New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary • Hacker News Board

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#301

Post by Jach » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 10:00 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #79

So how does this work for larger companies with multiple offices? Some cases I'm curious about (and have always been for laws like this): My company's headquarters are registered in Texas, but we have an office in CA that is doing hiring for that office. Same as above, but hiring someone residing in CA to move to Texas. Same as above, but hiring someone residing in CA to remote work (in CA or wherever they please). T…

I've been curious about some of these things too. My employer is HQ'd in CA, which forbids non-compete clauses in contracts, but I work out of the WA office, where non-compete clauses are ok, and my contract has one. I don't know of any former employees sued so I'm not really concerned about it but I always wonder if it would hold up in court...

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#302

Post by hota_mazi » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 10:00 PM UTC

kartan wrote: post #272

hota_mazi wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> make all salary information public. It's a disastrous idea. First of all, if you mean public as in "the whole world can know", I can't imagine anyone being comfortable with that. Advertisers, family members, people who don't like you, etc... surely you see the problem here. If by public you mean "only within the company", even this approach will create resentment and hundreds of hours wasted in discussions and nego…

> As someone running a large organization, this is also a logistical nightmare since I usually have very good reasons to compensate X more than Y even if Y might think they should be paid the same amount. That's the key. I want to know what reasons. It is the best possible feedback for me. If you want to earn X more, you need to do this and that like this colleague does. It will force management to have better salary…

> It is the best possible feedback for me.

See the little role play I offered in my other answer.

It's not always the best possible feedback for you.

First, because you might think the feedback is not justified. Your manager will tell you that other person is better than you according to some metric and you are very likely to disagree. And then what? Anguish, stress on your end. Resentment of your manager, your peers, your job. You'll start losing sleep over this and you'll probably quit because you feel you're not being appreciated.

But assuming the feedback is warranted and you are mature enough to take it as a positive criticism that you're going to work on. You will then probably expect to get that raise that evens out your salary with that other person, but what if you never do? Again anguish, resentment, etc...

There's really hardly any chance anything positive comes out of this kind of transparency.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#303

Post by salarycommenter » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 10:01 PM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #199

dogma1138 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of employers that can't afford to pay 180k, not everyone works for Google, Amazon or Facebook. Here in London you have a lot of companies that look for people with similar experience that have huge pay ranges. A Sr. Engineer can be making anywhere from 40-45K to 110-120K a year (in general health care pays the least, fintech/finance pays the most, startups in the UK often underpay and equity is a jok…

I don't know why everyone thinks Google pays well... It was only a few years ago that they gave everyone a 10% raise across the board to address issues of underpayment. That was probably due to the Facebook threat. In addition, lest we forget, all of the big tech companies colluded to depress wages as well.

This is consistent with my experience. Was making 175k in a lower cost of living area. Google wanted to pay 190k and require relocation to Mountain View. Had an offer in hand from another company for 240k. Google refused to negotiate.

What a waste of my time. Never again.

The two people I know who came to Google as juniors are forever typecast as such and are also not being paid well.

Not Google continued to treat me better after as well. If it's bad going in it's going to stay bad.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#304

Post by adventured » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 10:01 PM UTC

secfirstmd wrote: post #165

hota_mazi wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> make all salary information public. It's a disastrous idea. First of all, if you mean public as in "the whole world can know", I can't imagine anyone being comfortable with that. Advertisers, family members, people who don't like you, etc... surely you see the problem here. If by public you mean "only within the company", even this approach will create resentment and hundreds of hours wasted in discussions and nego…

Interestingly in Norway every tax return is public https://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2016/apr/11/when-it-c...

Scandinavia broadly has a culture that isn't replicated anywhere else on earth. There's a strong argument to be had that such very long established cultures cannot easily be shared or adopted, that they build up over hundreds or thousands of years from thousands of impossible to duplicate events and contributions.

There are various traits that Scandinavian people also take with them in regards to culture. For example, second and third generation Scandinavian people in the US have been known to do particularly well financially, beyond what the typical person in either America or Scandinavia does.

It's not unique to Scandinavia of course. Japan as another example has their own highly distinct, long established culture that leads them to behave in numerous unique ways vs other developed nations.

Simply put, due to its culture Norway may be entirely comfortable with one of its norms, while few other nations will be. People aren't just people, so to speak, they're products of the cultures they grow up in; the learned and preferred things acquired in that process, tend to be extremely difficult to alter, even under conscious effort.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#305

Post by curun1r » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 10:01 PM UTC

hota_mazi wrote: post #166

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t need to ask you anymore. You self-reported it to a credit agency and friends, family, potential employers can get that plus other financial information from these agencies.

That's totally false, at least in the US. Credit agencies measure whether you pay your debts, nothing more.

They also know how much credit has been extended to you. Credit card companies and mortgage lenders know your income when making a decision to lend. You can probably work backwards from that info to salary within a +/- 20%.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#306

Post by smallworld99 » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 10:02 PM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #164

Sangermaine wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No thank you. >My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make. But have you thought about why you feel this way? I assume you are American, as am I, and so I understand we've been socialized by our culture to feel this way, but it really makes no sense. It's just a way to harm workers by keeping us from seeing when we're being screwed. I'd even go so far as to wager that this entir…

>>But have you thought about why you feel this way? Yes. I don't want to increase my attractiveness regarding a house robbery, as I live well below my means in a developing neighborhood, amongst other reasons. I very much understand the concept of leverage and have no problems privately discussing my salary amongst groups that I trust. That doesn't include the entire Internet.

HN has zero understanding of the thoughts and motivations of robbers..

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#307

Post by albertgoeswoof » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 10:02 PM UTC

jdavis703 wrote: post #292

everdev wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All Americans have a right to privacy. Their reason for privacy doesn't matter and doesn't need to make sense to you. Compensation is an important conversation to make sure a job is a win/win. I think "What would you like to be paid?" is the most relevant question anyway.

The price of your house is public, the value of your car is public, and most people can roughly guess what your salary is based on your job title, geography and experience level.

Not really, you can choose to spend your income on your car or house, or you can put it elsewhere.

I know plenty of people with cars that cost 10x the price of mine, who earn far less than I do.

And outside of their immediate industry most people don’t know other salaries, or how to look them up.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#308

Post by Sangermaine » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 10:03 PM UTC

rangersanger wrote: post #281

Sangermaine wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No thank you. >My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make. But have you thought about why you feel this way? I assume you are American, as am I, and so I understand we've been socialized by our culture to feel this way, but it really makes no sense. It's just a way to harm workers by keeping us from seeing when we're being screwed. I'd even go so far as to wager that this entir…

Julian Assange in the house. I can see an argument for forcing public companies to post anonymized data about salaries, perhaps including gender, race and age. Thus ensuring employees or advocates can understand if they are being treated fairly. But, My salary is very private. Exposing it means I have less leverage in some negotiations. Not just wage, but sticking with that example, what if employers created a cabal…

Such a cabal would be and is illegal. I think you're referring to Apple's attempt at this, and that didn't end well for the entities involved.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#309

Post by kafkaesq » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 10:03 PM UTC

geebee wrote: post #60

I'd prefer to see this go in the other direction and make all salary information public. Right now, employers have far more information than employees, and I don't think this law will do much to change that. To me, it's similar to real estate - imagine if only sellers had access to the database of exactly what every house sold for and when, but buyers had to go with unsubstantiated, scattered rumors. Or vise versa. T…

For what it's worth, I work for a public institution and my salary, and the salary of all my coworkers, is public.

That's a choice you've chosen to make. Not everyone else would be comfortable with that choice, for a whole lot of (hopefully obvious) reasons.

The sky hasn't fallen.

Just because something doesn't, literally, bring the whole sky crashing down doesn't mean it's a... good idea. Or even not a pretty bad idea.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#310

Post by ryandrake » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 10:03 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #29

randyrand wrote: post #16

Well... there goes your expectation of an increased salary without negotiation. And they did this to improve the gender wage gap? People who don't negotiate will be stuck with their same salary year over year, while those that negotiate will have steadily increasing salaries.

Salary negotiation is a part of life. People need to learn to at least do the minimum amount of negotiation. If you're making $X and a new potential employer offers you $(0.9X), and you just accept it without countering, that's on you. People need to get over the fear that they'll lose their offer if they negotiate. The potential employer has already put in a lot of time (and money) to get to the offer stage; they're…

Salary negotiation is like black magic, and simplistic advice of "oh, just negotiate" reminds me of the "Draw the rest of the fucking owl" meme [1]. Every job offer I've ever gotten has been Accept Or GTFO. Asking for more always results in "That's the offer--take it or leave it!" Whoever you captains of industry are who regularly negotiate your salary, let me subscribe to your newsletter, please!

1: https://imgur.com/RadSf