Talking About Money • Hacker News Board

Re: Talking About Money

#151

Post by eropple » Fri, May 01, 2015, 10:33 PM UTC

civilian wrote: post #126

jsprogrammer wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he was right to question it?

I suppose so? If I was a recruiter I wouldn't question what I thought was a 5k discrepancy. I was doing well though--- making 90k after 3 years of programming, and my bluff was 95k. I think that just the real salary alone would have been enough for him to raise suspicions.

Depends on the area, I guess. I don't think people would have blinked in SF or Boston at that.

Or he was screwing with you to try to drag down your ask. Happens pretty frequently, because their incentives don't align with yours (it's the realtor problem all over again).

Re: Talking About Money

#152

Post by alexqgb » Fri, May 01, 2015, 10:34 PM UTC

JoblessWonder wrote: post #124

alexqgb wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. One way to deflect the question is by saying that you're not about to provide any non-public information about an employer to anyone outside that company, and that includes specific details about their pay structure. You can also note that while this may not be the answer the interviewer is looking for, it does represent the kind of discretion that the company is likely to appreciate in the event that you do…

> saying that you're not about to provide any non-public information about an employer to anyone outside that company, and that includes details about their pay structure. I really like this advice! Thanks for the tip. I'm stuck being [possibly...] underpaid at the moment and struggling with how to address my current salary without tanking future offers.

Hope this helps. Good luck. And one more thought: even though companies have pay ranges for each position, they're not about to disclose that directly, for obvious reasons. Instead, the person negotiating on their behalf will size you up, and pick a number from the bottom or the top of the range accordingly.

Assuming your deflection doesn't end the conversation, the fact that you can hold your ground calmly and polity, yet firmly and clearly will probably cause the rep. to opt for the high end.

Re: Talking About Money

#153

Post by beachstartup » Fri, May 01, 2015, 10:35 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #83

eqdw wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point where you quote a wildly inflated salary with a straight face. "My last salary was $300,000. Yes, seriously. Is that too high for you? We can discuss this further in negotiations, I'm flexible"

I've done this before. It worked. To figure out what number you should cite, look in a mirror. Keep saying bigger numbers. Don't stop until you've got a sheepish grin on your face.

LOL, of course it works. why wouldn't it? someone asks you a question, you give them an answer. to me all of this buffoonery around hiding your salary requirements sounds ridiculous.

i'm a startup co-founder, i hire all the time.

if i asked someone what their salary requirements are and they said 200k or 300k i'd immediately interview them to see if they're worth that much. i would take it as a personal challenge to see if i could stump them, and if i couldn't, i'd start negotiating their salary on the spot.

some people get paid MILLIONS OF DOLLARS! how the hell d'ya you think they got that much? they asked for it!

people who don't want to "reveal" their salary requirements like it's some big huge secret have probably never hired anyone in their life.

Re: Talking About Money

#154

Post by dogecoinbase » Fri, May 01, 2015, 10:35 PM UTC

interesting_att wrote: post #139

There has been a recent trend in tech discussions to have greater transparency in compensation, and more importantly, removing negotiation from employment procedure (see recent changes at Reddit). I fear that this move would dramatically hurt startups, who need all the flexibility they can get. Moreover, this move could dramatically kill any form of cohesiveness in startups. Lastly, this move would de-emphasize the i…

By opening up everyone's salaries, it will only hurt the startup culture...

This is completely true, though perhaps not for the reasons you put forth. "Startup culture", as it currently exists, is a mechanism for VCs to consume recent CS grads who don't know how much they're worth and extract as much value from them as possible before they get a family/house/realization of how they should actually be compensated. Startups and VCs use their information asymmetry as regards salaries to exploit this inefficiency in the compensation market.

Imagine if by paying 20k extra, you can get one of those mythical "10x rockstar" engineers. Would you remove your ability to hire him?

You haven't removed your ability to hire them at all by being transparent about compensation -- you simply now have to be able to justify that to your team. If you are unable to justify it, that should tell you all you need to know about what "10x" means.

Recognizing that someone is tricking you by using guilt to convince you to suppress your own salary is the first step of learning how to negotiate effectively.

Re: Talking About Money

#155

Post by rcoder » Fri, May 01, 2015, 10:37 PM UTC

interesting_att wrote: post #139

There has been a recent trend in tech discussions to have greater transparency in compensation, and more importantly, removing negotiation from employment procedure (see recent changes at Reddit). I fear that this move would dramatically hurt startups, who need all the flexibility they can get. Moreover, this move could dramatically kill any form of cohesiveness in startups. Lastly, this move would de-emphasize the i…

I seriously disagree with just about every point in this.

First off, transparency != lack of negotiation. It just means that your colleagues might be able to see the outcome of that negotiation. Even with salary bands you still need to determine where in the band you land on day 1, and those bands are often wide enough (10-15%) to allow quite a lot of flexibility. Also, most "large corporations" will have many job descriptions and titles indicating seniority: an Engineer II will have a wildly different salary band from Principal Engineer, leaving plenty of room for negotiation on hire.

Second, there is basically no way to determine that someone is a "10x" engineer (if such even exists) via an interview. Decades of studies across the industry have shown that interviews are a terrible means of assessing potential performance, and unless you've worked with someone on an essentially identical product in a similar company before you can't predict their output now. (Also, see above re: strawman argument about not being able to move $20k for an exemplary candidate.)

Third, if you can't build trust across teams (with or without visible salary info) you have much deeper problems than your comp being public. Fix this before everything else. If you're building "cohesiveness" by implying to your staff that every other teams makes less money (and is therefore less valued) you're setting yourself up for real problems down the road.

Finally, salary negotiation is a very different beast than feature and scope negotiation. The former assumes a selfish if not antagonistic stance ("get as much as I can") while the latter should be collaborative ("deliver the best possible outcome given our constraints"). People who are good at the former may or may not have the empathy and vision needed to deliver on the latter.

Re: Talking About Money

#156

Post by ajju » Fri, May 01, 2015, 10:38 PM UTC

marktangotango wrote: post #39

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy. I'd definitely send a quick note to someone higher up if you can get a hold of him/her. I know, not worth the time, a hassle etc. But a typical CEO worth his salt will crush something silly like that in no-time, if you really want to hire good people this is the type of person you want to fire. I mean, hell, asking the question is one thing. I can live with that. But turning that into some kind of litmus test…

Yes, one might think so, but this was the CEO in question[1]. Edit, and so far as bluffing, could an employer legally ask for W2's to verify? [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/business/stinging-office-m...

You certainly shouldn't share your salary, much less provide a W2, for most positions. However, not only is it not illegal to ask for a W2, for most sales positions it is the norm.

The reason is that sales people make most of their money on commissions in most places, and checking how much they made in commissions in previous years is the simplest way to figure out how effective they have been in past positions.

There is an altogether separate discussion about whether commission heavy compensation works better or not though.

Re: Talking About Money

#157

Post by dylanjermiah » Fri, May 01, 2015, 10:38 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #149

interesting_att wrote: post #139

There has been a recent trend in tech discussions to have greater transparency in compensation, and more importantly, removing negotiation from employment procedure (see recent changes at Reddit). I fear that this move would dramatically hurt startups, who need all the flexibility they can get. Moreover, this move could dramatically kill any form of cohesiveness in startups. Lastly, this move would de-emphasize the i…

Publicizing salary just requires, as a prerequisite, publicizing the objective value each employee is adding to the company. Which requires everyone agreeing on an objective standard for calculating that value. Once you have that, kbowing salary isn't nearly as scary. On the other hand, once you have that, people will start actually thinking of their peers in terms of being high- or low-ROI...

Most will not see not see if as their coworkers objective value. You're dealing with people of emotion, not objectivity.

Re: Talking About Money

#158

Post by r00fus » Fri, May 01, 2015, 10:41 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #63

brentshields wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding bluffing: I've seen it happen where the company has asked for a pay stub as part of the final paperwork to confirm that the stated current salary was legit. So yeah that could be a downside to bluffing if you want the job.

I've never heard of such a thing but it undoubtedly happens. Your pay stub is really just showing the floor though. For many positions, there are fairly regular bonuses, variable comp, etc. So, in reality, there's usually some wiggle room in providing current salary info while still being essentially truthful.

I've seen colleagues in Sales offer to show W-2 information, to disclose all compensation.

Re: Talking About Money

#159

Post by serve_yay » Fri, May 01, 2015, 10:43 PM UTC

marktangotango wrote: post #9

>> Most important takeaway about salary negotiation, by the way: disclosing a previous salary is almost always against your interests because it pegs your new salary to that plus 5% rather than your value to the new firm minus a discount, which is a brutal mistake I had a phone screen with an HR drone once (Cerner Inc. to be exact \waves) part way thru she asked me my current salary. I declined to provide that inform…

You made the right call, I think, unless there was some way to get what you were looking for by either answering the question with a lie, or otherwise evading it. Sometimes, people press you for info because they need to have it on paper that they tried. It's possible you could have just made up a number, and the HR drone just needed something to write on the paper. But anyway, yeah, answering that question honestly is for suckers.

Re: Talking About Money

#160

Post by saturdayplace » Fri, May 01, 2015, 10:50 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #115

civilian wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can't legally ask for proof, no. Bluff away! (I'm not a lawyer and this does not constitute legal advice.) I did a small bluff to try it out, just 5k above what I was making. The recruiter was surprisingly skeptical! I know I've done an good job of bumping up my salary in a short amount of time, but it was kind of off-putting to have him question it.

I just say "I'm looking for $X" when asked, then it's not even a bluff.

This is what happened in my last negotiation, where $X was a 30%-ish raise. They didn't bat an eye, and made an offer of exactly $X. I asked them, "Could we make that $(X + .06*X) and they did.

Negotiate.