Stock options are standard, often more than doubling workers' salaries in a few years. So are annual or quarterly bonuses, which can add thousands to their paychecks. At the Netscape Communications Corp., based in Mountain View, Calif., workers not only get generous health benefits and six weeks of paid sabbatical every four years, they also have access to an on-site concierge service, which can do everything from catering parties to finding groomers for their pets. If an employee's child has a cold, the child can spend the day under a nurse's care at a special day-care center at the headquarters. And those are just the benefits workers get once they're on board.
Many companies offer major sign-on bonuses as well.
Stanford University graduates about 400 students with master's degrees in engineering and computer science each year, and almost all have jobs before they leave. It's a feeding frenzy for the top students. These days, in high-tech industries, there's no such thing as grinning and bearing it if you don't like your job. There's always another, better one around the corner. Shayne Bateman had half a dozen offers when he graduated last year with a bachelor's degree in computer science from Brigham Young University.