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Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

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Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My "never again" story was around a decade ago. Thoughtworks had me interview with roughly a dozen people over half a dozen or more interviews, lasting ~20 hours (if you include the proctored Wunderlic test they administered to me on premises). At the end of that lengthy process, they said they would have loved to bring me on but "didn't have any open positions that fit my set of skills". You know, that set of skills…

Thoughtworks also screwed me like that. They gave me a take-home assignment which took few hours. At the end, their feedback was - my code is not cloud scalable and their were some values that I used directly and not from a configuration :-). How can those people claim to be interviewers?

By mistake - I used the wrong 'their'. Apologies

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not in the US, but I work for a US based company. My contract specifically says I work 40h/week, have X days off/year (outside of statutory holidays) as PTO, etc. This means that 5 days a week, I am at my keyboard, available on Slack, etc for 8 hours per day. Hours are logged in a time tracking application (including time spent when there was nothing to do), and overages get added automatically to holiday time.

Thats a contract position, not a salaried position. Most tech job in the US do not pay hourly. A salaried position says you will make X per year including benefits like unlimited PTO, 401K matching, reserved stock units, discount stock purchasing program, life insurance, medical insurance, etc... There is also no logging of time because your pay cannot be raised or reduced on a weekly basis.

jobs on salaries still have an expectation of how many hours you will work and some provide PTO comp for "overtime". tracking this often does mean filling out a time sheet or punching a clock, even though those times don't directly figure into your paycheck.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#503
I created a confidential salary survey app for companies/candidates who don't want to give a number. The idea was that the company would put a budget, and just get a yes/no answer whether the candidate expectation was in range.

This way nobody loses any negotiation leverage, and no interview time would be wasted over salary.

I didn't know how to get traction for it though. Any ideas?

https://payscope.appspot.com/

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#504
I have this problem. As a result, a friend and I made a developer job search and recruiting tool that requires employers to state how much they pay. It will actively filter out developers who won’t accept less than what you’re offering.

Developers express their preferences — pay, schedule, interests, values, etc. — and then only hear about new jobs if they match their preferences.

https://polyfill.work

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#505
post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seriously don't get how slow firms hire anyone. Surely the people you want will vanish quickly? I recently found a new job, had a backup offer after a week, and the job I actually wanted 4 weeks later, after about 7 working days post contact. After I signed, several of the firms I'd interviewed with got back to me with interest. This is weeks after initial contact, and weeks after the last interview, so if course I…

It depends entirely on priorities and circumstance. Some folks are willing and able to wait to work somewhere they feel is a perfect fit for them, or special in some other way; others may be interested in transitioning to new work ASAP (or need to, for financial reasons). When I left my last job, I quit without having anything lined up, and was fortunate enough to have a bit of buffer to take some time off to recuper…

0.1-1% hire rate based on applicants, or based on candidates interviewed? 0.1% hire rate of candidates interviewed doesn't seem compatible with your described growth rate, even if you very conservatively assumes you spend 1 hour interviewing each candidate, thats 25 weeks of straight interviewing per candidate hired. And thats 1 hour of time across the whole company, if you have 2 interviewers spend an hour each, thats now 50 employee-weeks, or an entire year. To double the company size in 5 years, you would have needed to spend 1/5th of your entire tenure interviewing. If you go up to 10 total hours spent per candidate (including all interviewers, recruiters, and time spend in discussion and negotiation) it becomes straight up impossible.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#506
post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seriously don't get how slow firms hire anyone. Surely the people you want will vanish quickly? I recently found a new job, had a backup offer after a week, and the job I actually wanted 4 weeks later, after about 7 working days post contact. After I signed, several of the firms I'd interviewed with got back to me with interest. This is weeks after initial contact, and weeks after the last interview, so if course I…

It depends entirely on priorities and circumstance. Some folks are willing and able to wait to work somewhere they feel is a perfect fit for them, or special in some other way; others may be interested in transitioning to new work ASAP (or need to, for financial reasons). When I left my last job, I quit without having anything lined up, and was fortunate enough to have a bit of buffer to take some time off to recuper…

I'd like to know what company this is. There's an email in profile if you like.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not possible because their $500k/year likely only materializes after vesting. Leaving after only 3-4 years on the job would mean the realized yearly comp is closer to 200-250k.

Sorry but that's not how it works. $500k/year would mean roughly $250k base+bonus and $1 million of stocks vested over four years. And at most companies, the vesting starts after 1 year. So at the end of year one, you would have made $500k in base+bonus+stocks. And after that you would usually get the stocks every quarter so $62.5k worth of stocks every quarter. I am not sure where is your figure of 200-250k Total Co…

When someone says $500k/year, they usually mean a package like $150k base + $350k stocks with yearly grants.

For the standard 4-year vesting schedule, and assuming a new $350k grant every year, this means actual earnings are:

   Year 1: $150k + $0        $150k
   Year 2: $150k + $87.5k    $237.5k
   Year 3: $150k + $87.5k*2  $325k
   Year 4: $150k + $87.5k*3  $412k
If you leave here, at year 4, and lose all unvested options (expected), your actual average was $281k/year.

Only by year 5 you'll finally actually earn the $500k/year, and the vesting schedule has such an impact on the early earnings that even after a decade, your yearly average is still $400k.

Not to forget taxes. So the idea to "save for one year then take 6 years off" is kinda off the menu unless they've been at the company for a long, long time, or are willing to spend those 6 years living in Thailand.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#508
post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends entirely on priorities and circumstance. Some folks are willing and able to wait to work somewhere they feel is a perfect fit for them, or special in some other way; others may be interested in transitioning to new work ASAP (or need to, for financial reasons). When I left my last job, I quit without having anything lined up, and was fortunate enough to have a bit of buffer to take some time off to recuper…

0.1-1% hire rate based on applicants, or based on candidates interviewed? 0.1% hire rate of candidates interviewed doesn't seem compatible with your described growth rate, even if you very conservatively assumes you spend 1 hour interviewing each candidate, thats 25 weeks of straight interviewing per candidate hired. And thats 1 hour of time across the whole company, if you have 2 interviewers spend an hour each, tha…

Surely it's not based on interviews. You'll lose the will to live if one in a thousand interviewees gets the job.

Based on applicants it's ok, went all seen how any job ad attracts piles and piles of spam applications.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#509
post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends entirely on priorities and circumstance. Some folks are willing and able to wait to work somewhere they feel is a perfect fit for them, or special in some other way; others may be interested in transitioning to new work ASAP (or need to, for financial reasons). When I left my last job, I quit without having anything lined up, and was fortunate enough to have a bit of buffer to take some time off to recuper…

0.1-1% hire rate based on applicants, or based on candidates interviewed? 0.1% hire rate of candidates interviewed doesn't seem compatible with your described growth rate, even if you very conservatively assumes you spend 1 hour interviewing each candidate, thats 25 weeks of straight interviewing per candidate hired. And thats 1 hour of time across the whole company, if you have 2 interviewers spend an hour each, tha…

Oh, for sure, that would be nuts. 0.1–1% of applicants.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father once told me that money is how the company tells you how much they value you. It isn't just about the money, it's about the respect. Many, many people leave jobs because of the salary. Not just they need more money, but because they know they're worth more than that and can get it. Those people are not going to bother looking at jobs that pay less than they're worth. They are absolutely going to look at the…

There is a lot more complexity to this. For example, I used to work in a SCIF for a government contractor in Northern Virginia, making 95k. No windows, no internet, no cell phone, no outside software without an approval process (had to manually burn linux packages to a CD, often multiple times a day because of dependencies). Then I got a job at Amazon in their Austin location, essentially almost tripling my salary wi…

Oy, yeah. Getting people to even consider changing jobs is really tough. I've been surprised by it in the past, but I'm less and less surprised by it as I see it happen more.

I feel some of it myself, so I can understand it, but it's crazy hard for so many people.

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