The main thing that I liked about using Hired.com during a previous job search was that they made the salary offers very transparent during the bidding phase and it completely avoided sticking me, the candidate, with the salary question. By the time I started interviewing at companies their initial salary offer was more than what I would have been able to negotiate myself, mostly because I didn't even know to ask for that much.
Salary Negotiation
71–80 of 419 posts
Re: Salary Negotiation
#72My observation is that salary negotiation has little to do with negotiation. The management side of the table is never thinking in terms of economics and has no idea what their BATNA is. I think this comes from HR and leadership which can't quantify what the right balance is for comp vs their BATNA. For engineers this is especially challenging because metrics are hard to come by and correlate with the $$$ going out t…
I've been working for over a decade. There is ONE and ONLY ONE rule i've seen universally followed by HR -- your pay rises with the # of people reporting to you. Regardless of whatever managers say about running a lean shop or budget or whatever -- the more people you hire and manager, the more money you make. If you can do the work in six months, tell them 18 and hire two others. If you can do the work with 4 FTEs, tell them 12 FTEs and get a nice promotion. Increase employment, get great documentation and unit tests, and play to the foolish HR policies HR has cooked up. When people get paid for productivity, then switch to lean. Until then, play to the metric they set.
Re: Salary Negotiation
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Instead, we run a pay evaluation process internally, including feedback about the value of the role and the person from all the people who interviewed the candidate. We publish all that feedback, as well as the suggestion/reasoning of our pay trustees (a group of people who use that feedback to try to place the candidate on our pay scale) None of those factors are why someone is worth $X salary. You say I'm worth $X.…
No one is worth any intrinsic amount. The amount is relative to the work they do, the industry they're in, the state of the economy, how many other people can do that job, how many have actually applied, etc. Any salary formula is entirely arbitrary. We have a pay scale simply because it is a useful tool for conversation, not because it represents any sort of intrinsic property of the person being placed on the pay s…
>we have no interest in trying to sucker someone into working with us if money is their primary motivation.
If money is not your primary motivator, why can't you pay more?
Re: Salary Negotiation
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see why paying people less would lead to an improvement in love, family, being a good person, respect, transparency, etc -- unless you're saying that due to pay difference vs market, you'll also expect less work out of them. And money is rarely the actual motivator. Often times, money is the mediator to the things that really motivate people, such as purchasing daycare and enrichment activities, splurging on…
> I don't see why paying people less would lead to an improvement in love, family, being a good person, respect, transparency, etc -- unless you're saying that due to pay difference vs market, you'll also expect less work out of them. There's definitely no necessary causal link here. We aim to pay enough that they won't leave because it's too little but not so much that they will stay just because of the salary is to…
I can't find the study, but a South American government(I forgot which country) had the same fears. They wanted better employees and they were afraid if they paid them too much they would get people primarily interested in the money and not the job. But they decided to try it anyway, and lo and behold they were surprised to find the higher played employees were not only better employees but also more motivated intrinsically by the job. I would be curious to find any evidence to the contrary.
I try to be very suspicious when my views about how the world works line up with some way that I'm benefited monetarily. For instance it's very hard for me to have a clear and accurate opinion of oursourcing and h1-b's.
Re: Salary Negotiation
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I assume everyone starting or working for a for-profit business is primarily (though not solely ) motivated to make money for themselves. Otherwise, they wouldn't be starting or working at a for-profit business.
That assumption doesn't bear out in practice, in my experience. There are plenty of people who believe that for-profit businesses can also achieve great, positive purposes in the world, and want to be a part of it. Cases in point: Tesla and SpaceX. They aren't charities. They are very purposeful.
Tesla and SpaceX are both massive exceptions to the rule, not examples of the norm.
You are not Tesla or SpaceX.
Re: Salary Negotiation
#76Whenever I am negotiating a salary, even if I have to reveal what I make now, I will end that statement with "But based on my experience and value that I bring to the table, I am expecting at least xyz for my new role otherwise it is not worth it for me to quit my current job".
This way, you make the whole "current salary" irrelevant. The point is that any good employer will NEVER let go of a candidate who is an excellent fit for their role but they had a huge gap in current vs desired. They only let go of candidates who either are not a good fit OR are asking for a very very high number that is literally out of the budget assigned (more applicable to larger corps.). But then again, it has nothing to do with current salary crap.
Re: Salary Negotiation
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've struggled with this a lot. I used to believe in making it a negotiation. The more I've seen, I've switched to paying for the position. Unless hard negotiation is part of the job description, it shouldn't be rewarded. I've also found that rewarding hard negotiators pushes companies down the path of paying men more than women for the same job. If you can't stay in business without underpaying a lot of people, your…
Without salary negotiation, the company gets to choose the price. Unfortunately, Silicon Valley has shown that it is willing to collude to keep that price down. Therefore, when companies argue that they're banning salary negotiation to "promote equality", you should assume that this equality is merely a gimmick to hide the true purpose: lower wages. If there really is a difference in negotiating ability between women…
I don't think "teaching women to negotiate" is practical. Is Google or Facebook supposed to send candidates to negotiation classes before offer negotiation time? Is there evidence that a training class can overcome whatever combination of nature and nurture causes the discrepancy?
Let the market drive the compensation level. If "the compensation for the position - take it or leave it" is too low, then the company won't be able to hire anyone, and they will have to alter it over time.
If it's "take it or leave it" from the employee, you wind up underpaying people with humility, and overpay people who are overconfident.
Note: I'm not at one of the large companies that have been in these lawsuits, and lost an internal fight to move to the "one price" policy that I'm advocating for. I'm doing my best to implement it in my part of the organization, and even there it doesn't always work.
Re: Salary Negotiation
#78Hi everyone! That's me you hear talking to Patrick ;) If you have any questions about the episode or salary negotiation in general, ask away! As you can probably tell, I love talking about this stuff!
Most discussions about salary negotiation are about postponing the money discussion until we know there's a fit. But what do you do when you-as-applicant need to be sure you're not wasting your time (or theirs)? That is: I'm really senior in my field, with 25 years of experience, and for several years I've been commanding top dollar. (I'm worth it, too!) But often I start discussions with would-be employers (or clien…
I just come right out and basically say the latter to inquiries and it's fairly prominent on my resume as well.
I enjoy both what I do and the company I'm at, which puts a clear floor on what I'll entertain. If I can't get confidence early in the process, it leads to a lot of wasted time. In practical terms, that means I invest less than an hour before figuring that out. ("I'm pretty happy here and my current comp starts with an X" often cuts the conversation off right then, which is ultimately best for both sides. It's just business.)
I won't say that I'd never consider a pay cut to change roles, but I work for money, for me and my family, and I'm going to try to maximize my and my family's happiness (financial security included).
Re: Salary Negotiation
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Instead, we run a pay evaluation process internally, including feedback about the value of the role and the person from all the people who interviewed the candidate. We publish all that feedback, as well as the suggestion/reasoning of our pay trustees (a group of people who use that feedback to try to place the candidate on our pay scale) None of those factors are why someone is worth $X salary. You say I'm worth $X.…
No one is worth any intrinsic amount. The amount is relative to the work they do, the industry they're in, the state of the economy, how many other people can do that job, how many have actually applied, etc. Any salary formula is entirely arbitrary. We have a pay scale simply because it is a useful tool for conversation, not because it represents any sort of intrinsic property of the person being placed on the pay s…
Money is the primary motivation to work. Would you be upset at an employee for working on their own project or for a different company during business hours? If you would not allow this then money is your primary motivation. You are giving money to the employee for ONE reason, you are buying their time to produce something of value for your company. Saying you aren't interested in people who are primarily motivated by money in a job comes across as disrespectful of the time of the employee.
Re: Salary Negotiation
#80I've had multiple situations where I did answer (honestly, too - before I knew any better) the "dreaded" question up front and had the recruiter tell me: "Wow. You must work for a really great company! We can't even come close to matching that." Process ended right there, countless time saved. So, as with all things, YMMV.
Same here. As soon as I say what I make recruiters usually congratulate me on making what I make and won't call me back. So recruiters are only good for run of the mill, entry level folks, not really for highly skilled or specialized developers.
Yes, they're frequently just looking for butts to put in chairs. Getting the numbers out of the way first helps to avoid wastes of time. But the other side is true also for more junior or underpaid developers. They need to use tactics like these to get themselves to the right side of the bell curve. Once you've developed the experience and skills and had the good luck necessary to move you into the upper range of compensation, it helps to tell them right away to avoid wasting time with employers who aren't interested in paying up for senior talent. Again, though, if you know the potential employer has paid rates / compensation in the range you are looking for in the past, it is also safe to delay because you may get a better offer even coming from an already high compensation.