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Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

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Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#271

Post by runako »

anon7725 wrote: post #269
runako wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the number of hours you actually spend interacting with a candidate during the interview process. If it's 40(!), bring them in for a full week and decide at the end of Friday. If it's closer to 10, bring them in Monday morning and decide by close of business Tuesday. All the delays are materially the fault of glitches in the hiring organization.

This is a good process to ensure you don’t hire anyone who is currently employed. I would not sign up for this even if I was between jobs unless I was desperate. I don’t mind coding challenges, etc, but the first few weeks at any job is mostly scut work getting things set up, meeting people, etc.

I was sort of being facetious with the 40 hours thing. Nobody really gets 40 hours of interaction of a candidate before hiring. More typical is closer to 5-8, which means they can make a decision in a single day.

Edit: even an intense 6-interview loop including a "sell" dinner can be done in a day if scheduled properly. The multiple weeks thing is entirely poor scheduling on the part of the company.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#272

Post by xyzelement »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #253
xyzelement wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel for your friend but this sounds naive. Public job postings get hundreds or thousands of applications, most of which are terrible and need to be filtered out. Expecting an immediate response on one is not reasonable. If your friend is such an industry insider, it's surprising she didn't have a network that could short circuit this process for her. In general, my experience that if you are cold-applying for a jo…

Expecting a response to your job application in less than a month sounds naive?

Month does sound long to me, but "a few weeks" isn't crazy given the reality on the ground.

Note, I am not saying this is good or how it ought to be, I am just saying how it is.

Let me ask you - if you were the recruiter at Apple and let's say you owned 5 roles each of which got 2000 resumes (I am stabbing at a number but it's Apple, so likely tons of people jump on every role) - how long would it take you to get through it all?

Back of the envelope: 5 roles x 2k resumes = 10k resumes. If it took you just one minute to read a resume and you did nothing but read them every day for 10 hours that's like 17 working days = so 3+ weeks.

Keep in mind that this pile of resumes is your lowest likelihood of success pile - these are not the people you'd identified priori as targets, they weren't even internally referred, they are just mainly random people spamming you or are very weakly qualified. It "doesn't matter" if one of them is a diamond in the rough like the op was describing - it might take you weeks to get to their resume, and that's only if you don't fill the role w someone from the higher bandwidth channel.

So like I said, not "great" but - what would you do differently if you were HR here?

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#273

Post by SpeedilyDamage »

throwaway98797 wrote: post #241
SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but... what kind of victim blaming nonsense is this? Seeing a salary range intimidates people?! That's 100% worth the cost, friend. Knowing what you're applying for/to is absolutely critical information, and having it before applying is a substantial amount of leverage in any negotiation. That's like saying people shouldn't post where a job is because some people might not live there, or not to post C++ job…

i’ve had nearly 10+ jobs and i never knew the range also on higher levels comp comes from equity base pay of $100k is immaterial if RSU/equity is $500k i do believe it hurts the people in weaker positions vs helping cause high comp individuals know how to play the game anyways

There's just so much here in your small comment (you've burned through "nearly 10+ jobs" and you're giving advice to people?!) I can't really address this but to say you're completely wrong that it hurts people to know what they'd get paid for a job, and I think that's pretty obviously the case, as do most folks, including the good people of New York who passed a law requiring it.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#274

Post by gregjor »

pixl97 wrote: post #223
gregjor wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original post title: "Why are YC companies breaking hiring laws?" I read that as an accusation. OP did not name any specific companies supposedly breaking hiring laws. New York City started requiring salary ranges in job postings for most companies (not all) just a few weeks ago. I would interpret a few job postings that don't include salaries as oversights or perhaps companies exempt from the law (which has a fe…

Why are you so heavily invested in this accusation? HN is completely capable of responding to any accusations properly.

I have invested exactly as much in this thread as you and everyone else have.

I don't have any investment in the topic. I don't care if companies post salaries in their job postings. I just pointed out that the OP made a couple of accusations, including the implication that YC was allowing their companies to break the law in HN job postings. OP did not provide any examples.

> HN is completely capable of responding to any accusations properly.

Exactly, that was the point I made above. If OP thinks HN is complicit in something illegal, take it up with them. I didn't post unsourced accusations on HN. If I had an actual concern about YC allowing (OP's word) their companies to break the law I would contact YC about it privately.

If someone posts in a public forum that some (unnamed) companies have broken the law (without any supporting facts), and that YC maybe allowed that because of their financial interest, making them complicit, I think that person should expect pushback. Either back up the claim or back off.

My personal reasons for commenting make no difference. Questioning my motives or "investment" amount to ad hominem, and don't address the issues raised by the OP or subsequent comments.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#275

Post by zacharybk »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #202
zacharybk wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different companies clearly have different legal teams giving differing advice. I found this one fascinating: “If you are a Colorado or New York City resident and this role is a remote role, you can receive additional information about the compensation and benefits for this role, which we will provide upon request. Requests can be submitted here.“ link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScOlYgPtpG56uqO0O9j...…

It amounts to plausible deniability. "We do just enough so you are less likely to sue us."

Do they blame this one on the lowest level recruiting employee who “must have forgotten to do their job”? That’s as plausible as what SBF’s defense will be.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#276

Post by roflyear »

dang wrote: post #233
1attice wrote: post #227

Conflict-of-interest evident in the HN re-title-fication of this post. Recall that making something less salacious when you are the subject is quite different from toning down clickbait headlines when you're wearing your neutral-editorial hat. Original title was 'Why are some YC companies breaking the law?' And frankly, that's a great question. Admittedly not-so-great is the absence of any specific example on the OP,…

I changed the title as part of moderating this thread less than we normally would. We moderate HN threads less, not more, when YC or YC startups are part of the story—this has been established practice since the beginning: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... . The way we'd normally moderate a thread like this is by downweighting it as a generic riler-upper ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRan…

Bro, the post effected positive change (several updated job posts before regulatory bodies were involved), and could have been done with a lot less tact. For example, I could have screenshotted or even just mentioned offenders.

Maybe the tone wasn't perfect - but isn't it YOUR job to pay attention to what gets posted here? Were you not aware of the labor laws in these states? It isn't something that happened just a couple of times.

Get off your high horse, buddy. HN has gone down hill in the last 10yrs and part of that is because of these stupid policies and actions.

There's no transparency into what you do. Your words are just words.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#277

Post by busterarm »

asdajksah2123 wrote: post #104
busterarm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that's where culture is right now... Nowadays if you're in a professional organization, for example if you're a lawyer, people will make professional complaints against you for your first amendment speech, irrespective of your professional practice. Essentially filing fraudulent complaints to silence you. And they do so as an organized political activity. And sadly it's been hilariously effective so far.

There is no "first amendment speech" unless it's the government trying to suppress it.

first amendment-protected speech.

You don't give up your rights just because you practice a particular profession.

If you say something that some people don't like, the first step in response shouldn't be them coming after your livelihood.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#279

Post by ok_dad »

scrapcode wrote: post #6
altdataseller wrote: post #3

Contact the company, and tell them they need to publish their salary range. Or else you'll report them to the NYC Attorney General (or whoever is in charge of this thing). Maybe they're ignorant. Or they're hoping noone calls them out on this. Either way, make sure they know the consequences if they don't publish it

This will certainly move you to the top of the list for hiring consideration. /s

Yes, because everyone is absolutely jumping in their boots to work at a company where HR ignores the law, either through ignorance or malice the same.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#280

Post by ok_dad »

dang wrote: post #265
wyldfire wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Ask HN: Why are YC companies in NYC posting their salary range, as law requires?" Is that the right polarity? I think the question was/should be why "aren't" they posting it. Right? Or do I totally misunderstand?

Yikes, that was a typo. Sorry! Now I have to figure out how to squeeze 'not' in there without going over 80 chars. Edit: ok, fixed now.

> without going over 80 chars

The tyranny of the horse's ass, or rather the 60's terminal, strikes again.

(reference: the width of train tracks are rumored to be based on the width of a horse's ass, from ye olden days.)

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