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

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#171

Post by crdoconnor » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 7:15 PM UTC

eldavido wrote: post #132

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…

I agree with your explanation but I'd suggest a slightly different way of explaining it. Labor's price is set in a competitive factor market, just like land or capital. It gets bid up and down by supply and demand. Let's call this "the labor market force". How much value a person can provide in a given setting depends on a whole range of things including what the employer does (scaled product company vs. body shop),…

>The fact is, most companies who employ developer just don't need great devs. They need people who can develop websites of moderate complexity

They actually do they're just unable to recognize great devs, unable to recognize that they don't recognize them and refuse to pay for them.

But they certainly need them.

>Related, there is no "Developer shortage".

There's always a shortage of labor in every industry.

That's one of the iron rules of business lobbying - if you whinge about it enough the government will go and do something (training, bring in immigrants, teach code in school) that will let you pay employees less. => higher profit.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#172

Post by cheald » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 7:15 PM UTC

jazzyk wrote: post #156

cheald wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But they are exposed! In case of financial trouble (very common at startups), who gets to be laid off first, the CEO or the developer? Also, rank-and-file employees are typically scape-goated in legal proceedings, example: finance people going to jail for rogue/insider trading, even though upper management at least encouraged such behavior.

Every employment position comes with some degree of risk exposure. But, the risk of "I might lose my job" is quite a lot less scary than "I might lose all my invested capital and/or be stuck with crippling debts after the company crumbles". Early-stage startup employees are given greater compensation packages than later-stage employees specifically because of the greater risk of going to work for an early-stage startup.

This isn't a very difficult thought exercise - if you believe the risk profile is greater for employees than CEOs, then why not quit your job and become a CEO of your own company?

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#173

Post by clem » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 7:15 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #164

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…

This assumes the opportunity's to generate 1.5m in value are finite and all developers are equivalent. Both are rather sketchy assumptions. I might have a 1% chance of preforming an amputation successfully. But, the people with an 90% chancing of doing the same are worth vastly more. Out of 100 developers 10 might save you 1.5million and getting the correct 2 might save you 3 million.

But what the patient really needed was an appendectomy.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#174

Post by morgante » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 7:15 PM UTC

fecak wrote: post #136

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?

I wrote a post a few years ago about agents ( https://jobtipsforgeeks.com/2012/09/17/disrupt/ ) and actually had some people from HN approach me to see if I'd started that service. At the time I hadn't but I'm reconsidering this right now. I wrote the article in response to the incentives for recruiters being typically seen as driven by the client (hiring firm). The main issue is that recruiters are paid by hiring fi…

In my experience, the problem is that those most in need of such a service are those who are least likely to use it.

In my peer group, there are some developers who treat their employment like a business and negotiate aggressively. They read up on tactics and practice them. I'm not sure agents would actually be that helpful to such people.

Another whole group basically acts like they're paid "enough" and don't negotiate at all. They're unlikely to see the utility in professional negotiators since they're not even willing to read up on tactics themselves.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#175

Post by TrickedOut » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 7:16 PM UTC

dvt wrote: post #145

blahi wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will get affluent in 10-20 years. That's my point. You get rich slowly, not quickly. And wealth is not defined by how much money you make, but by how much money you have.

You will probably not become a millionaire unless you have no family, you never get laid off/let go, and your salary scales with inflation. There are other considerations as well, including cost of living (most high salary jobs are in high-cost areas), liabilities (debt), and so forth. If you want to get rich (again, 7-figure range), this just doesn't seem like a good bet to make. My personal slant on things is that…

Well said. Also, when most of us are 60 (20yrs? 30yrs?) a million wont be worth that much.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#176

Post by GlennCSmith » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 7:16 PM UTC

devishard wrote: post #150

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…

I don't think the poster of your parent comment would disagree with your explanation of the how things are; they're only saying that's not how it should be. If we lived in a just meritocracy, people who created millions of dollars in value with their code would be compensated with millions of dollars, but this is rarely, if ever, the case. It's this fact which makes libertarian arguments about the unfairness of tax a…

The are great advantages to individuals and society to paying less than the value of goods and services. If my daughter is ill, and a simple shot of antibiotics will cure her, should I pay $20 for that, or should I pay what saving her life is actually worth to me? I've enjoyed ever faster internet connection speed at my home (coming in two weeks -- gigabit!) I assure you I'm not paying the full value of what that speed is worth to me. The same for food, clothes, transportation, everything. If I really did have to pay the full value to me for each of those I would, by definition, be indifferent to buying any of them.

Market economics has some serious downsides, but it has vastly increased the welfare of humanity. More people have been coming out of poverty in China in the past few decades that ever before in human history.

If you feel it is unfair that as a developer you can create millions of dollars in value that you aren't being compensated for, then I recommend you consider ways that you could be compensated for this value. Perhaps instead of being an employee, maybe get involved in a start-up with equity (or found a company.) Having done so, I can assure you it's more nerve wracking than ever I would have expected, and harder to unleash the millions in value than one might expect, but it's still fun, challenging, rewarding, and worth giving a go! :-)

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#177

Post by morgante » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 7:16 PM UTC

ap22213 wrote: post #161

morgante wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoy my work. If I go more than a week or two without doing some paid programming, I start to feel listless. I'm lucky enough to get paid well as a freelancer, so I can work as much as I want from wherever I want. Even if I could retire tomorrow, I would still continue to do similar work to what I'm doing now.

Ok, got it - it's probably semantics then. When I say 'work', I mean doing something other than what you enjoy. If you love it, it's not work, in common vernacular.

If I'm getting paid to do it, I consider it work.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#178

Post by johnrob » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 7:17 PM UTC

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"

If you're currently paid well (relative to other companies), it's good idea to disclose your salary.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#179

Post by balls187 » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 7:18 PM UTC

jazzyk wrote: post #156

cheald wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But they are exposed! In case of financial trouble (very common at startups), who gets to be laid off first, the CEO or the developer? Also, rank-and-file employees are typically scape-goated in legal proceedings, example: finance people going to jail for rogue/insider trading, even though upper management at least encouraged such behavior.

Between those two choices, the developer.

However, there are many staff that are let go prior to cutting engineers out right.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#180

Post by kevinskii » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 7:18 PM UTC

morgante wrote: post #149

dvt wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, no. This adage is very very true. Sure, you can get a comfortable six figure salary, but that is by no stretch of the imagination "affluent". I'm defining rich as making 7 figures a year. I think that's a pretty fair assessment. You'll never get that working for someone else (especially as an engineer), barring extenuating circumstances. High equity employee #1 or co-founder is the way to go. High risk, high rewa…

A 7 figure annual income is setting the affluent definition very high. You can work at Google for a decade and end up a multi-millionaire, with enough money to retire to most places in the US. From your other comment, it seems like you haven't done the analysis on this. Top companies are routinely paying $200k-300k these days. That's enough to save a million dollars over a decade even if you have a family.

In support of your argument, I would be surprised if the key engineers in large companies (ex: Jeff Dean, Peter Norvig, Yann LeCun, Andrew Ng, ...) aren't earning 7 figure annual incomes, especially after stock incentives are taken into consideration. They all work for someone else.