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Talking About Money

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Re: Talking About Money

#291

Post by robryan »

vivekpreddy wrote: post #277
Nicholas_C wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar experience with a recruiter. I asked why and she couldn't come up with a compelling answer, she just said "That's just how it is, we need your salary." She escalated it to her manager and he pulled the same. I eventually complied but not without telling them I didn't ever receive a good reason and it makes zero sense and I couldn't see how it would do anything but hurt me. Funny enough I ended up gett…

I head up recruiting at the company I work for. The biggest reason I ask this is that I'm worried a candidate's expectations are outside of what our budget is. There really is no other legitimate reason to ask in my opinion. Having said that, I'm always happy to share a range (depending on experience level and how the interview process goes of course). What I don't understand is that most startups do put ranges on An…

How often does the end offer end up being outside the range that you are initially considering for a position?

Re: Talking About Money

#292

Post by sgustard »

tptacek wrote: post #84
cpeterso wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glassdoor.com seems to have fairly accurate salary reports across different companies, jobs, and geographies.

Glassdoor has never been accurate about any firm I had firsthand knowledge of.

Agreed. Well, I've seen it be reasonably accurate about the salaries (and associated gripes) of the lowest-performing 20%. You can use their numbers if that's where you place yourself.

Re: Talking About Money

#293

Post by nodelessness »

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…

>> 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

That is actually not true. This kind of employee low balling is condoned behavior.

I applied for a position at Automattic and had Matt Mullenweg (CEO) pull this on me.

Everything seemed to have gone perfectly well - everyone involved in the process seemed impressed with my abilities but when it came to this point and I declined I was told "I seem to be senstive about being Indian" out of nowhere. I don't know where that came from.

Re: Talking About Money

#294

Post by wonderthrowaway »

patio11 wrote: post #72
icedchai wrote: post #35

It would be interesting to see networth along with the salary numbers.

That would involve a whole lot of making stuff up, since valuations for privately held tech companies dominate my net worth at for the last ~8 years. They only time you know know what they're worth is when they are sold. The liabilities side of the balance sheet is less complicated: I owed $22k in student loans at graduation, paid that off, incurred a fair bit of debt back in ~2013 (raided the 2012 tax fund to pay fo…

At the end of the day, I have to believe you mentally calculate this net worth line (say, with a conservative 1x ARR on the investments) if you're to the point of talking to accountants about becoming an accredited investor.

Although props if you are conservative enough not to even entertain the thought of counting unhatched chickens. That's responsible, disciplined behavior. The kind that gives you the confidence to go launch Starfighter...

Re: Talking About Money

#295

Post by retrogradeorbit »

It's like no one has every heard of a salary survey, and thinks the only way to get that information is for everyone to reveal their pay!

Just go buy a salary survey! The information will be far more detailed than just random salary tweets from people in different roles, with different capabilities and different experiences in different cities in different countries.

Hey, someone doing my job in San Fran gets $200k! I'm going to go and ask my employer for that! A quick check of a salary survey might sober me up.

Also a salary survey is far more potent data to present in a salary negotiation to convince people to pay you what you want, rather than "Someone on twitter said...".

Re: Talking About Money

#297

Post by sounds »

nodelessness wrote: post #293
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…

>> 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 That is actually not true. This kind of employee low balling is condoned behavior. I applied for a position at Automattic and had Matt Mullenweg (CEO) pull this on me. Everything seemed to have gone perfectly well - everyone involved in the process see…

Thank you for sharing. It takes courage to name and shame a company for bad behavior.

Re: Talking About Money

#298

Post by baby »

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…

For my internship, I got asked on the phone how much the others were offering me. I first asked "if I tell you, will you lower your offer?". It got my interviewer a pretty good laugh and he told me that he wasn't that malicious. I told him what he wanted to hear and I think I got a fair offer anyway (which was like more than twice the best offer I had).

Re: Talking About Money

#299

Post by arrrg »

dkrich wrote: post #106
chralieboy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> However, I think aside from benefiting companies, a lack of transparency around salaries benefits those who are good at negotiating, whereas complete transparency helps those who are not good at negotiating. This is exactly why salaries _should_ be transparent. Skill at negotiating salaries, unless you are an agent, is not a relevant skill. If you are an engineer, for example, the company should not be rewarding o…

I disagree. If engineers are notoriously bad at negotiating (which we probably are), the solution is to improve that skill, not to seek to avoid negotiating in any form or fashion. The idea that you can willfully eschew any responsibility for asking for what you want (which is really what a negotiation is) and still get it, is both self-defeating and naive. The reason lawyers/agents/salespeople are good at negotiatin…

Well, simple alternate solution, require total salary transparency.

Sure, it’s possible to get better at negotiation, but why require that? It’s quite pointless.

Also, this seems like a good solution to several thoroughly and inherently unfair (because sexist or racist, for example) wage gaps.

Re: Talking About Money

#300

Post by aptwebapps »

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".

American politicians are, for very good reasons, defensive about coming off as Socialist (except Bernie Sanders). Coming off as Marxist is completely out of the picture.

But 'patio11 is not a politician and I expect his language reflects strength of feeling more than anything else.

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