Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Talking About Money

kalzumeus.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 412 posts

Re: Talking About Money

#191

Post by toomuchtodo »

otterley wrote: post #146
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.

> They can't legally ask for proof, no. Bluff away! Well, I am a lawyer, and this is also not legal advice. To lie and accept a job offer whose salary is predicated on the lie would constitute fraud. Lying about your former compensation history is no different than lying about a prior criminal record, if the counterparty relies on the false assertion.

Unless current employer a) receives your permission to pull your tax return transcripts or b) receives your permission to contact your previous employer and you provide permission for previous employer to divulge said information, you will almost surely not be found out.

Disclaimer: Not a lawyer, not your lawyer, but fairly confident based on past experience with this over ~15 years.

Re: Talking About Money

#192

Post by qzcx »

pipermerriam wrote: post #49

I wrote a small application a while back to allow a team to figure out what their average salary was without exposing individual salaries. Seems relevant. https://are-we-being-underpaid.herokuapp.com/ It generates unique URLS for each participant and stores almost nothing on the server. Only a party that was actively monitoring web traffic has enough information to divine someone's salary. No tracking of emails, sala…

Very cool. This looks like a solid answer to a simple question that many people would like answered. Now if only I could think up good side projects like this to do. : )

Re: Talking About Money

#193

Post by pmichaud »

beachstartup wrote: post #153
nilkn wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's an important distinction here though. This isn't a discussion about disclosing salary requirements, it's a discussion about disclosing previous salary, presumably so the company can make you an offer only marginally better than that. That's a big problem if you're already underpaid.

Re: Talking About Money

#194

Post by L_Rahman »

beambot wrote: post #187
saryant wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re 2), you should make sure your salary is at market-level and more or less ignore equity. Chances are you'll be let go or the company will collapse before it's worth anything. If you have a reasonable salary, equity is just a cherry on top, but if an employer tries to get you to trade cash today for a startup lottery ticket, say no. This is especially important early in your career given the time value of money. An…

Since L_Rahman didn't mention "startup" per se.... The Equity / RSU package from many big (publicly-traded) tech firms can be as much as 30% of total compensation. I generally account for this portion the same as "cash with a discount" -- when negotiating for my current role, I used a 30% discount on the present share price. For startups... it's a mixed bag (as saryant mentions).

Most comments have responded assuming that it is a startup, and it was a correct assumption.

But it's helpful to know that large publicly traded tech companies can offer as much as 30%. If or when I do choose to work for one, I'll keep that in mind.

Re: Talking About Money

#195

Post by toomuchtodo »

fredkbloggs wrote: post #184
JoblessWonder wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We regularly get requests for job title/tenure/salary verification forms from former employees. I'm not sure what our status on completing them is though, but there are at least some companies out there that go through the legwork to check up on something after a job offer.

If you have a corporate lawyer and/or experienced HR director, you do the same thing everyone does: inform the questioner of the individual's dates of employment and nothing else.

And if you don't have intelligent HR/legal counsel, you're on the receiving end of a lawsuit by said previous employee.

Re: Talking About Money

#196

Post by toomuchtodo »

anigbrowl wrote: post #105
kamaal wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get fired if they figure out you have been fudging the figures and 'lying' to them. I'm not sure how they would know, but if they do, it can create problems for you.

Error-level analysis of the Jpeg. As you say, if it comes out later that could have bad legal consequences - the term is 'detrimental reliance' and the dishonest person could conceivably face fraud charges. Even if not, it could easily become a a career-damaging topic of gossip.

I have yet to find any case law where this occurs.

Regarding gossip, "Would you trust a company who checks up on someone's previous paycheck?" seems to quell that pretty quickly.

Re: Talking About Money

#197

Post by bdcravens »

to3m wrote: post #163
ochoseis wrote: post #148

Interesting use of the term Rack Rate in the article -- I had to google it: The published, full price for a room in a hotel that has not been pre-booked [1] [1] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rack_rate

"the official or advertised price of a hotel room, on which a discount is usually negotiable ."

Look on the door in the room, and it'll show the rate, which is typically far greater than what you paid (typically 2-3x)

Re: Talking About Money

#198

Post by bkurtz13 »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #34
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…

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…

This has happened to me several times. It's not nearly as rare as you think.

Re: Talking About Money

#199

Post by beambot »

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…

The funniest one I ever had: Going from my wife's startup to Google.

> What is your current salary?

> I make minimum wage, plus founder equity current valued at $X Million over the next few years.

I soon made it clear to the recruiter (who was very nice and understanding, btw) that previous compensation comprised of intentionally-minuscule salary and startup equity with funny-money valuations would not be a good proxy for my value-add. Worked out fine.

Re: Talking About Money

#200

Post by nailer »

Dewie3 wrote: post #140

> The movement is rather Marxist in character, but this capitalist encourages you to [...] > I’m not a Marxist — Yes, you said that in the opening sentence... Americans are very defensive about coming off as "Marxist"/"socialist".

Healthy marxism and healthy capitalism actually look pretty similar. A free market for people, aware of their market value and able to move between employers without artificial restriction looks a whole lot like the proletariat seizing the means of production.
Post reply on HN