If the #1 rule everyone should know is 'Never Talk to Police', #2 should be 'Never Reveal Your Salary'.
Talking About Money
201–210 of 412 posts
Re: Talking About Money
#202>> 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…
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Re: Talking About Money
#203Patrick's got a ton of great insight into salary negotiations, and this post is no exception. Everybody (especially engineers) - needs to get comfortable talking about compensation and wages in safe spaces. This shouldn't come from a sense of ego, but from a much more humble and sincere sense of information-sharing.
The people who are hurt the most by keeping compensation info secret are precisely the ones that need the information the most - folks from low income backgrounds, people worried about making more than their parents, etc.
As a practical tip, one thing I encourage everybody who's a client to model their equity grant in a simple excel spreadsheet. You need to know
* your strike price * preferred share price * company valuation * total # shares outstanding
As a rule of thumb you can assume your shares are "diluted" (that is your total % ownership relative to valuation) will decrease anywhere on the order of 15%-40%) after each funding round depending on company's performance. Plotting this beforehand, along with where you believe the company will end up, will give you a great sense of what your equity is worth.
[Source: I founded http://OfferLetter.io - We help engineers and other tech workers get what they're worth. If you're interested in free data, you should join Offer Drive (http://offerletter.io/drive.html to learn if you're paid fairly]
Re: Talking About Money
#204>> 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…
Don't lie, respond with this: "I cannot disclose my current salary, but my desired salary is X." They just need a number. If they will not accept desired salary in place of current salary, you do not want to work there.
Re: Talking About Money
#205Something which I think is only hinted at here: negotiating pay requires a willingness to lose the job if the negotiation doesn't go well. If hirer has an equally good candidate or consultant who quotes a lower rate: you're out of the running. Even if you're better, you have to be better value according to the employer's own assessment. There are few employers who are price insensitive and you have to be in an overwh…
> negotiating pay requires a willingness to lose the job if the negotiation doesn't go well. That's why, if possible, you negotiate when you already have another offer. I negotiated a +50% annual pay raise at my last job because I was completely willing to walk away for another job. I also got the raise because I was playing an important part in a high value project at that time. I felt a bit guilty about the possibi…
I felt a bit guilty about the possibility of leaving the project in the lurch
You shouldn't and you did well. Whenever you have a position of strength and the business can afford it, you should exercise it. Simple. This is business.
Re: Talking About Money
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
huh? what distinction? who says you have to tell them the truth? obviously if you make 40k you're not going to be competent enough to jump to 200k, but if you were making 150k and ask for 200k, just tell them you were making 190 before. who cares?
when it comes to this kind of topic on HN, sometimes i feel like i'm taking crazy pills.
Re: Talking About Money
#207>> 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…
Many times asking for your salary isn't a nefarious negotiating tactic - it's just to make sure both parties are in the same ballpark. If you're already at $110K and the opening tops out at $80K, there's no reason to waste either party's time.
Re: Talking About Money
#208As a recent graduate about to go into his first ever salary negotiation, I'm really grateful for the perspective this provides. My dad was a taxi driver (now drives for Uber) and my mother a stay-at-home mom. I was raised with the notion of earning enough to support myself. Anything beyond that is something I'm expected to figure out myself. Posts such as these are very helpful. A question though: 1. If I've had conv…
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…
Agree this is good advice a lot of the time. But just to offer an alternative possibility, there are other things that can affect the equation too. For instance, if you end up at the right startup you might learn a lot more than you would in the same amount of time at the alternative company. If you gave up $20k over 2 years by making, say, $100 instead of $110k at the startup, but then are able to jump to a job making $200k (which would have taken you much longer to work up to at the alternative company), you're a lot better off.
It still comes with some risk obviously, the startup could end up not going anywhere and you not learning much. But it's not nearly the risk of rolling the dice on equity.
Re: Talking About Money
#209If people knew everyone's salaries there would always be discontent. There will be people making less thinking that are better/more experience/worth more than person B making $X more than them.
There's always going to be discontent no matter what. If someone thinks they're worth more, you can either agree and pay them more or disagree and they can leave. That's how a market works. Your employees almost certainly already know more or less what they're all getting anyway, and most of them are probably unhappy about it. They keep showing up and doing the work because it beats the alternative for them.
Re: Talking About Money
#210>> 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…
Many times asking for your salary isn't a nefarious negotiating tactic - it's just to make sure both parties are in the same ballpark. If you're already at $110K and the opening tops out at $80K, there's no reason to waste either party's time.
It is still a negotiating tactic as you describe it -- they are trying to avoid disclosing information.