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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

#101

Post by markonthewall »

revelation wrote: post #82
slg wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a developer, so I am all for higher developer salaries, but your posts shows a common misunderstanding about economics. The value someone creates has nothing to do with their salary. Their salary is dictated by how many people need to hire developers and how many developers exist to fill those jobs or in simple terms, supply and demand. I might create millions of dollars in value with my code, but there might be…

Assuming perfect information , yes, "supply and demand". Since you are so eager to offhand dismiss people, you can now research that one condition you conveniently left out.

I tend to ignore any comment that starts with "you misunderstand basic economics". That's not so much the arrogant tone but rather the crass dogmatism that pervade those comments.

Change the set of axioms and the initial parameters and you end-up with invalid definition and properties of market dynamics. I guess OP probably believes that markets reach equilibrium by themselves.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#102

Post by ktRolster »

refurb wrote: post #73
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…

A job's salary might be capped by the value created, but it's supply and demand that determine wages, not value created. If you're creating $1M in value, but there are only 100 jobs and 1000 people applying for them, you'll never capture the $1M.

If the supply/demand curve pushes the salary above the value created, then the job will disappear and that value will never be created. That is how resources get allocated to the most valuable projects.

(Value of course is subjective, but here it refers to things that can be measured in dollar amounts).

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#103

Post by vivekpreddy »

paulddraper wrote: post #41
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 deci…

Exactly. Good companies understand the value of great employees and I've found these tactics are for companies that penny-pinch and can't/won't budge. No better way to lose out on great talent that to only offer 10% more when other companies realize the value they're getting and offer significantly more.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#104

Post by cheald »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #92
cheald wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nail on the head right here. The price of an employee isn't their MPL, it's no greater than their MPL and is set by how little the next guy is willing to take to do the job. Competitive pressures work to drive down labor prices, too! Nobody is stopping engineers from saying "I'm going to contribute $1.5m to your bottom line this next year, I want you to pay me $1.4m", but they'll be shown the door because there's a g…

> Nobody is stopping engineers from saying "I'm going to contribute $1.5m to your bottom line this next year, I want you to pay me $1.4m", but they'll be shown the door because there's a guy that's willing to contribute the same $1.5m in exchange for $100k in compensation. Which is why you should be an owner/competitor versus an employee if you know the business well enough.

Assuming that you can tolerate the commensurate risk, absolutely. Many people forget that the rank-and-file employee isn't exposed to the financial and legal risk that their employers were/are.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#105

Post by cloudjacker »

slg wrote: post #58
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 am a developer, so I am all for higher developer salaries, but your posts shows a common misunderstanding about economics. The value someone creates has nothing to do with their salary. Their salary is dictated by how many people need to hire developers and how many developers exist to fill those jobs or in simple terms, supply and demand. I might create millions of dollars in value with my code, but there might be…

I disagree, there was a time when the finance community similarly valued themselves with the broader market until some people realized the numeric dollar value they could create. And the rest is history. Its time for software engineers to collectively realize their expanding relevance to value creation in actual numeric value.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#106

Post by pg_is_a_butt »

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…

since when are engineers on the front line? salesmen are on the front lines. corporate attorneys are on the front line. engineers hide in their fortified bunkers producing shit, so they can justify their existence next week by fixing all that shit... all while they create more shit.

you want to talk percentages? how about the engineers take on 100% of the liability, as they are the ones creating liability.

you're all idiots.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#107

Post by wavefunction »

Cherian_Abraham wrote: post #56
wavefunction wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There isn't a service offered by a credit bureau that I know, which allows an employer or a lender to find out about a prospect's salary. Salary info is used for credit risk strategies, and only where applicable or allowed.

I just posted one offered by Experian in a reply to one of your sibling comments.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#108

Post by geggam »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #92
cheald wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nail on the head right here. The price of an employee isn't their MPL, it's no greater than their MPL and is set by how little the next guy is willing to take to do the job. Competitive pressures work to drive down labor prices, too! Nobody is stopping engineers from saying "I'm going to contribute $1.5m to your bottom line this next year, I want you to pay me $1.4m", but they'll be shown the door because there's a g…

> Nobody is stopping engineers from saying "I'm going to contribute $1.5m to your bottom line this next year, I want you to pay me $1.4m", but they'll be shown the door because there's a guy that's willing to contribute the same $1.5m in exchange for $100k in compensation. Which is why you should be an owner/competitor versus an employee if you know the business well enough.

The assumption there would be risk is silly. Business structures isolate risk and eliminate that as a problem.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#109

Post by adamio »

qaid wrote: post #39

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.

I've run into quite a few applications that won't let you continue past the salary history without entering something. Its definitely a dark pattern for job applications

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#110

Post by cloverich »

duaneb wrote: post #47
dudul wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

Hmm, I'd heard that hiring product managers that were excellent engineers is very common in the Valley. Not as an exception, but as a "preferred" qualification.

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