Salary Negotiation • Hacker News Board

Re: Salary Negotiation

#81

Post by basseq » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 5:19 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #39

threatofrain wrote: post #21

Earlier 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…

> You say I'm worth $X. I go get a job offer for $Y. If $Y > $X, you were mistaken.

Here's the disconnect. In this scenario, I'm not saying, "you're worth X". I'm saying, "I'm willing to pay someone $x to do this job." If someone else is willing to pay you more for the same job (all else being equal), I'd advise you to take the other job.

If I can't find anyone qualified to take the job for $x within a reasonable period of time, then I'm below market and should adjust.

The beauty of that analysis is that it ties to current employee compensation as well. If my offers are below-market, then I have a much larger people problem: either my current team members are below market skills (bad) or are at risk of being poached (also bad).

As a candidate, I might look at that and value the culture it represents: transparency, fairness, likely diversity, people-centric...

The "we like people who care about more than money" (the passion gambit) can be a a giant warning sign. And is at the root of the "why would I accept less money from you than my market rate, so that you, the founder, can make more money" concern.

But it assumes that the owner, is in fact, making more profit "off your back". This might be false. The owner might instead care about investing back into people and the working environment: an indirect "perk", if you will.

Everything's a trade-off. No one is forcing you, as a candidate, to act against your best interests. There are just different kinds of interests.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#82

Post by android521 » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #31

android521 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, if you can't afford a great employee, that's fine. But don't try to belittle someone because of your company's incompetence to pay. And don't stand on a morale high ground. It is disgusting.

> To answer a likely reflex-response to this: that doesn't mean we think people should be working for free, or that we judge people who want to earn more money. It's totally fine to want to make more money. Different people have different expectations and requirements at different stages of their life though. No belittling intended.

Sounds reasonable.Was this added after I replied?

Re: Salary Negotiation

#83

Post by jknz » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 5:22 PM UTC

pillowkusis wrote: post #67

jknz wrote: post #48

What follows is an honest salary determination process, where no party has incentive to lie. It is also very fast. The rules are as follows. (Can't remember where I read about this.) The company and the candidate write on a piece of paper a salary. The company should write the number above which it is not willing to pay the candidate. The candidate writes the number under which she/he is not willing to work for that…

you still have a strong incentive to lie, do you not? Since the final salary is the average of the two numbers, employers want to go as low as they can and prospects want to go as high as they can. in fact, this system punishes honesty even more than the current one -- if I am honest and the other person is dishonest, the dishonest person wins because they will pull the average in the direction they want and I get a…

Say the candidate is honest, wants 120k and writes down 120k.

Say the company honestly wants candidate ufo 130k or less. Company plays is dishonest card and writes down 110k. Then the candidate leaves and there is no hire. If company had been honest she would have hired a fitting candidate for 125k, less than the most that company was willing to offer (130k).

Re: Salary Negotiation

#84

Post by xviia » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

mathattack wrote: post #77

xviia wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Of course Google and Facebook are not going to send candidates to negotiation classes; they would stand to lose from such an arrangement.

Rather, there are many ways to approach this:

1. Salary negotiation could be included within curriculum at CS schools. (Schools would love if alumni made more money!)

2. Techniques could be included in books (like "Soft Skills"), podcasts, etc.

3. The culture in Silicon Valley could emphasize the importance of negotiating a fair wage.

Left to their own devices, companies WILL exploit those who believe that negotiation is "bad". Companies might not even do so intentionally, but might do so merely by hiring the cheapest employees who have the highest skills.

A side effect is that even if only 75% of employees negotiate to higher wages, the "market rate salary" for employees will increase. If, instead, 75% of employees did NOT negotiate, you'd see a depression in wages.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#85

Post by medmunds » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

TrickzOnU wrote: post #59

swombat wrote: post #5

We're really trying to nail a good way to deal with salary negotiations when onboarding people, at GrantTree - one that gets out of this "gotcha" approach to salary. So far the best we've figured out is to be the first ones to name a number, and be super-transparent about how we arrived at that number. The reasoning is that "in a salary negotiation the first person to quote a number loses", so since we (as the employ…

""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)"" Problem with this approach is that inevitably part of the formula is also "…

> if you tell people that the only way they can make more money is by being manager or senior managing level...

This is actually a separate issue. A healthy engineering organization needs to have parallel technical and management tracks, with similar growth opportunities (both compensation and responsibility) at every level. On the tech track, think about a path that leads to CTO.

Of course, you'll still get people (in either track) arguing they want a higher level than they merit.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#86

Post by ohjeez » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 5:24 PM UTC

abledon wrote: post #49

ohjeez wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Have you thought about lowering the hours worked per week? For instance, if they aren't willing to pay you a 40hr/week salary, would they be alright paying you less but you only work 25hr/week (putting in enough productivity in those hours to warrant paying such a high price for your services)

I've done that. In fact, the last client I got responded to my rate by saying, "We can't afford that." So I said, "I can't lower my rate, but we can see what I can accomplish with 50% of the hours." And I got the gig. We're now towards the end of that contract, and now both of us are in a better position to know what/whether I can deliver what I promise.

Still you have to know what you're going into. If I'm looking for a 40/hr week gig (consulting or staff), I'm going to be less thrilled with 20 hours a week.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#87

Post by ohjeez » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 5:24 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #78

ohjeez wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 st…

> I just come right out and basically say the latter to inquiries and it's fairly prominent on my resume as well.

How do you word it on your resume? (I'd like to steal the verbiage. )

Re: Salary Negotiation

#88

Post by kaybe » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 5:24 PM UTC

mathattack wrote: post #77

xviia wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Is there evidence that a training class can overcome whatever combination of nature and nurture causes the discrepancy?

There is also the issue that the same behaviour is seen differently when coming from men and women. What is assertive in a man can be aggressive and offputting in a woman. Which means you'd have to have different kinds of courses for different genders, and it only starts there (more minority groups with less studies of what happens when they act the same as a white male). So, there is even more of a hurdle for potential training classes to overcome.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#89

Post by TrickzOnU » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

runT1ME wrote: post #73

swombat wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Nice! This comment is spot on!

Re: Salary Negotiation

#90

Post by tyre » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

Two things we have done to fix the waste of time, human energy, and shenanigans around salaries:

1) Post salaries with job descriptions. (e.g. seneca.systems/careers/growth/go-to-market-strategist-product-marketer)

2) Pin salaries to job position[1]. We do not allow individuals to negotiate their salary separately from their position. If you have the same position, you make the same salary.

[1]: https://github.com/SenecaSystems/employee_handbook/blob/mast...