Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay • Hacker News Board

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#31

Post by justinlardinois » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 6:17 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #19

siculars wrote: post #12

This. Negotiating a compensation package, in general, is asymmetric information warfare. Having to reveal your salary history you may as well not even negotiate. I know so many women who are constantly bit by this and negotiating in general. Here's an idea: compensation agents who negotiate the compensation package on your behalf. Athletes and actors have them, why not everyone else?

Isn't that basically what a recruiter does? Every time I've dealt with a recruiter, they've done the salary haggling for me. EDIT: I should point out that that's what they do in regards to full-time W2 work, not contract.

I'm assuming you're talking about third party recruiters, not recruiters that are employees of the company you're negotiating with. Yes, they do commonly do that, but they're only going to be involved if they've been involved since the beginning of the application process.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#32

Post by gohrt » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 6:17 PM UTC

patrickmay wrote: post #25

siculars wrote: post #12

This. Negotiating a compensation package, in general, is asymmetric information warfare. Having to reveal your salary history you may as well not even negotiate. I know so many women who are constantly bit by this and negotiating in general. Here's an idea: compensation agents who negotiate the compensation package on your behalf. Athletes and actors have them, why not everyone else?

> Athletes and actors have them, why not everyone else? It's a simple matter of supply and demand: https://medium.freecodecamp.com/why-talent-agents-for-engine...

That article is about a different topic that uses similar words.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#33

Post by dudul » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 6:19 PM UTC

duaneb wrote: post #28

markonthewall wrote: post #11

I love the US and California, the tech scene is amazing and I was lucky to met such talented and friendly people in about every place I worked... from very large tech cos to "garage" startups. Which is why it pains me to see that so many engineers get stuck with such ridiculous salaries (relative to the value and wealth they provide and create). Problem is that some salaries are seemingly high compared to what the av…

Developers are just another means—we're not wizards. We are a commodity, and if you don't recognize that you're in for a hard midlife crisis. Do you really expect to make any money without taking the risk of deciding what to build? How it's constructed is a (admittedly time-consuming and distracting) detail—only a small aspect of the company's value. Risk and comfort are tradeoffs. If you want to live without risk, y…

But a good engineer will have a say in what to build, not only how to build it. Otherwise all dev work could just be outsourced. IMO, the role of a good engineer is to deeply understand the business/domain to provide good insight in regards to what to build.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#34

Post by news_to_me » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 6:19 PM UTC

How weird, I just read a really interesting article about pay disclosure, esp. regarding women's pay: http://www.wired.com/2015/05/im-terrified-tell-people-much-m...

I'm a big advocate for salary transparency, but I share that author's struggle - what's the best way to ethically disclose my salary to my coworkers, or publicly?

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#35

Post by llamataboot » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 6:19 PM UTC

markonthewall wrote: post #11

I love the US and California, the tech scene is amazing and I was lucky to met such talented and friendly people in about every place I worked... from very large tech cos to "garage" startups. Which is why it pains me to see that so many engineers get stuck with such ridiculous salaries (relative to the value and wealth they provide and create). Problem is that some salaries are seemingly high compared to what the av…

I hardly think underpaid engineers are the main problem with our economy. We could start by looking at, oh I dunno, teachers?

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#36

Post by IanDrake » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 6:19 PM UTC

siculars wrote: post #12

This. Negotiating a compensation package, in general, is asymmetric information warfare. Having to reveal your salary history you may as well not even negotiate. I know so many women who are constantly bit by this and negotiating in general. Here's an idea: compensation agents who negotiate the compensation package on your behalf. Athletes and actors have them, why not everyone else?

>Having to reveal your salary history you may as well not even negotiate.

Having to? It's not a requirement. I used to get asked this all the time. They want to know how much I made last gig? I tell them the rate I want, not the rate I got.

That's right, if they ask me a question they have no business asking and can never confirm, I reserve the right to tell them what I want them to believe.

I also think it's sexist to frame this as equal pay for women. That implies that women are predisposed to be bad negotiators.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#37

Post by justinlardinois » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 6:20 PM UTC

siculars wrote: post #12

This. Negotiating a compensation package, in general, is asymmetric information warfare. Having to reveal your salary history you may as well not even negotiate. I know so many women who are constantly bit by this and negotiating in general. Here's an idea: compensation agents who negotiate the compensation package on your behalf. Athletes and actors have them, why not everyone else?

> Here's an idea: compensation agents who negotiate the compensation package on your behalf. Athletes and actors have them, why not everyone else?

Because in your typical job you're trying to negotiate over a few thousand dollars in your annual salary. If you actually paid an agent enough for it to be worth it to them, you may as well have not negotiated at all because the money they won for you is just going in their pocket.

Athletes and actors are haggling over several millions of dollars. They've got plenty of fuck you money in there to pay an agent.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#38

Post by Spivak » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 6:20 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #5

dudul wrote: post #2

Excellent measure. I remember interviewing at a very large corpo (think one of the main phone carriers), their application process online required applicants to reveal their salaries for the past 10 years. And before making an offer, they were asking for a W2 to make sure you were currently making what you claimed. Needless to say, I laughed at their face and walked. I assume this law won't apply to questions like "h…

There is a lot of salary data available for people through services offered by the credit bureaus. If they want to find out, they will.

Well duh, this law isn't trying to keep companies from knowing what the salary range for an industry is, they're trying to keep companies from taking advantage of (usually young) professionals who don't have the power to negotiate fair compensation.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#39

Post by qaid » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 6:20 PM UTC

I got bit by this at my current job. I didn't remember telling them my salary at my previous company (usually I decline to answer), but my manager brought it up when I was trying to negotiate an extra 5k.

It's unfortunate that I must've told them my base salary when applying online and that I didn't do a proper negotiation afterwards. My new company doesn't give out stocks of any kind, so overall I'm making less.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#40

Post by zenlikethat » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 6:21 PM UTC

markonthewall wrote: post #11

I love the US and California, the tech scene is amazing and I was lucky to met such talented and friendly people in about every place I worked... from very large tech cos to "garage" startups. Which is why it pains me to see that so many engineers get stuck with such ridiculous salaries (relative to the value and wealth they provide and create). Problem is that some salaries are seemingly high compared to what the av…

In order for this to happen programmers have to:

(1) Stop shaming each other for being "greedy" when they actually ask for what they merit. I can't tell you how many times on HN and elsewhere I've run into extremely defeatist attitude about this implying that we should be happy just to have jobs in the field. As long as these folks are around shaming fellow engineers for asking for more money they will drag everyone else down and other folks will laugh their way to the bank at engineers' expense. It needs to end.

Edit: See other replies to this post for great examples of this. Just because you get paid more than a lot of other folks, does that mean you're getting paid commensurate to the value you actually create?

(2) To justify these asks programmers must shift from doing things like chasing the latest JavaScript trend to focusing on delivering business value first and foremost. Every programmer hire is a gamble that might pay off big time or might end your business with crushing technical debt and poor decisions. Until programmers as a whole demand that each other focus on delivering business value first and foremost the shiny new tech chasers will, just like the shamers above, drag the salaries available for everyone down due to their own poor decision making.