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Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you'll accept

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141–150 of 321 posts

Re: Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you'll accept

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't pay my employees based on inputs like how hard they work, I pay based on outputs. Any other system of incentives would be insane. Things are different if you're e.g. a lawyer and have billable hours.

I get this, but also genuinely interested to know how to measure outputs. For me it's almost impossible to get it objectively right. Maybe this doesn't apply to your case, but how would you measure outputs of say product development, or any data related project. Lot's of things don't have a good measure of output before the thing is done. Maybe your product / analysis improves profitability by 10x or maybe it was a f…

> I get this, but also genuinely interested to know how to measure outputs.

Measuring outputs or inputs (hard work) is always hard. Did someone get the thing that was asked done both quickly and correctly? Do they do this consistently?

I also find inputs harder to measure because someone could be in the office 12 hours/day, but on Facebook the whole time. They could also just spin their wheels doing 'fake' work.

Re: Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you'll accept

#142
post #8

I wonder if the winning game becomes your own boss and tiny companies. I want to do the jump, but lack of courage, good ideas, sales skills and a very good salary still holding me back (open for suggestions). But if the very good salary would go away, the scales tip instantly.

Probably not the answer you want to here but I'll share my perspective. Three years ago my wife and I sat down and optimized our finances so I could soft-retire and focus on a few of my life goals while simultaneously working on ways to generate income without the stress of being in the employ of others. It was tough work which mainly involved paying down a lot of debt so we can live more lean. We did a lot of optimi…

Whenever I read something like this I have to ask if kids are in the picture? Or maybe they've already moved away.

I'd like to do something like this but everything that has to do with kids is both too expensive and too unpredictable for lean living to be an achievable goal.

Re: Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you'll accept

#143
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you lie?

It works the same way here in the UK. Some companies ask your previous salary, and sometimes check your references, and sometimes your previous employer will disclose what your salary was. If it turns out you lied nothing bad happens, but you've just given your new employer a reason to dismiss you. The main problem with the UK system is that it means that if you were underpaid before you're likely to continue to be u…

> and sometimes your previous employer will disclose what your salary was

How is this even legal?

Re: Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you'll accept

#144
post #3

I'm not seeing how this matters, they were already doing that - the market is a big auction to work out the overlap between lowest salary employees will work for and the highest salary employers will offer. In that process employees also use data to figure out the highest salary that will be offered. The thing forcing employers to pay the salary they do is that if they offer less someone else will gazump them for the…

> I'm not seeing how this matters

Same. This is how any market works. I think one of the problems (US only maybe?) is that talking about salary is generally taboo. The first thing you should do with all your friends is be open about how much you make, and then go online and look for more data. That way you start with some good data points. Next is talk about negotiating. I was taught growing up that everything is negotiable, but later in life I learned that not everyone knows that.

Re: Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you'll accept

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your social class is written all over your face, your clothes, your manners, your manner of speaking, the company you keep, the hobbies you have, where and how you spend your time... This is not true for lots of software developers who grew up poor but got rich. I wear shitty clothes, live in the ghetto, my hobbies are video games, cycling, and porn, and when speaking I code-switch easily. If anything, it's the oth…

I grew up with a single dad that while having a good salary also had the mortgage to pay. So I was middle class, but never had the niceties my peers had. I moved out before finishing school (I did finish living on my own) and working 40 - 60 hours next to school - while being officially below the poverty line. This went on during most of my university days. When starting a job I had to live frugally, because it had a…

Once I was invited to some gathering. Right at the beginning they asked me if I'm from $ENVIRONEMTNAL_ORGANIZATION. I thought they were just fucking with me so I replied laughing/ironically "Do I look like I'm from $ENVIRONEMNTAL_ORGANIZATION?".

Turns out, they were dead serious. For the rest of the evening we had some boring-ass shitty activities and insufferable conversations. 0/10 I checked out early and never showed up again.

Re: Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you'll accept

#146
post #143
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works the same way here in the UK. Some companies ask your previous salary, and sometimes check your references, and sometimes your previous employer will disclose what your salary was. If it turns out you lied nothing bad happens, but you've just given your new employer a reason to dismiss you. The main problem with the UK system is that it means that if you were underpaid before you're likely to continue to be u…

> and sometimes your previous employer will disclose what your salary was How is this even legal?

I suspect it's not, but it's also hard to prove something has occurred in private communication between third parties.

Re: Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you'll accept

#147
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for Equifax many moons ago. They had a problem with people taking jobs there that no one else wanted, solely to gain access to their systems and reset their own credit scores. And, for some reason, they couldn’t roll it back once found out. Great company.

How does that work with multiple credit agencies?

Many banks are known for pulling from a particular one.

Re: Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you'll accept

#148
post #97
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I assume such situations occur often in Sweden where it's really awkward if you want to hang out with a crowd from lower social class because they know your earnings. You don't have to be in Sweden to have a pretty good idea within a few minutes of talking to someone, of what the ballpark for their earnings is. Your social class is written all over your face, your clothes, your manners, your manner of speaking, the…

I am technically in the upper class based on income and place of residence. I drive an 11 year old vehicle, wear inexpensive clothes (often plain tees), eat out infrequently, etc. I unintentionally spend more in areas that tend not to be obvious to non-friends. I'd be upset if people could easily lookup my income.

An 11 years old vehicle could be a Corolla or an S-Klass.

Re: Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you'll accept

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, you live in a society that has conditioned you to devalue manual labour and erronously assume that no one exists who actually enjoys physical interaction with the world. As you're likely to be in the US, you could always watch the Mike Rowe Dirty Jobs back catalog. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenny_(2006_film)

That's true for some jobs, but I'd be very surprised if anyone enjoys cleaning shit, for example

It can be enjoyable in the context of failure analysis: troubleshooting, finding root causes, documenting other people's fuckups then tracing through the assignment logs on who interacted with the server last.

Re: Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you'll accept

#150

One (more) thing to opt out of: Freeze Your Data - The Work Number https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze As I understand it, payroll whores your salary out to Equifax*, who then pimps it to others * Yeah, that one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Equifax_data_breach

As a European, it is wild to see a private company warning that disallowing them the ability to process your personal data might hinder your ability to access social services.

Have a look at german Schufa company. I was there pre RGPD, so maybe things have changed.
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