New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by user5994461 » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:46 PM UTC

jnwatson wrote: post #124

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…

Anchoring only works if the potential employer is ready to buy. Many, many organizations will simply use the number as yet another filter, and you won't even begin discussions. By giving a number first, you're either too high and you won't have an opportunity to sell yourself, you're too low and you've literally already negotiated against yourself, or you're lucky and right at their expectation, which you could have…

> By giving a number first, you're either too high and you won't have an opportunity to sell yourself, you're too low and you've literally already negotiated against yourself, or you're lucky and right at their expectation, which you could have gotten to by simply not giving the first number.

And that's why salary is a binary search!

https://thehftguy.com/2017/01/23/career-advice-and-salary-ne...

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

#282

Post by pc86 » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:46 PM UTC

sheeshkebab wrote: post #178

pc86 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why we publish salary ranges with our job ads but also require a desired salary within that range from candidates.

That's how us government jobs work too :)

Unfortunately the negatives around government jobs far outweigh the benefits of having the salary a known quantity when you are applying.

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

#283

Post by taternuts » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:47 PM UTC

Personally I think it's good when they ask. I no longer answer that question with the truth, but as if they asked "what do you think you're actually worth?" - and you can find out pretty quick by their response/reaction whether or not they are going to try and lowball you.

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

#284

Post by Overtonwindow » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:48 PM UTC

I once worked for a large trade association in Georgia. The Director had a general policy that anyone who refused to provide expected salary was not even considered, at all, no exceptions.

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

#285

Post by catshirt » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:49 PM UTC

dingdongding wrote: post #266

catshirt wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

care to share your position and some discreet information about the company (size, industry?)

This account was created an hour ago. I doubt he is telling the truth

i'm not saying it has to be true, but there is more incentive to create a fresh account to post that information than there is incentive to lie about it.

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

#286

Post by Overtonwindow » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:50 PM UTC

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…

Anchoring fails because let's say the position is wanting to hire someone at $70k and you state an expected salary of $75 - 80k, negotiable. That employer may decide it's not worth their time because you'll want too much, so why bother with even calling you in for an interview. Asking for a salary number from applicants up front is not just a way to undercut them, but it's a way to quickly weed out and only interview those who are willing to take bottom dollar.

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

#287

Post by master_lincoln » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:50 PM UTC

mi100hael wrote: post #186

jnwatson wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, all the time. I've negotiated well throughout my career, so I'm above a lot of pay bands. My concern is I hope to be doing this for another 25 years...

If you're at the top of employees, it might be time to become the boss...

To fulfill the Peter's Principle?

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

#288

Post by wwweston » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:50 PM UTC

imsofuture wrote: post #237

jnwatson wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anchoring only works if the potential employer is ready to buy. Many, many organizations will simply use the number as yet another filter, and you won't even begin discussions. By giving a number first, you're either too high and you won't have an opportunity to sell yourself, you're too low and you've literally already negotiated against yourself, or you're lucky and right at their expectation, which you could have…

Pricing yourself out of a job with an organization that uses salary as an first-line filter is maybe not the worst thing in the world. There are a lot of bad jobs in the world, you should be happy to turn down or be turned down by many jobs that you apply to. It's kind of a sad cultural trope that the employee is desperate for a 'yes' at every job they apply for, when that is often not true at all.

There's an awful lot that's hiding under that word "often" in your last sentence. How often? How do we know?

Anecdotally, even as a software & full-stack web developer that's worked in half a dozen languages and has a math degree, I've been in both positions -- I've had the freedom to complain about people annoying me with unsolicited offers to interview while banking a third of my paycheck and treating another third as disposable... and I've been pavement-pounding in desperation.

The former has been more often the case than the latter for me, but I think it's probable that like a large portion of the audience here, I've been insulated by circumstance.

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

#289

Post by mdb333 » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:51 PM UTC

It will be interesting to see how this affects the hiring markets. Out in SF/etc it came up in just about every discussion I had last time I was looking for work usually as part of the first phase. No point interviewing candidates that wouldn't accept the job. It's pretty much a risk mgmt exercise from the hiring side. Similarly, I always asked what the compensation range they're targeting is as I don't want to waste my time either.

I wonder if this ban addresses background checks covering the same information, because some companies do ask for this data from previous employers although not all provide it. Without protection there this ban seems fairly limited.

Anyhow, I don't agree with all advice to never disclose current/previous salary. In some scenarios certainly it makes sense, but in others it is the opposite. You want to justify a higher market value and set the expectation that you're unlikely to be interested unless they're willing to compensate at $X or higher. Of course it's different in terms of leverage if you're employed currently or not. Recruiters and interviewers will waste tons of your time if you don't get on the same page quickly. Lack of transparency around your compensation expectations will exacerbate this issue. Whether that means you tell them what you're making or what you'd like to make doesn't really matter, but you better do at least one of the two.

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

#290

Post by komali2 » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:52 PM UTC

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 remember with Ticketmaster I got into an actual eight minute long back and forth during a recruitment call about my "number." Eight minutes is a long time on the phone. It went something like

her: "Just so we have an idea of your range..."

me: "I understand why that information would be helpful to you, but I can assure you that if everything else is a good fit, salary is the last place we'll find ourselves disagreeing."

Back and forth. Eventually I had to just cut her off and let her know it wasn't a good fit.

I've never had a problem winning the "give us your number" battle before, I honestly have to admire the tenacity of that recruiter. Seems like Ticketmaster genuinely cannot hire without getting that information.