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

#461

Post by marcosdumay » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 12:04 AM UTC

curun1r wrote: post #449

louisswiss wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not confusing two sales concepts - you are. I don't know much about 'first to talk', but my limited understanding is that it means just that (the person who engages first in a negotiation comes out worse). Anchoring is about setting the parameters of the negotiation - you don't need to speak first. >>In negotiations, anchoring refers to the concept of setting a boundary that outlines the basic constraints for a n…

Anchoring might work if there wasn't an information asymmetry dynamic at play. But companies have way more data on salaries than applicants do. If you anchor too high, they'll just pass since they know what others are paying and know you won't get that elsewhere. If you anchor too low, the negotiations will be win-win for them. When I was hiring and someone came in too low, I'd often offer well above their anchor sin…

Anchoring requires information asymmetry¹, but it requires the field to be tiled the other way around. A company can easily anchor the salary target in a negotiation. You can't.

1 - With no asymmetry both peers would have a value anchored before negotiations start.

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

#462

Post by darkarmani » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 12:20 AM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #176

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…

Both Google and Oracle made it a condition of getting hired. Meaning they were ready to walk away if previous pay wasn't disclosed. Oracle even wanted scans of W2s ...

> Oracle even wanted scans of W2s

That's pretty easy to forge isn't it?

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

#463

Post by funkyy » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 12:26 AM UTC

I was asked this before. When I refused, they said it was mandatory. I put my number as 30% more. There is no way for them to confirm, I think this is an unfair practice, so if they are forcing you to play the game, why you would be fair? I have got the job, as a junior, I was making same money as senior minus the benefits.

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

#464

Post by user5994461 » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 12:47 AM UTC

imsofuture wrote: post #362

wwweston wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, sometimes, many times, maybe even 'often', the job applicant is more desperate for a job than the hiring party is. But it's not a rule that applicants are desperate, and hiring parties aren't. It's absolutely a stereotype of the hiring process though.

Hiring parties are desperate. Ever been at any startup or any hiring committee?

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

#465

Post by majormajor » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 12:57 AM UTC

davemel37 wrote: post #199

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.

Every time I ever tried this, the candidates hover around the top of the range regardless of qualification and experience.

Wonder how it would work out if you listed the top of the range at actually midway through the range. Maybe that would be the desired result - this is kinda similar sounding to my employer, where our "bring them on at" range is lower than the "expected pay at this role" range, because we want people to have room for nice raises even if they're not promotion-ready.

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

#466

Post by marcosdumay » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 12:59 AM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #387

teej wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are already loads of questions that employers aren't allowed to ask. Are you married? Are you pregnant? How many kids do you have? Is your significant other black? When was the last time you went to church? So, you're about 50, is that right?

A) They can legally ask all of these. B) All of these are in reference to one or more protected classes, which is why it's not legal to discriminate based on one's answer(s) or refusal to answer. C) Last I checked, "previously made {less,more} than a certain salary" is not a protected class.

About (C), it has just become one.

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

#467

Post by thedufer » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 1:10 AM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #351

j2bax wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honesty and integrity are pretty high on the list of qualities I like in people I associate and work with. The fact that you would conspire with your previous employer to artificially prop your value up and then tell a bold faced lie in an interview, does make it seem like you are not above doing whatever it takes to get what YOU want and feel you deserve.

It is not propping up your value. If you interview someone and they ask for X, and you agree to hire them for X, then you have made the decision that he is worth X. That fact that he did not make X at his last job should have zero effect on his future job. If you do not think he is worth X, then don't hire him. He is either worth X or not.

I don't see anyone arguing that your past salary should have any effect on your future comp. On the other hand, the position that a candidate seems to be with X, but is actually worth Y << X if they've down themselves to be dishonest in the interview process seems pretty reasonable. In places with good labor protection, lying during the hiring process is a great way to waive all protections from being fired.

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

#468

Post by morgante » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 1:19 AM UTC

clavalle wrote: post #419

Sorreah wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a bit strange. It's like buying milk. I couldn't tell you exactly how much I could buy a gallon of milk for right now (without looking it up). But I could tell you that it is for around five or six dollars. I could also tell you that organic milk is a bit more and the store brand is a bit less. I could also tell you it is likely to be a bit more in a small, boutique store than a large chain store and cost a bi…

You'd be amazed by how vast the range for developer salaries is.

I've had employers think that $80k was a reasonable offer for me (when I was making $200k).

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

#469

Post by morgante » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 1:20 AM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #303

clavalle wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I never consider interviewing and negotiations a waste of time. As an employer, I do. I once made the mistake of spending a lot of time interviewing a candidate assuming that their salary expectations would be around market rates...they weren't. This was years ago and it chaps me a bit to this day that I made such a rookie blunder. I won't make that mistake again. I ask for a range right off and give one in return.…

Companies should name their range first mate, or just interview and accept the fact that the job hunt sucks for everyone. Why do you think external recruiters exist? They work as middleman that have intimate knowledge of a company's range, as well as their candidates' range, without either party knowing. That allows them to find helpful matches without wasting either party's time... at a 20% markup of course ;)

> They work as middleman that have intimate knowledge of a company's range, as well as their candidates' range, without either party knowing.

That's comically naive. External recruiters routinely share candidate ranges with employers.

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

#470

Post by chongli » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 1:22 AM UTC

davemel37 wrote: post #420

jjnoakes wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is fine; if you can argue that their experience may not merit top of the range, you just negotiate down a bit...

This might just be me and my own immaturity, but in my experience, employees often count their eggs before they hatch, and once I start negotiating them down, I create a scenario where I can't get them fully aligned with my goals. They become a simple exchange of cash for labor and not someone who grows loyal or feels a sense of fairness, ownership and excitement about the role. Maybe I am naive, but I feel like this…

They become a simple exchange of cash for labor and not someone who grows loyal or feels a sense of fairness, ownership and excitement about the role.

You've hit upon a fundamental tenet of Marxism: alienation [0]. You haven't said whether or not you offer equity as part of your compensation. If not, then it is somewhat unreasonable to expect that sort of loyalty from your employees. If so, then you have a challenging task of convincing people to buy in to your vision at a potentially high personal risk.

Today's economy is rife with alienation. So many people are constantly changing jobs or dropping out of the workforce [1]. Meanwhile, they're struggling inside a system that produces rampant cost disease [2] and staggering inequality, as illustrated by the dreaded "elephant graph" [3]. Overall, I think there's a growing sense of discontent with capitalism and this can manifest in suspicion towards employers.

Now I'll grant you that it's entirely unfair to lay all this at the feet of just a single employer such as yourself. I don't intend for this to come across as some kind of blame game. I merely hope to provide a larger context for ideas that many people may not even be consciously aware of but contribute to their feelings and instincts nonetheless.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienatio...

[1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2017/02...

[2] http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost-...

[3] http://voxeu.org/article/greatest-reshuffle-individual-incom...