421–430 of 539 posts
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?
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 don't normally like to lie, but I see no moral issue with it in a situation like this where the system is intentionally rigged against you. They are systematically depriving people of pay; I'm not going to lose sleep over a small lie that rights that wrong.
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…
How do you rectify this with constitutionally protected free speech?
Is freedom of speech meant only for the little guy?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
If I tell you at the beginning of our conversation 'The salary for this position is between $80K and $120K depending on your experience, education, and demonstrable skill etc'...
Throughout the course of our interview it is revealed that your education is a good fit for the position and your experience, while decent and potentially transferrable, is not a great fit for the position. Also, the technical part of the interview was good in some areas and poor in others (though I suspect through mere ignorance and not raw ability) and you have no public code under your belt that I can examine. But, you seem to communicate well and get along with the team.
Well, you are a good candidate but represent a significant risk relative to some other candidates. I could hire you and it turn out that those skills are not as transferrable as I'd hoped. You could take significantly more training than I was expecting for the role which is a cost to me.
The 'surplus' goes toward the expected cost of the risk. It is possible that you could find a better fit employment wise and that I could find a better fit employee wise but that carries its own risk. We both weigh all of that call it good and are happy how it turns out. Or we don't and the search continues.
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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!
Definitely
> as new grads.
Not so much.
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've found it easier to just lie in these situations by giving a number that's significantly higher than what I'm currently making, and more in line with the top end of what I think they're willing to pay me/what I would be willing to work for. It has worked quite well for me. Obviously this only works if you are comfortable lying in this scenario. I don't normally like to lie, but I see no moral issue with it in a s…
Not super common in software, I know people in law and a few other fields that always have to do it...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Asking for the candidate's expected compensation, OTOH, is fine, although a little tacky.
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It took me a while to understand that most people don't realize you can lie on this with almost zero downside. Very few employers are checking, and very few times is that information legally available to them. The most they can typically get is the "typical" salary for a given position at a large company. There are exceptions of course, and the good ole' boys network can sometimes run deep. But in the end, if you are…
You have some leeway. If you say "My compensation was $70K" and your salary was $50K, you may well be telling the truth.