Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

nytlive.nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 539 posts

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#111

Post by kesselvon »

notahacker wrote: post #109
kesselvon wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies asking for your previous salary means theyre going to try to pay you with your past salary being a benchmark to work with, not necessarily what the position is worth. Companies posting employee salaries publicly aims for employees at said company to be paid at the same level (with similar experience). There's a subtle difference. Every time I've been asked about salary its been an obvious ploy to lowball my…

The obvious consequence of a company publicly posting salaries (or even having clear salary ranges that nearly all the employees at the level of experience fall into) is that a thorough recruiter doesn't even need to ask your previous salary to be able to use it as a benchmark to work with though.

I don't think I've ever seen public salaries at places that pay on the lower-end. Usually I've seen it with startups that pay fairly well, but I could be wrong.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#112

Post by del82 »

xyzzy4 wrote: post #26
matthewmacleod wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this have to do with freedom of speech?

Making a law that says "Employers can't say or ask X" goes directly against freedom of speech.

Do laws against fraud violate freedom of speech?

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#113

Post by nommm-nommm »

ransom1538 wrote: post #71

So people on HN are pro employers posting their employee salaries publicly but against previous companies asking what their salaries are. WTF. I must be missing something here. I personally believe your salary is your business. Period. Getting salary information bad, forcing employees to divulge salaries from a position of power is disgusting. Here is me being publicly quartered on HN for pushing back on forcing empl…

It's all about information asymmetry. The employers have information you don't so you can't use that information to your advantage in negotiations. They really don't want that information to get out so they can continue to push salaries lower.

The only reason they want to keep that information private is to use it to their advantage.

I believe, last time I researched this topic, is that transparent salaries tend to increase pay across the board and make pay more performance based rather than negotiating skills based.

EDIT:

http://economics.usf.edu/PDF/Asymetric%20Information%20Porte...

> Beginning in 1989 the National Hockey League Players’ Association began annually to reveal the salaries of all its members. Over the next five seasons as contracts were renegotiated wages rose precipitously. Over the same period the role of player performance in determining wages gained importance while the identity of the team with which they negotiated lost all significance.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#114

Post by emidln »

louisswiss wrote: post #82
pmoriarty wrote: post #43

I never answer questions about my past or expected salary, not to employers and not to recruiters. Most employers don't ask, and the few that have (perhaps by having a part of an employment form ask for previous salary) have never made my leaving that information out an issue. Most recruiters, if they even ask, respect my decision not to talk about it, but I've been pressed hard on this by a handful of recruiters, an…

Agree with you in principle (your previous deal with company A is absolutely none of company B's business) but I would like to challenge you on one point: > I'm placed at a disadvantage in negotiations if I name a number first. ... This is unlikely to be true. Generally, in price negotiations it is advantageous to name a number first. This is known as anchoring and basically the theory is that the end result is bette…

> Plus, it saves a lot of wasted negotiation time on both sides if your price is just way too high for the company and this is clear from the beginning.

This. I'm very upfront that if a company can't meet at least a particular dollar amount expected, it's not worth wasting both of our time. This saves a ton of time, and also serves as a nice red flag when a company agrees and then later tries to negotiate down at the last minute (if they're going to penny-pinch at the last minute, things like bonuses and vacation approval are basically never happening).

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#115

Post by pmoriarty »

louisswiss wrote: post #82
pmoriarty wrote: post #43

I never answer questions about my past or expected salary, not to employers and not to recruiters. Most employers don't ask, and the few that have (perhaps by having a part of an employment form ask for previous salary) have never made my leaving that information out an issue. Most recruiters, if they even ask, respect my decision not to talk about it, but I've been pressed hard on this by a handful of recruiters, an…

Agree with you in principle (your previous deal with company A is absolutely none of company B's business) but I would like to challenge you on one point: > I'm placed at a disadvantage in negotiations if I name a number first. ... This is unlikely to be true. Generally, in price negotiations it is advantageous to name a number first. This is known as anchoring and basically the theory is that the end result is bette…

I never consider interviewing and negotiations a waste of time. It's very valuable practice, no matter what the outcome. Practice is how I get better at both. The more interviews I go on and the more times I negotiate salary, the better I get.

Also, even if a company can't hire me at the moment due to real budget constraints, they might be able to do so in the future, or perhaps one of the people I interviewed and impressed enough to get to the salary negotiation phase will remember me when they move to another company and want to hire me then.

If I name a number way out of their range first, though, they could reject me right off the bat, and I'd never get an interview in the first place, never get the practice, and never get a chance to impress anyone. All of these are worth more to me than the chance of a salary negotiation going sour because I wind up being too expensive. Besides, I'll always have the chance to decide whether I want to work for the company despite them being below my ideal salary. Salary isn't everything.

As for anchoring, that might work if you're negotiating with novices, but many employers have professional salary negotiators (either HR or recruiters themselves) who know about anchoring, and they're not going to get fooled by such psychological tricks. If I don't reveal a number first, however, they are forced to name one, and then the ball is in my court, and I can negotiate up from there as I see fit. There's really no downside.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#116

Post by louisswiss »

alistairSH wrote: post #96
louisswiss wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with you in principle (your previous deal with company A is absolutely none of company B's business) but I would like to challenge you on one point: > I'm placed at a disadvantage in negotiations if I name a number first. ... This is unlikely to be true. Generally, in price negotiations it is advantageous to name a number first. This is known as anchoring and basically the theory is that the end result is bette…

The parent is discussing prior salaries. You are discussing requested salaries. If specifically asked "What is your current salary?" you would typically respond with the actual current salary, not your ideal new salary.

I qualified my comment by stating that I agree with the parent as far as current salaries go, yet that in the general case of salary expectation discussions it is nevertheless a better strategy to state a number first. IMO it isn't clear from the parent that they believe it is a good idea to disclose any number first (whether expected or current salary).

BTW, if specifically asked 'what is your current salary?' I would typically respond with 'my ideal new salary is $X'

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#117

Post by _pmf_ »

pmoriarty wrote: post #43

I never answer questions about my past or expected salary, not to employers and not to recruiters. Most employers don't ask, and the few that have (perhaps by having a part of an employment form ask for previous salary) have never made my leaving that information out an issue. Most recruiters, if they even ask, respect my decision not to talk about it, but I've been pressed hard on this by a handful of recruiters, an…

> I never answer questions about my past salary, not to employers and not to recruiters.

You answer it by accepting an offer or giving a ballpark number for negotiations.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#118

Post by josho »

pmoriarty wrote: post #43

I never answer questions about my past or expected salary, not to employers and not to recruiters. Most employers don't ask, and the few that have (perhaps by having a part of an employment form ask for previous salary) have never made my leaving that information out an issue. Most recruiters, if they even ask, respect my decision not to talk about it, but I've been pressed hard on this by a handful of recruiters, an…

Hijacking this for visibility.

If the recruiter asks repeatedly, a trick that I learned is to answer that it's in your employee confidentiality agreement not to discuss the terms of your employment. It's arguably a true statement as well (in case you were concerned about telling a white lie)--your employer could be considering your salary as confidential because they obviously haven't disclosed it publicly, so you are taking a very conservative approach on the confidentiality terms in most contracts.

edit: the statement doesn't need to be legally defensible, it gives you an opportunity to redirect and ask what they are willing to pay for the position or to learn about their benefits package.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#119

Post by zimzam »

jimparkins wrote: post #20

Have a google for: "can i lie to a employer about past salary" - it really really messes with people - people feel super uncertain about how to approach this situation. Throwing any confidence they have during the negotiation out the window. Even now I hesitate to write this as a million people will come out and say never lie - what if they found out. More than banning. There needs to be acceptance that if someone as…

Unfortunately there are employers in NYC who do call previous employers to verify salary. Remember that most white-collar employees are in much less demand than developers and have to deal with far more employer bullshit.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#120

Post by aswanson »

tarr11 wrote: post #45
jimparkins wrote: post #20

Have a google for: "can i lie to a employer about past salary" - it really really messes with people - people feel super uncertain about how to approach this situation. Throwing any confidence they have during the negotiation out the window. Even now I hesitate to write this as a million people will come out and say never lie - what if they found out. More than banning. There needs to be acceptance that if someone as…

That's not how (good) sales works.

Tell us how good sales works.
Post reply on HN