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Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

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Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#381

Post by the8bit »

dvt wrote: post #168
morgante wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

$200k-$300k in places like San Francisco and Menlo Park. Clearly, you don't understand how cost of living works. Also, to make that much, you need to be at around a level of SDE3/tech lead, which is by no means easy (a decade of making low six-figures & some political panache). See this top answer on Quora, for a pretty detailed analysis: https://www.quora.com/Will-I-be-able-to-become-a-millionaire... You might be ab…

A lot of people make TL within 5-7 years, its not that uncommon (although we are talking about top 1-5% of programmers). Saving $1MM on west coast salary in 10 years is really doable. I am on track to do it in effectively 7 years or so.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#382

Post by bjornsing »

jazzyk wrote: post #239
bjornsing wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to say this, but if you think getting laid off is a huge financial risk then you probably have not done much business. There are exceptions of course, but most founders I know carry huge financial risks (like years and years of salary on the down side, and tens of times that on the upside...). If you haven't tried you probably can't imagine how stressful it can be at times...

Most founders (at least in the software area) provide a lot of sweat equity, but almost never any cash. Also, early startup employees are persuaded to accept below-market salaries and work a lot of overtime, exactly like the founders, without the upside ( rarely more than 1% of the company).

I know a lot of founders who've put in significant cash in their businesses. And besides, sweat equity is also, well, equity.

I'm not saying there aren't early employees that deserve better deals, I'm quite sure there are. But a lot of the perception of unfairness I think stems from a lack of understanding of the differences between being a founder and being an early employee. They are just very different bargains, each with their ups and downs.

For example, let's say three founders own 20% each and there's an external investor that owns 20% and a 20% options pool. The founders payed for their shares with a year's sweat equity. The first employee gets 1% from the options pool. From then on everybody makes the same, and works just as hard. Is that unfair?

I'd say it depends, and the math is not entirely straightforward... Stuff you would have to take into account (and which I rarely see mentioned when people talk about this) include the probability of the company failing before raising money / hiring the first employee, each person's alternative costs and the company's expected future value when the first employee was hired. There are also more subtle issues, like the employee having every right and incentive to leave the minute the company starts going downhill, whereas the founders... Well, it's just very different.

I've been both by the way. :P

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#383

Post by MisterBastahrd »

vonmoltke wrote: post #127
harryh wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful. Recruiters (even 3rd party recruiters) work for the company. They don't work for you.

Third party recruiters work for themselves . Both sides in the transaction should remember that.

Third party recruiters dealing exclusively in contracts are more likely to side with the employee. Those dealing exclusively in long-term employment will be more likely to side with the employer.

This is because of how their compensation is structured. The contract guy is going to start getting paid immediately. The employer guy is going to get paid when the employee has vested a certain amount of time with the company.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#384

Post by ThePawnBreak »

jazzyk wrote: post #319
dvt wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because these companies don't exist. Top companies pay SDE3s and tech leads like 300-400k. Medium-sized companies in high cost of living areas pay directors around that much. No one pays engineers that much. Literally no one. Unless you're Norvig or Dijkstra.

Per Quora, the highest tech executive position (CTO) pays in the lower $200Ks (non-founder, up to $75M): https://www.quora.com/What-would-a-CTO-compensation-equity-b... Per CIO magazine (2015), CTOs make up to $220K, directors up to $174K: http://www.cio.com/article/2878056/salary/tech-salary-guide-... Pretty much all surveys show similar ranges. Do they all "skew heavily downwards"?

No, they just don't consider the millions they receive in stock. Given that an intern at Facebook earns $8000 a month plus free luxury rent, do you honestly think a director makes only 70% more in a tech company?

New grads at Google get paid around $170k a year. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-salary-for-graduates-start...

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#385

Post by lukejduncan »

bargl wrote: post #44

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…

I've followed this advice in the past with mixed results. Some companies do a great job of either respecting this or not asking in the first place. When I interviewed at Uber (a little more than a year back), the recruiter was super persistent. I told them "I understand why you're interested, but it's my personal preference at the advice of personal mentors, not to disclose that information. If we both like each other I'm confident we can find an arrangement that is mutually beneficial." To which the recruiter replied, in person face-to-face, after the 5th time asking: "OK, we can do that. But we have a policy of always making the lowest possible offer to candidates who won't share their compensation information. I just want the best for you." In the end, they very clearly made the lowest possible offer they could and weren't willing to negotiate. It was a cool team, and regardless of if you think they're over-valued a cool company, but it was a very easy "no thank you" for me. That's probably the hardest part of the advice -- you need to be comfortable saying "no" if the negotiation doesn't work out.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#386

Post by vadym909 »

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…

Salaries seem lower today than the value add because some companies are being valued very highly. $20B for Whatsapp. $26B for LinkedIn. If you were risk taking and joined a no name startup early enough for a less than market salary- and it turns out successful, you do get that share of the pie.

If you want a cushy secure job writing hr applications for a Fortune 100 company, or some code for facebook when it reached 1B users, then its crazy to expect a large share of 'the profits' as the company's profits are spoken for by the owners who bought its shares and they are happy to get rid of expensive engineers as the engineering prowess you are bringing is not required as much now.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#387

Post by matthewowen »

marcosdumay wrote: post #356
matthewowen wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

If everyone acts in a rational way, and there is no occurrence of monopolies or price fixing, and if information is widely distributed, and a few other "ifs" that are not obviously missing from the scene, this should, eventually, be the outcome

True :).

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#388

Post by brianwawok »

rvense wrote: post #334
jazzyk wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most founders (at least in the software area) provide a lot of sweat equity, but almost never any cash. Also, early startup employees are persuaded to accept below-market salaries and work a lot of overtime, exactly like the founders, without the upside ( rarely more than 1% of the company).

I was given an offer like this recently. The downside was a lower pay now and substantially larger risk of losing my job compared to other places. And developer work here isn't exactly hard to find. The potential upside was... maybe two years down the line they'd start paying me what other people were willing to pay me now. The guy I negotiated with even tried to make it sound like we were all there on the same terms…

This is very common. And some kid will take the offer. Blows my mind.

Take a job for below market pay, sure. You better have decent equity though or you are being taken advantage of.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#389

Post by wavefunction »

wavefunction wrote: post #107
Cherian_Abraham wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry Equifax

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#390

Post by rev_bird »

lukejduncan wrote: post #385
bargl wrote: post #44

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…

I've followed this advice in the past with mixed results. Some companies do a great job of either respecting this or not asking in the first place. When I interviewed at Uber (a little more than a year back), the recruiter was super persistent. I told them "I understand why you're interested, but it's my personal preference at the advice of personal mentors, not to disclose that information. If we both like each othe…

> "OK, we can do that. But we have a policy of always making the lowest possible offer to candidates who won't share their compensation information. I just want the best for you."

This makes absolutely no sense to me. "Oh, we can't use previous compensation to effectively lowball this candidate we like, so we'll ineffectively lowball them instead."

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