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

401–410 of 539 posts

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

#401

Post by OrwellianChild »

clavalle wrote: post #350
komali2 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is, is every potential employee worth the same to you?

Of course not. But every role has a range, more or less, which is a balance of the value that role creates vs the alternatives in the market. The range is due to factors such as the risk an individual embodies based on previous experience, demonstrable skill, references along with likely ramp up time based on those factors. To take a silly but illustrative example: if I'm looking for a javascript developer, I don't c…

Hit thread limit, but I'm asking about @clavalle's ranges here:

How often does your eventual accepted offer land at the high end of your offered range? How often at the low end?

I ask, because it often seems unproductive to negotiate within-range on merits. If you're willing to pay up to X, I as a candidate am going to expect that amount. Anything less is letting you, the employer, capture the surplus...

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

#402

Post by Paul-ish »

dajohnson89 wrote: post #14
paulcole wrote: post #4

Good. Not enough people realize the best way to answer this question is with a straight-up lie.

The problem is, recruiters/hiring managers will sometimes call your former employer to verify your actual salary.

How often do employers give that out? Are you telling me I can tell how much my friends used to make?

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

#403

Post by socalnate1 »

pbasista wrote: post #392

My past salary is an irrelevant information for my potential future employer. If they ask about it, my response would be: "Why would you like to know it?" Any answer to this question is bad. If they do not bail out and stop asking at this point, then I bail out. The point is that if I want, I can completely change my way of life by switching to a job which pays 50 % of my current salary. Or 400 % of my current salary…

"But they need to do it transparently, from the beginning. They should say it clearly and upfront: for this position, our budget is somewhere in this range"

This goes both ways I think: For this position, I am looking for something in this range, are you interested or not?

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

#404

Post by mcv »

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…

As a freelancer, I'm fairly up-front about my hourly rate. If they want to pay it, I'm happy. If they don't, that's fine too. If there are other interesting aspects about the project that make up for the lower pay, we can negotiate. But it saves me time not having to talk to clients who can't afford me.

But freelancing is a different market than salaried employment. I think for salaried positions it's up to the employer to be open about their pay range.

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

#405

Post by bitexploder »

siliconc0w wrote: post #365
komali2 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're confusing two sales concepts - first to talk, and anchoring. Anchoring is a more general marketing concept that works well in advertisements (crossing out a black $280 and putting a red $100 underneath it). Anchoring doesn't work so well for something much more fluid (and with much more at stake) such as a salary negotiation. In-person sales meetings (which is what an interview is, for both sides) are…

The problem is that most companies won't provide an offer until you've gone through interviews which are expensive for both parties. So this reasoning holds if you have an abundance of time, but you can generally figure out what their likely range is going to be. Do research, ask colleagues, etc. Anchor at the high end of that - you can also leave it vague by talking about 'total comp' which can includes subjective t…

We always (sort of) go first by sharing our comp ranges to candidates. If either of us are way off why waste each other's time? We do ask for comp history. We try to be very fair and we rarely end up needing to negotiate at all.

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

#406

Post by highdesertmuse »

Mandating that employers are forbidden to ask about previous salary seems like a pathway to more government intrusion into a complex process. Part of job seeking involves learning how to negotiate with a potential employer. I've side-stepped many an inappropriate or premature question about salary with "Are you making an offer," followed by agreement to disclose the "details" if and when such offer is forthcoming at which point I know far more about what the position involves, am in a much better negotiating position and can explain, if necessary, why the pay scale was lower. If that doesnt satisfy a recruiter or potential employer, I tend to think they're not very serious about me as a candidate and I havent disclosed personal information that might limit my future job search.

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

#407

Post by highdesertmuse »

Mandating that employers are forbidden to ask about previous salary seems like a pathway to more government intrusion into a complex process. Part of job seeking involves learning how to negotiate with a potential employer. I've side-stepped many an inappropriate or premature question about salary with "Are you making an offer," followed by agreement to disclose the "details" if and when such offer is forthcoming at which point I know far more about what the position involves, and am in a much better negotiating position.

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

#408

Post by Sorreah »

clavalle wrote: post #367
akud wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that candidates are justifiably wary of naming a number first, if you don't want to waste your time, it behooves you to name your range first.

I fully agree. At the time my assumption was that candidates had a pretty good idea what a 'normal' salary range is for a position. I was wrong.

And my experience is that never, ever, has a potential employer expressed a "pretty good idea" about what a "normal" salary for a position is.

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

#409

Post by socalnate1 »

paulcole wrote: post #4

Good. Not enough people realize the best way to answer this question is with a straight-up lie.

It's depressing to me how many responses there are on this, without anyone simply saying: "Lying is wrong"

I know there are a lot of purely utilitarian thinkers around here, but is there no moral compass at all?

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

#410

Post by DTrejo »

komali2 wrote: post #313
benji-york wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the age of the account increases the likelihood of the story being true: the person was so compelled to tell their story that they created an anonymous account just to do so.

Probably the information should be used as an allegorical example, rather than a "huh I can make 220 in NY" example. It is very easy to lie on the internet. I try to hedge my bets on this website by essentially doxxing myself on my profile, but not everyone is willing to do that (nor should they necessarily be expected to).

Finance people regularly get paid $400k+ as new grads. Well done dharma1/showmethemoney – next time ask for 500k!
Post reply on HN