Now for some of the negatives. K-State would be fantastic given the above for any position that is Mid-Senior level, I’m thinking grade 10A and up because that pay level is pretty good for Manhattan, for now.
I’d wager most positions here are either 7A-9A. The issue is it is actually not easy to move around within the university unless you know people with influence beyond the surface level. Many positions are opened to promote someone from within the same department, I have that info on good authority from a friend in HCS. I applied for about 5-7 internal positions after a year or so and some were cancelled but the others I was denied for despite meeting all basic and most/all preferred criteria.
The pay is generally not that good for those grades mentioned. For any given position, you’ll have to fight tooth and nail to come close to the midpoint of that salary range, and that’s if the budgeted “hiring” range even goes up to it. Generally raises will have nothing to do with merit and more about if the budget is there, which typically it is not. Another friend from a different department has worked in the same position for 10 years and is not even at the midpoint of their range. I have seen the department I worked for not re-hire important positions twice just for the sake of saving that money, so people end up doing more work without an amicable increase in comp.
So it is very easy to get trapped in a position where you’ll have scope creep for your job, but you’re not seeing a salary that keeps up with inflation or is merit-based, and it’s harder than it should be to move up internally. This has worked for K-State for so long because of the lack of employer competition in Manhattan.
It’s interesting to me that between the strategic plan launch and the response to the cyber event they will hire like crazy ($$$$) for these high-level positions but make less effort to improve comp % for the people doing the actual work beyond 2%. I’m sure others would have a different experience but these are my opinions. Also, have fun being forced to pay for a parking pass when you're required to be in the office!
