll pay you peanuts to (hopefully) do the same role.
- ”As a world leader in…” : few have heard of us before, including you
- “…fast paced environment …” : We don’t have enough people, would rather not spend the money , prepare to do three roles at once
- “work hard, and play hard” : No play just work, 16 hour days. Once every 6 months HR will plan a mandatory rock climbing event (on a Saturday)
- ”…Remote flexibility” : You can work at home one day per month if it’s snowing otherwise we need you to commute in for every 15 minute meeting
- “You will lead a multi-disciplined team…” : a collection of odds and sods who can’t communicate or get anything done. That’s why there’s an opening
- “…family oriented business…” : We’ll call you with problems any hour of the night, your scheduled vacations are subject to cancellation, if you resign we need 6 months notice, then we’ll still call you at your new job for advice.
- ”We are the innovators” : we need you to juice up our also-ran bland product line
- Any mention of onsite food or catering means they want you working while eating lunch
- ”An opportunity has arisen” : Someone said fuck this I’m out.
- If it’s a job with little contact with customers or clients and they still mention casual Fridays, avoid
- ”You should have ten years experience in Ratfuck XBumpick version 2.3 (1997 edition) and 8 years experience in Tard Tool Power Edition DOS” : We’ll consider you if understand numbered lists in Word.
- ”You enjoy new challenges every day…” : The rest of us just want to get the fuck out of here at 5 o clock and go home.
I would like to remind you that you are posting in a UK-focussed community.
I just want a job brother.
Anything involving Myers–Briggs.