Is it unethical to say my current employer has financial problems when looking for another job? [duplicate]

Question

I have been working for over a year for a company that I'm very happy with (apart from my salary):

• The tasks I'm given are challenging but not overchallenging and I learn a lot at each task.
• In the past the company offered to pay me for some training courses I wanted to go to.
• My boss is righteous and very open to every suggestion I give.
• I have a great relationship with my colleagues that continues also outside the workpace.

When I was starting this job I didn't know how it works in the corporate sector as I was an entrepreneur before. As a result I said a very low figure thinking it would improve over time. But it has been over a year and on average I have 35 % less than my friends outside the job who work in the same corporate field.

Due to a sudden change on the market, the company I work for has been having financial problems for about half a year. All the salaries are frozen and all benefits are cut down as the company is trying to find a new direction. Some colleagues that had a much larger salary than myself even agreed to cut their salary down a little so the company can carry on.

Having to pay a mortgage and preparing for a first child, I can't stay much longer working for my current salary, so I'm looking for another job. If the company's situation get better meanwhile, I would be very happy to stay if they agree to raise my salary to the field standards.

At every interview they always ask me what is the reason I'm leaving the company and I don't know how to respond. The public image of the company I currently work for is very good and no one knows about the financial problems the company faces. I don't want to talk bad about the company as I have been very happy with them.

What should I say as a reason at the interview I'm looking for another job? Can I say, between the lines, that I want more money and the company I currently work for has financial problems so they can't give me that?

Similar questions but not answering my problem:

• Why is it not a good idea to "badmouth" a previous employer?
• Should I be sincere - in an interview - about the reason for leaving my previous job?

Answer 1

It seems to me that your issue isn't actually that your company has financial problems, but that you're not being paid what you think you deserve / need / could get elsewhere. The company's financial problems may be the root cause of your low compensation, but by focusing on the personal issue rather than the company one, you can avoid mentioning that:

Them: Why are you looking to leave your current company?

You: The compensation I'm currently receiving is significantly below the market average, and as I'm going to be starting a family soon, I'm looking for a bit more financial security at this point in my life.

Answer 2

Your situation is trickier than most. If you were not being paid, cheques were bouncing or there were other problems with payroll, then it would be fine to say "My company has been having trouble meeting the payroll" and leave it at that. In your case, your company isn't quite in that much financial trouble but it's close. A salary freeze on its own isn't that outlandish and has been common in many sectors post-2008. However, salary cuts are a huge red flag and an acceptable reason to job search. It signals that your company is at risk of going under and your wages are in jeopardy.

You say that no one knows about the financial problems, but you can be damn sure that your company's competitors know. For one, many of your colleagues will have been interviewing with them as they can see the writing on the wall. In most countries payroll reports are publicly available and quarterly reports will also show a poor situation. If low-level employees have their wages slashed, you can be sure that the company's troubles have become public knowledge.

From an ethical standpoint, unless you're a C-level executive or otherwise have a significant high-level management responsibility, you are not required to keep your company's financial struggles secret.¹ Obviously you don't post about them on Facebook, but there's no reason to lie about your reason for leaving.

In your case, I'd suggest a variation on this:

My current company has been struggling financially and salaries have been frozen or cut. While I love the work [I/we] do, given the lack of financial stability or potential for advancement I felt it was time to move on.

When it comes to "badmouthing" an employer, hiring managers are looking for people who can't stop venting their frustrations or are otherwise showing poor judgement by being overly negative. People with an axe to grind are not typically good employees. A simple statement of fact that shows foresight (as you're getting out before the situation deteriorates further) is not a negative.

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^{1 - To be clear, I'm not referring to misrepresenting data or accounting fraud which is unethical and likely illegal, even in non-public companies. What I mean is that high-level management has a higher duty of care to the company than regular employees which, among other things, means not sharing strategic insider information with the public and especially not with competitors. As an example, it probably wouldn't be ethical for a CFO to abandon a sinking ship and explain to a competitor during his interview that they're at risk of losing their largest client. Now, while that example is an entirely different topic and probably ripe for debate, I only raised the point to argue that a low-level employee or someone in middle-management is generally not expected to be that secretive about information that is publicly visible.}

Answer 3

What should I say as a reason at the interview I'm looking for another job? Can I say between the lines that I want more money and the company I currently work for has a financial problems so they can't give me that?

While the other two answer are good, I think they both have aspects that could be brought together during your interview.

You like the company, but your main issue is that you feel you are underpaid. And due to the company's current financial issues, you feel that you would continue to be underpaid, thus you must leave.

You might say something like this:

While I love the work I do, I feel like I''m being paid significantly below the market average. Unfortunately, my company is in a difficult position financially and is freezing some salaries and cutting others. Reluctantly I feel that it's time for me to move on.

Answer 4

Have you actually heard a personal and specific "no" from your current employer? Have you spoken with your current manager, privately and verbally, about needing a raise? A lot of things are more negotiable in practice than they are in theory.

How did your first yearly review go, if you have a formal review process?

If you're not in charge of the budget, don't presume to make the call about what they can afford. Businesses have a lot of money going in a lot of directions, and they make a lot of decisions about what to spend it on. If you're valuable to the company, they may choose to spend a little more of it on you. A sum that makes a big difference to you is not necessarily a big item in a department budget. What will it cost them to replace you with somebody who might be as good a fit, if they're lucky, and who'll take time to fully come up to speed in any case?

It's a delicate thing. You can't be going to this guy and saying "pay up or I'm gone"; you have to be saying "I love this job, can help me find a way to keep my bills paid?"

You do like this job, and it sounds like they like you. The key fact is that these people aren't schmucks. That's a much bigger deal than you may realize, if this is your first experience working for somebody else. If the minimum raise you need to get by is within the bounds of sanity, it might be worth a shot.

The risk is that if they do have to say "no", they'll know you'll be looking. But this is business. You're not a charity any more than the company is. They know what they're paying you. If it's less than you're worth and it's not enough to live on, you'd be crazy not to start looking. Anybody would do the same. If you and Bob are adding the same value and Bob's getting 30% more pay, you're not being treated very fairly and they know it.

If you've been interviewing, they may already have noticed the sudden onset of long lunches off-site anyway.

Your colleagues with the much higher salaries aren't in your position. They can afford grand gestures; you can't. They're already being paid what they're worth; you aren't.

Source: I once very quietly asked for, and got, a 13% raise when raises at that company were capped at 3% and a lot of people were getting less. I'd taken a relatively junior job because I was hard up and times were tough. After the first year they figured they couldn't live without somebody just like me in that role, and they didn't want to damage their relationship with me by paying me less than I was worth. As in your case, I had a very good personal relationship with my manager and everybody else concerned and I was nailing everything they threw at me technically. I stressed that I was very happy about everything else, which was true. I wasn't in any particular financial distress. I just happen to like money.

The decision had to go a few steps up the ladder and it took some time, and of course it had to be kept quiet. More than once over the years I've known cases where an entry level hire exceeded expectations, and after their first or second yearly review their spending habits would suddenly change dramatically.

This isn't precisely an answer to your exact question, but from what you say, I think your ideal outcome would be to stay where you are for better pay.