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

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#751

Post by PhasmaFelis » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 8:41 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #681

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tech jobs I've worked have ended roughly thus: Company went under Short-term contract for specific task Department downsized Short-term contract for specific task Department downsized Short-term contract for specific task Short-term contract for specific task I have never quit a job since finishing school. I'd have loved to stay on at several of those places for the rest of my career, but that's not how most of t…

Even with quick promotions, you are much more likely to end up with a higher salary by moving jobs every 1.5-3 years. I'm 30 and the longest I've been at a job is 21 months. It's never been brought up as a negative and I've got plenty of experience across multiple business domains and companies.

Yeah, it's pretty much taken as normal these days. I'd still rather have job stability than a sky-high salary, if I was given the choice.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#752

Post by walshemj » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 9:06 PM UTC

rpgmaker wrote: post #559

walshemj wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to say being a surgeon? or a lawer some one on here mentioned that a transplant surgeon can make over $15M.

I work in software myself but come on, it's fair to say that being a surgeon is way less trivial and far riskier than being a programmer.

true but 30 or 40 times the average programmer? and I am say this as some one who is a transplant list in the UK

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#753

Post by alasdair_ » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 10:31 PM UTC

nickff wrote: post #624

zaroth wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scarcity is supply below demand, not just low supply. Scarcity implies a shortage, and shortage implies too little, not just low supply, right?

More supply than demand only exists for 'free' or 'public' goods. If there are costs of production, nobody (except government) will want to supply more than is demanded, as they will be giving the product away (or paying people) to get rid of it. Garbage is an instance of supply > demand.

As a trivial counterexample, consider the market for bad artwork from amateurs. There is far more (in terms of quantity) supplied than is demanded.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#754

Post by alasdair_ » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 10:43 PM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #583

PhilWright wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing unique or special about being a programmer. Programmers think they are undervalued and should get more. But guess what, nurses think they should get more as well because they are saving lives. Soldiers think they should get more for making us all safe. Police think they should get more for reducing the level of crime in society which benefits us all. Teachers think they should get more because they a…

That's why labor policy is so important. The guy digging proverbial ditches does indeed deserve more, but the market has been distorted by large corporations who lobby for lax enforcement of immigration law. On the other end of the spectrum engineers and programmers probably deserve more but the market has been distorted by large corporations who have lobbied for massive numbers of H1Bs or colluded with each other to…

>The guy digging proverbial ditches does indeed deserve more, but the market has been distorted by large corporations who lobby for lax enforcement of immigration law.

Do gravediggers get paid relatively more than other kinds of jobs in countries where there is essentially no immigration for economic reasons? I doubt it.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#755

Post by vivekpreddy » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 1:50 AM UTC

dudul wrote: post #114

vivekpreddy wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been recruiting for a few years now, and I've always hated asking how much someone is making currently. Have always found it better to ask "what are your compensation expectations?" Puts the ball in the candidate's court and I prefer asking this early in conversations as to make sure we're aligned and no one wastes each others time.

Why not disclose the budget you are working with and ask the candidate if it's in line with their expectations?

I don't mind giving a range, but that results in a tricky situation that isn't always easy to handle. If you give a range of let's say $130k-$150k for a role, candidates' expectations are now set that if they get anything below $140k, that they're not as valued as a potential new hire.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#756

Post by gozur88 » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 2:09 AM UTC

simons wrote: post #699

gozur88 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. How could you possibly determine how much value your efforts are producing? How much value are you assigning to the risk the founder and investors are taking? Maybe your $200k job is producing $200k in value. Or eve…

> Tech companies always pretend it's impossible to find employees. That's not reality, though. That's a political strategy. Genuinely interested to hear an expansion of this. How would pretending that technical employees are hard to recruit, benefit a company politically?

If you can convince the general public the tech industry will wither on the vine for lack of skilled labor, you can get Congress to raise the H-1B cap, allowing you to drive down your labor costs.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#757

Post by barnacs » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 2:42 AM UTC

danielweber wrote: post #712

barnacs wrote: post #632

It pains me to see that people can't apply common sense without law anymore. If a potential employer asks about my previous salary, I refuse to answer. Similarly, it never even occured to me to hide my salary from my coworkers regardless of what my employer asked me to do. Needless to say, if any employer has a problem with that, I definitely don't want to spend 8+ hours of my day with them.

Right now, it is an applicant's ballgame, because our skills are highly valued. What happens if that is no longer the situation?

I'll try to keep my response short.

Ideally, everyone should be working for something they actually believe in and everyone should work with people whose skillset is valuable to achieve their common goal.

If there is no mutual respect and at least a minimum level of decency and each party of the employment contract is just chasing their own gains then we end up in this sad situation where laws are needed to lay out and enforce the rules of even basic human interaction.

That's why it pains me to see this.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#758

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 4:10 AM UTC

passiveincomelg wrote: post #734

54mf wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The difference between an average support person and a really great one can be millions of dollars of revenue. But they are paid peanuts because it's women's work, not like the manly engineering which obviously creates more value... nevermind that novice engineers often create negative value by creating liabilities that can cost the company millions, while still getting paid more than the highest paid customer suppo…

I think I would actually enjoy doing customer support. Maybe this pay gap doesn't exist for companies hiring "Customer Success Engineers"?

Well paid customer support people are called salesmen in a solutions focused company.

In this age of metrics and micromanagement it is rare, but in olden times key vendor salespeople were really an asset to past employers.

Unlike support people, they are a revenue center, so when they say "This needs to be fixed or it puts $X in quarterly revenue at risk", it gets fixed.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#759

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 4:17 AM UTC

dijit wrote: post #656

afandian wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious? There's more to customer support than picking up a phone. I've worked with some very intelligent customer support people who know the product as well as the engineers.

You never put your most technical people on the first line. And in that vein, I've worked with some very skilled receptionists. But they're not doctors.

Depends on the customer and criticality.

I saw one contract with a clause that a Sev1 incident had a 15 minute SLA to the highest tier support engineer and 30 minute SLA for initial contact from an SVP level exec to the customer CIO.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#760

Post by nickff » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 5:09 AM UTC

alasdair_ wrote: post #753

nickff wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More supply than demand only exists for 'free' or 'public' goods. If there are costs of production, nobody (except government) will want to supply more than is demanded, as they will be giving the product away (or paying people) to get rid of it. Garbage is an instance of supply > demand.

As a trivial counterexample, consider the market for bad artwork from amateurs. There is far more (in terms of quantity) supplied than is demanded.

Most of that artwork is literally garbage.