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Salary expectations questions – How should you answer them? (2020)

fearlesssalarynegotiation.com

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Re: Salary expectations questions – How should you answer them? (2020)

#31

Post by akomtu »

voytec wrote: post #19

I've talked to several recruiters and HR people who were prepared for quite a different answer than I gave to this question. I got the feeling that several interviews were carried out afterwards out of politeness or because the recruiter "had to" do it, but the interview ended before it began. Than, there's either ghosting or almost immediate (like up to an hour past the interview) copy-paste email along the lines of…

Most of the software is more like landscaping than architecture, but software engineers want to build fancy bridges and gothic temples.

Re: Salary expectations questions – How should you answer them? (2020)

#32

Post by tomp »

scarface_74 wrote: post #14
wordofx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recruiters only get paid if a candidate stays beyond a period of time. If the candidate does not work out the recruiter needs to find a replacement. Recruiters won’t deal with shit people because if they don’t stay or are prone to not working out they are a burden. In terms of money it’s usually a percentage of the salary. So if the recruiter works on 10% then they have incentive to get you as much money as possible.

The incentive is not to make sure you get the most money. The incentive is to make sure you get placed fast. While $200K vs $220K means a lot to you over the course of your job, they aren’t going to risk losing a placement arguing for you to get $20K more so their firm can get $44K instead of $40k and the recruiter themselves can get maybe 60% of what the firm gets. There was a famous similar study published in Freak…

200 vs 220 is likely noise. The recruiter shouldn’t care about tha2, and neither should you.

But £200k vs £400k is real!

That’s the real span for e.g. hedge funds in London. Actually, it was a few years ago. Probably more now!

Re: Salary expectations questions – How should you answer them? (2020)

#33

Post by paulddraper »

Fargren wrote: post #26
dijit wrote: post #4

Unless you end up with someone like me who has a budget and always pays the max. I usually ask "what do you expect to be paid" to understand if I'll make them happy or sad when discussing what I'll actually offer. This is not foolproof and has caused some issues with people coming in as very good negotiators and thinking my inability to budge is because I'm being hard-line, when in reality it's because- as mentioned,…

> Unless you end up with someone like me who has a budget and always pays the max. Why don't you disclose the value to the candidate then, rather than asking what's their expectation?

Because it helps you position the offer, and emphasize/sell certain parts.

Salary, equity, title, working hours, etc.

More information always helps.

Re: Salary expectations questions – How should you answer them? (2020)

#34

Post by kmoser »

ripped_britches wrote: post #29
slwvx wrote: post #9

Stacey Vanek Smith wrote "Machiavelli for Women". She said in radio interviews about the book that she wanted to put in the book the suggestion that if an interviewer asks what you make, an interviewee should reply with the real value plus 10%. Apparently legal people at her publisher did not allow her to put this in the book. I think it's reasonable to ask what an interviewee expects to make, but not reasonable to a…

Bad idea to lie when there are other equally valid negotiation tactics available. I had a job early in my career and they asked to see my W2 from my previous employer to validate that my previous job income answer was correct and finish onboarding. Much better to instead have a second competing job offer in hand. Clearly that’s more competitive than your old job you’re leaving anyway.

Theoretically, what they pay you should have nothing to do with your current salary, given that your current salary could be anywhere from $0 (e.g. if you're an unpaid intern) to INT_MAX (if you're being vastly overpaid).

As a freelancer who gets paid by the hour or by the job, I've never been in a position to negotiate salary directly, so I wonder how tenable it is to politely decline to answer questions about your current salary, given that it may give the potential employer more leverage against you.

I equate this to businesses (not you employer but places like the cable company) asking for your SSN: they may want it, but you are not always legally or morally obligated to provide them with it.

Re: Salary expectations questions – How should you answer them? (2020)

#36

Post by goldeneye13_ »

I always recommend this article: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/ I think this topic is super important and I’m really glad I didn’t follow advice of saying your “expected salary or expected +20%”. Here my anecdotal SWE salary history:

Worked at a startup for a bunch of years making 90k by the end

Got offered a place at FAANG. Recruiter pushed me a little bit on expected salary but I didn’t give one using all the approached from the linked article. They offered me 250k. I would have never ever assumed that I can be payed this much. Instead of accepting I again followed the advice and asked for time to think. I had no counter offers but spoke to the recruiter thanked them for the offer and asked if there’s room for improvement. And they were nice and reasonable, they said yes if there are counter offers or you are leaving unvested stock behind. I was leaving unvested stock in an unprofitable startup, but I wrote the amount and vesting schedule and got offer bumped by 25k.

After working there I considered going to trading shop. Used the same approach and they offered 400k. Again this number seemed insane at the time. So I asked for more, this time I had much lower counter offer. But I could use it as some form of leverage. They upped the offer by 150k by the end (this is sign on+ salary+guaranteed first year bonus).

I am writing this not to show off the numbers, but to show other engineers that your idea of how much you should be payed could be completely wrong. Let the employer give information first and don’t back yourself into the corner by revealing your ignorance of market or minimum comp you are willing to take.

Re: Salary expectations questions – How should you answer them? (2020)

#37

Post by dijit »

the_gipsy wrote: post #28
dijit wrote: post #4

Unless you end up with someone like me who has a budget and always pays the max. I usually ask "what do you expect to be paid" to understand if I'll make them happy or sad when discussing what I'll actually offer. This is not foolproof and has caused some issues with people coming in as very good negotiators and thinking my inability to budge is because I'm being hard-line, when in reality it's because- as mentioned,…

Are you not allowed to disclose salary first? Sorry to be blunt, but if you are allowed, then this sounds incredibly stupid.

I can disclose, but when I have people start trying to negotiate as if it's a starting position, they get really happy with the number and then irreconcilably annoyed when they realise the number doesn't change.

Hindsight and looking externally on the situation would have you think that you'd react differently, but it's a 5/5 repro rate.

If I think the money is enough then I'm quite happy, but if they expect more then I have to emphasise other parts of the job (remote first structure for example, and flexible working hours) - I wouldn't need to do that if their request was lower than what I offer.

Re: Salary expectations questions – How should you answer them? (2020)

#38

Post by [deleted] »

paulddraper wrote: post #33
Fargren wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless you end up with someone like me who has a budget and always pays the max. Why don't you disclose the value to the candidate then, rather than asking what's their expectation?

Because it helps you position the offer, and emphasize/sell certain parts. Salary, equity, title, working hours, etc. More information always helps.

[deleted]

Re: Salary expectations questions – How should you answer them? (2020)

#39

Post by vitus »

One other thing to have in your back pocket:

In certain jurisdictions, it's actually against the law for employers to ask you for your current salary during the interview process (pre-offer), as that can perpetuate wage discrimination. (This is different from asking about salary expectations.)

It looks like 17 US states have a ban that applies to all employers: https://www.hrdive.com/news/salary-history-ban-states-list/5...

(The relevant laws in DC, NC, PA, VA only apply to local government, and AL's law is somewhat weaker in that it only prohibits rejecting a candidate based on not providing salary history.)

Notably, many of these laws are worded as a prohibition on seeking salary history, and do not differentiate between asking the candidate directly and querying third-party databases like The Work Number.

Re: Salary expectations questions – How should you answer them? (2020)

#40

Post by StableAlkyne »

dijit wrote: post #4

Unless you end up with someone like me who has a budget and always pays the max. I usually ask "what do you expect to be paid" to understand if I'll make them happy or sad when discussing what I'll actually offer. This is not foolproof and has caused some issues with people coming in as very good negotiators and thinking my inability to budge is because I'm being hard-line, when in reality it's because- as mentioned,…

> If you have to reward someone valuable then it should probably be via bonus' imo.

That, and it should be individual, instead of the "based on how the company performed" thing many do.

A star engineer who overhauls cuts your server costs in half shouldn't get dinged because someone in sales couldn't be effective

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