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Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

nytimes.com

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Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#41

Post by paulddraper »

euphoria83 wrote: post #29

This is so needed in California. My past personal experience and my friends' experience in the Bay Area shows how hard the recruiters can push for the current salary. What they are saying is that we will give you a 10% raise from your current salary, but not what you and we can agree on is your market price. This is so against letting the markets figure it out.

This is precisely letting the markets figuring it out.

Those who offer at most 10% increase when a person's value is 50% higher will find themselves missing the good employees and ultimately, failing.

---

An example:

How much do I offer for this house? I have have no friggin' clue. But I can look at previous sale prices to get an rough idea. Naturally, I if trust my decision to that 100%, I'll risk making a poor decision. But the previous sales are a piece of information about the market that I ought not ignore.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#42

Post by blahi »

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…

Sorry, but this is straight up proletariat bull. You get hired, you get paid. If it doesn't pan out, you go somewhere else. You have 0 risk and a guaranteed career. And sorry, but 100k for a javascript "engineer" is more than the "fair share" in my opinion, but it's a market, so it is what it is.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#43

Post by samsonradu »

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…

> engineers need their fair share. They are the one creating things, they are the one on the front line and we should not get satiated by the crumbles we are left with.

This, 10x and especially for programmers coming for 2nd/3rd world countries, whom are even more unaware of the value they're creating and settle with way less. Obviously, it's easy to say this and it often doesn't help you get your foot in the door when you ask for 3x the average dev salary around you at an interview. Key is to keep re-negotiating after you've proven your value, then iterate until you get the slice you deserve. For a company it's really painful to lose an employee who is already performing well, they'll likely give up on the margin to keep you on.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#44

Post by bargl »

I hate this question. I frequently dodge or outright deny answering it. I won't lie about it, I just say, no you don't get that information.

To dodge this question I say the following: "I'm looking for compensation in the range of xxxx to XXXX. This obviously depends on the benefits packages, for an awesome benefits package you may be closer to xxxx, if your benefits are bad then you'll need to be closer to XXXX."

If they persist I follow up with, "I gave you my range if that isn't enough for you then I'm sorry but I'll have to pass, I don't disclose my current salary to any recruiters."

This has worked really well for me in the past.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#45

Post by mhurron »

marme wrote: post #6

this wont really help much because they will still ask how much do you expect to make and people who have low salaries currently will say a low number that is just slightly higher than their current salary. They need to make it illegal to ask any salary questions prior to the company making an initial offer. I cant even understand why they would not just make it mandatory to reveal the salary range of the position at…

> this wont really help much because they will still ask how much do you expect to make and people who have low salaries currently will say a low number

Yes the person still needs to do their research to figure out what the job should actually pay.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#46

Post by crdoconnor »

ajeet_dhaliwal wrote: post #23

This is desperately needed in the UK, the recruiters (external) here won't even let you proceed if you don't reveal it.

This wasn't my experience. Only a few recruiters asked and when told "no" they didn't ask why or ask again.

Generally you don't want to work for the companies that demand it either.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#47

Post by duaneb »

dudul wrote: post #33
duaneb wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Otherwise all dev work could just be outsourced.

The value of American engineers is their ability to a) speak english well, b) show up at the office, and c) swallow large amounts of debt for college to ease hiring. So I'm not sure how outsourcing plays into this at all.

I have never before heard of someone expressing a desire to hire a product manager/marketer/sales/brand strategist/designer because they're a good engineer. It actually shocked me you would consider skills involved related at all. I would not expect this from an engineer, and it would make hiring one immensely difficult. That's more the type of skill that leads to starting your own company.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#48

Post by mparr4 »

dudul wrote: post #8
fdsaaf wrote: post #3

LOL. Massachusetts lawmakers passed this stupid, empty gesture but didn't ban noncompetes. Enjoy your technology non-industry, Massachusetts.

You got downvoted probably mostly for the form of your comment, but you're not wrong IMO. I wish MA would look into banning over-the-top non competes, and revisit the default IP regulation.

> I wish MA would look into banning over-the-top non competes

They did look into it. The legislature adjourned before the house and senate versions were reconciled.

http://www.massachusettsnoncompetelaw.com/2016/08/ma-legisla...

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#49

Post by bargl »

inlined wrote: post #10

Candidates "may" offer this information upfront? I feel like I'm watching Office Space "Am I supposed to tell you my salary before even hearing your initial offer?" "Some employees choose to offer salary information, and we encourage that"

Sometimes telling an employer your current salary is a hammer. If they are way off you can do this to get more money, but I don't tend to disclose either way.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#50

Post by cheriot »

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.

Be careful about that. The recruiter's incentive is stronger to get more people into jobs that to get one person a little bit more money. It's much like the situation with real estate agents that freakonomics covered in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jO_w6f8Ck
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