u/That_Comic_Who_Quit

Went for an interview this morning and they said the salary was 25% of J1. As I am without a J2 would you take this? How low do you go? If I lost J1 I wouldn't be happy with this potential J2. On the other hand, I've lost my old J2 so I don't have any.

Please keep replies to % and not numbers. "I wouldn't take anything less than £200,000" doesn't help me because I'm no where near demanding those salaries.

Finally, I can’t personally handle 3 Js.

2Js and the second one put me over the £100,000 tax trap so I overcontributed heavily on pension on J2.

Since lost J1. Now I need money in the short term but also want an additional J to replace the one I lost. If suspicion was no issue I'd quite simply stop overcontributing to pension. Wait till I got the new job and start overcontributing again.

I won't do that because it looks weird. Unless people think no one cares?

My mother recently had a heart attack. Fortunately as I know claude code she's now doing much better and has started a j2 despite not owning a laptop.

Look, we can all spot an advert, it's fooling no one.

... I'd like to say that I'm the same person today as I was yesterday.

Any tips or tricks I can give you about this job market are identical to what I would have said yesterday. My opinion hasn't miraculously become more valid.

If yesterday you wouldn't be interested in the advice of someone looking for work. Then, don't expect their methods to suddenly be a vast improvement.

So here's my advice and it's unconventional. The best advice is probably from those looking for work. They are fighting the good fight and are learning more from their mistakes than the employed are from their victories.

It's very easy for those in work to look back and go... oh yes I made good decisions and got what I deserved, when they could've just got lucky. HR took the top 5 CVs from their inbox and ignored the rest. 3 didn't email back and the other was suitable for the job.

TLDR; listen to the people on this sub. Don't jump to 'what do they know, they're unemployed anyway.' And take the already employed advice with a pinch of salt. What they believe is the reason they found work might not be the true reason they found work.

When applying I often feel... "okay this salary is low but, how much work are you going to assign me? If you pay less, assign less."

It's kind of annoying you have to "try a job on" and see what workload is like before you figure out if it's a good fit.

The annoyance is compounded by salary when a job paying half as much can demand double.