Ask HN: What should I do?
I work in the UK. I earn £15000 a year. For a web developer who has 3 years experience and always gets good annual reviews I feel I am underpaid. Normally the best course of action is to start looking for other jobs. But there is a problem... I have a terrible stammer
I've had lots of interviews for other positions, infact almost every position I apply for I get an interview for but my stammer that leaves me practically unable to talk in interviews.
I've asked my current employers for a raise but because they know my situation and they know my stammer means I interview badly they know I am stuck here.
I used to think my code would be able to win these battles for me but I think I'm wrong. What shall I do?
154 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 233 ms ] threadThe solution: Build a micro product, turn it into a freedom business, and fire your boss.
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Fwiw, self-help products can be gold mines. You might try to develop a product to help other people with stammering, I have paid for "quit nailbiting" and "stop being shy" products.
Also, use this characteristic as a strength, in interviews introduce yourself "Hi, I am ____ - because I stammer, by web work is the best you'll find".
https://github.com/pattle
2) Apply for big companies / public sector. They have massive HR departments who will send you an equal opportunities form. Disclose your disability and ask for support during the interview. That should help them prepare for you - they will also have the budget to support you if you do get the job and require extra help.
3) Build a portfolio. If your CV and Portfolio are good, then your interview is basically "can we work with this person." If people are sufficiently impressed with your work, it won't matter whether you stammer, have dreadful BO, and have a hobby of murdering kittens on the weekend.
4) Speak to your GP and see if you can get help. Speech therapy isn't perfect, but it can help.
Good luck!
I have a personal website and github account which should show what I can do too.
If you take freelance jobs from oDesk/PeoplePerHour et cetera, you might be able to perform all communication via email/IM. This isn't ideal, but could work as a backup plan if you want to try your hand at freelancing in the meantime.
A lot of people are put off by "therapy" but it is worth going to an initial meeting with the therapist and finding out what the plan would be. If you decide that ongoing meetings is not for you then they may be able to give you a few exercises to do at home.
edit: http://www.stammering.org/adults_info.html
Here is some information. You do not necessarily need to speak first to a GP
+1. I used to have a colleague with a pretty bad stammer. He attended speech therapy sessions during the time that we worked together and there was a huge improvement. While his speech never became 100% normal, the stammer was greatly reduced and by the end of it, he was even able to give presentations to a room full of engineers and managers. The confidence he gained form the exercises he learnt in therapy (such as taking a deep breath and exhaling into a difficult word) and from the support he received from other attendees have helped him immensely.
Speech therapy is definitely worth trying.
I still feel my stutter rising up when I talk (this is 20 years out of Kindergarden) but I'm able to check myself.
I was going through old report cards that my parents saved a few years ago. In the "Questions for the Teacher" section of my 1st grade report card, my dad asked the teacher if she had seen improvement with my stutter.
For reference, my salary history over my 6+ year career is as follows:
£20k->£26k->£45k->£450-£600/day
Note that I am a totally average developer, nowhere near as smart or knowledgable as a lot of the guys here on HN. I have a CS degree, barely (I got a 3rd), so that helped at the beginning, but most of my luck has been thanks to an extremely welcoming market.
If you have three years experience, you should be clearing £42k, if not £45k. I don't know much about speech impediments and how easy/hard they are to fix, but in this market, trust me, you can achieve £42k+ for fizzbuzz and a pulse.
EDIT: Modified figures in last paragraph on account of OP having three years of experience.
I'd expect someone with 3 years web dev experience to be anywhere from mid-20's to mid-30's outside of London, and a cursory search for Suffolk that appears to be about right.
But yes, in London... people start North of £30k if they're able to demonstrate that they've shipped something.
There are people who make it to SF from here but it's mostly to the big corps. The rest of us will hang around Asia earning relative peanuts while possibly hoping for a side project to take off. Given the poor wages here, it only makes sense to try to get a business going.
Come work in Singapore anyway, you deserve better.
I know one guy who contracts with a US-based company while staying in Asia, exploiting the gap between salary and living cost seems like a pretty smart play.
Question for the Londoners around here: what is the salary range like? I gather that NYC and London living costs are similar (with London supposedly edging out NYC slightly), but around here $120K is common (80K GBP), and in finance frequently runs higher than that. 40K GBP sounds strangely low, but I may lack context.
p.s. all numbers are pre-bonus, but for junior devs they're near-negligible in both companies anyway.
p.p.s both jobs are enterprise java.
Net Income: £2750/month Major Expense: ~£1750/month
Add £100/month more expenses for public transport to work (since in London it's not very common to live within walking distance of work).
Probably a fair comparison might want to factor in university education cost. In the UK undergraduate fees are capped at £9,000/year. So a simplified sum: a 3-year undergraduate costs £27,000; spread over 10 years that's £225/month.
Got a 2.1 in CompSci and picked up the job through a recruiter who found my newly made LaTeX CV on Monster.
I can't believe I was so apprehensive about the job market when I was graduating. I'd read that CompSci grads have poor job prospects [1] which scared the shit out of me. But I found the opposite to be true. I was beating recruiters off with a shitty stick.
[1] - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10477551
Firstly are you sure the companies are not employing you because of your stammer? Just checking your not going to interviews and putting your feet upon the table etc (thats not going to get you a job).
To be honest many companies I have worked in have had a range of people and abilities but at the end of the day what got you the job was your ability to turn out code.
The best thing to do is apply for positions and arrange the interview, at this point let the interviewer know about your stammer.
More importantly if they know in advanced then they will be prepared. Let them know what can be done to make the situation easier for you and for them (i can guarentee they too will be feeling very awkward).
What will also help during the interview is to tell them how best to help you manage your stammer.
A friend of mine can speak a lot better down the phone than face to face so at his work place his boss uses the interval phone system or instant chat to work with him.
I found the salaries and day rates there are a little higher than those I discovered by speaking with colleagues, but it's a great rule-of-thumb.
Use things like this to press for a raise/promotion or decide to jump ship/re-skill in more commercial languages.
If your stammer doesn't affect your ability to perform your job (as it's unlikely to do as a programmer vs. say, a call centre agent) you should be paid market rate.
Web developer market rates here: http://www.cwjobs.co.uk/salary-checker/average-web-developer... ...be sure to go to 'top salaries' for your county as the usual London weighting is in effect!
I ran across this interesting freelance/consulting contract yesterday: https://github.com/ashedryden/freelance-contract. It stipulates that all the day-to-day communication is text-based, with in-person or phone meetings as needed but scheduled 2 days in advance.
With that kind of contract, you could realistically avoid dealing with most in-person/phone client stuff, or do it alongside your business partner if needed.
I don't think this kind of arrangement would look abnormal to a client. There's efficiency reasons for wanting everything text-based (IM, Basecamp, etc.) and for having a single point of contact for phone/voice meetings (your business partner).
You're also fortunate to be in an industry where online communication is the norm, and it should be fairly easy to pick up side work and build up your skills and experience that way too. During my years freelancing, I worked for clients where 99% of communication was done via email, Basecamp, etc, in which case having a stammer is a non-issue as very little communication is voice.
Good Luck!
Here is what worked for me
1. Persistence. Keep trying.
2. Target the BigCorps.
They have HR departments and product managers that are sensitized to disabilities. Sometimes they actually have commitments to a diverse workforce which can work in your favor. And they are unlikely to shortchange you based on your disability if you make it through (since it isn't the HR employee or product manager's money).
3. Let him know about your disability before the interview.
For me, I had a short 1-minute speech prepared stating my hard of hearing issue and letting them know they might have to repeat the question 2-3 times or write it down in the interview and asking them if they were fine with it. I'd speak it as soon as I sat down in the interview chair. For you, you might want to send an email before the interview stating that you prefer communicating via writing? Maybe take your laptop and use Notepad to communicate?
4. Do Google Chat + Doc instead of phone screens.
You didn't mention whether most companies want you to do a phone screen or not and whether you're missing out on opportunities because of this. Phone screens are impossible for me and using an text relay would take forever, so I usually ask the interviewer to do a Google Chat + Doc interview instead. Most oblige, some of them (usually a lazy HR associate) don't for unexplainable reasons.
Don't let them take advantage of you. Of course I would need to see your work to know if they actually are, but if you can write PHP/Ruby and JavaScript they probably are.
Maybe it is some kind of defense reaction of brain, but it thinks that this is not that important for everyday life :)
I have to add that I tend to speak quite fast.
Also, please let me have some of your details and I'll add you to my address book. I consulting in Digital Strategy and occassionally have a requirement for someone to do some development work.
The interviewers will (hopefully!) be told what time the interview is, so this information could be forwarded at the same time.
And if the HR team can't ensure the interviewers have this extremely relevant piece of information? That's probably a signal about how effectively that company handles communication.
I have two friends who stutter, and it never occurred to me that their condition could be worth mentioning[0]. Maybe it isn't as bad as OP's, though.
[0] Unless one goes for an acting career, of course. On a serious note—I know it's easier to say, but maybe it would help OP stammer less if he didn't perceive it as something of importance in his professional area.
All I can say, I had an interaction today that reinforced my view. Was at a friend's house and her boyfriend announced at the beginning of lunch, "Please just know I have severe hearing problems, so if I don't respond or continue a conversation we're not actually having, it's not you or me being rude, please just correct me." I really appreciated him being honest and upfront and it enables me to better cater the conversation to suit his needs as we spoke. I recognize that a studder is different in that the interviewer doesn't have to adjust his way of speaking but rather his listening, but I still think there's a benefit from the heads up. Maybe just say so instead of giving a card, then.
It might be a bit of a hyperbole to suggest that a stammer is an advantage in an interview, but you could view it as an opportunity. The entire purpose of an interview is to get a sense of the skill level of the interviewee. You want to know how they respond to problems. Are they able to arrive at solutions?
Your stammer is an opportunity to show that you know how to work your way through a challenge. And don't fool yourself in to thinking that using any of the solutions suggested here diminishes the accomplishment of working through your challenge. Knowing where to seek help, then taking the appropriate action based on that advice is a skill. You'd be amazed how many people do not know how to effectively seek outside help.
If I were interviewing someone with a stammer and they handed me this card, it would put a huge smile on my face. It would shift my disposition in a positive direction, which would definitely impact the interview. How could it not?
Where do you look when your first starting out?