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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

#321

Post by rogerdpack »

IanDrake wrote: post #36
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…

I've heard similar advice, but instead of just making it up say "my current salary is confidential" (then, if press, "I hope to make XX at my next gig" or what not).

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#322

Post by AJ007 »

matthewowen wrote: post #237
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…

Your answer also shows a common misunderstanding about economics, because it takes too narrow a focus. If there exist jobs that produce $1MM in value but that have a going rate of 200k, then there should be more of those jobs: either the company doing the work should expand, or it should have competitors. This will lead to increased competition to hire, which means higher wages. The increased number of jobs might gen…

Does this mean if a company loses money the employees should contribute to the funding of the company rather than take a salary?

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#323

Post by rozap »

zenlikethat wrote: post #40
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…

These things aren't mutually exclusive. If it takes 10 devs 3 months to ship a Java EE app that requires 2 full time SREs to keep running, vs. 2 devs, 3 months and a part time SRE to ship something built with ShinyNewTech, then you better believe that's delivering business value.

ShinyNewTech bites people when they aren't intentional about introducing it and haven't done an accurate cost/benefit analysis. If you've done that analysis, and it really is a big difference in cost to market & cost of operation, then you're leaving money on the table by not taking that route. This happens all the time.

The cost of rejecting new stuff because the status quo seems to be working well enough is massive, especially because the status quo at most software shops is room-on-fire-this-is-fine.jpg

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#324

Post by rogerdpack »

JamesBarney wrote: post #272
Anasufovic wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First person to talk numbers generally has the weak hand in the negotiation.

Most negotiation experts disagree with this advice. The first person who gives a number anchors the conversation to that number. When you name a number you certainly do set a max on negotiation, but you also get to set the starting number. And many negotiation experts think the latter is more valuable than the former. So they can start off trying to negotiate you down from your max, or up you can spend your time tryi…

I guess the fear is that you'll anchor it "lower" than they would have. Example if they are intending to pay 120, and you say "I'm hoping to make 110" they might just come down to 110. But I suppose if you start at your high range that might be in your favor. Some of us (myself included) just don't know what we're worth so it's hard to know how to start the deal...

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#325

Post by hnal943 »

Kliment wrote: post #229
hnal943 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're a component in a value creating engine which includes the ability to hurdle those barriers to entry, which means you don't get credit (on your own) for the total value that you are able to produce within that system.

More likely, you're a resource being extracted by a monopolist that set up those barriers to entry.

Eh, some barriers to entry are artificial, some are not. Even artificial barriers are difficult for a single moustache-twirling monopolist to bring about on his own.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#326

Post by sheepmullet »

slg wrote: post #125
zenlikethat wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever worked on a project where management considered developers as pretty much interchangeable and added folks to the team that did more damage than good? If so, do you want to repeat that experience?

My post had the condition of "competent developer". There are certainly some developers that aren't competent. In my experience those developers get weeded out of the industry relatively quickly. This cuts off the bottom of the bell curve leaving most most developers with something close to an average skill set or above. I also won't discount the frictional costs of changing teams. If you take two identical developer…

In my experience even something as simple as effort varies greatly between two equally skilled developers and results in very different outcomes.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#327

Post by Artlav »

squozzer wrote: post #158

I am not sure of the utility of asking the salary question anyway. A credit check which is usually part of the pre-offer paper chase will provide an employer with plenty of info for determining your current burn rate.

Interesting, i thought this sort of research was done after the offer, when you are in process of doing the paperwork to get in?

And AFAIK a lot of people don't have any credit history, so this does not sound useful anyway.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#329

Post by fecak »

morgante wrote: post #302
fecak wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "fair amount" of time, I wasn't trying to imply "most". I think at least a slight majority of the population have fairly reasonable expectations based on my years of experience. For them to be a client though (based on your pricing model), their expectations have to be reasonable and a bit lower than market or unreasonably low. Reasonable and a bit high doesn't work. A small percentage tend to have expectations fa…

Fair enough. Maybe you could have an automated screening process to calibrate expectations?

That would be a complicated algorithm. Market rates are tricky.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#330

Post by matthewowen »

AJ007 wrote: post #322
matthewowen wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your answer also shows a common misunderstanding about economics, because it takes too narrow a focus. If there exist jobs that produce $1MM in value but that have a going rate of 200k, then there should be more of those jobs: either the company doing the work should expand, or it should have competitors. This will lead to increased competition to hire, which means higher wages. The increased number of jobs might gen…

Does this mean if a company loses money the employees should contribute to the funding of the company rather than take a salary?

No. Why would that be a remotely rational thing for them to do?

When I use "should" in my earlier post, I don't intend it as an ethical "should". I mean it as a "if everyone acts in a rational way, this should, eventually, be the outcome".

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