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

301–310 of 412 posts

Re: Talking About Money

#301

Post by zhte415 »

heleph wrote: post #284
a_c_s wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...one of the pieces of paperwork you must hand to your new employer is your final tax slip from your previous employer showing how much tax you have paid in the current year..." Are you referring to Japan? I've worked in two states in the USA and never been required to produce such documentation.

I've always had to do that in the UK. Your previous employer gives you a form called a P45 when you leave that has information about your tax code and your earnings for the previous year.

Correct. A difference for the UK is that salary bands are often (not always) disclosed in an advertisement or told to a head hunter in advance. Not always, but enough that not doing so raises eyebrows and concerns about corporate ethics for me (and my friends).

Re: Talking About Money

#302

Post by ncza »

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…

This is great! Thanks for caring so much about privacy.

Re: Talking About Money

#303

Post by alkonaut »

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…

Still, what you really need is the candidates expected/required compensation, not their current compensation?

Ther are jobs I'd take at half my current salary, and jobs I wouldn't take at 3 times my current salary. In an interview situation I'm happy to provide a ballpark figure as to not waste time, but I won't provide my last salary (my tax details are public!), and I won't negotiatiate salary until I have a good bargaining position.

Re: Talking About Money

#304

Post by alkonaut »

paulhauggis wrote: post #268
paulhauggis wrote: post #265

Talking about your salary as an employee will eventually take away your negotiating power. If everyone knew everyone's salary, salary would be minimized to the lowest possible market rate, so nobody gets upset.

It's the truth. If you look at countries like Sweden and Denmark where salaries and tax returns are public information, most salaries are all the same.

That's not really because of the tax rates being equal, there are many other reasons. For example, higher education is free, and labor organization is very high. This keeps blue-collar pay closer to white collar, flattening pay structures.

Re: Talking About Money

#305

Post by yason »

Meanwhile, in Finland, you could just tell the company that: "If you really want to know, then please visit the tax authorities' office and look up my previous year's taxable income from their public terminals."

Re: Talking About Money

#306

Post by jules »

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…

If you are most concerned about wasting time, then why don't you tell your number to the candidate?

Re: Talking About Money

#307

Post by maaku »

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…

I thank you for doing the right thing.

Re: Talking About Money

#308

Post by maaku »

alkonaut wrote: post #304
paulhauggis wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the truth. If you look at countries like Sweden and Denmark where salaries and tax returns are public information, most salaries are all the same.

That's not really because of the tax rates being equal, there are many other reasons. For example, higher education is free, and labor organization is very high. This keeps blue-collar pay closer to white collar, flattening pay structures.

He didn't say anything about tax rates. What he said was that tax returns are public information, meaning you or I can look up anyone's income.

Re: Talking About Money

#309

Post by Osiris »

bobjordan wrote: post #228
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'm a bootstrapped entrepreneur CEO with ~30 employees in my company now, growing quickly, expect to have ~60 in next 12 months. I am not so interested in previous salary. Rather, I always directly ask "what is your salary requirement". I think it is good business sense to not underpay what people think they require, though sometimes this means we must pass on what could otherwise be good employees, so requesting moo…

Why ask for a salary requirement? Why can't an employer just say "We're paying $X for this position, does that work for you?"

Just pay what the position is worth to you. The only reason to negotiate is to pay less than the position is worth if possible.

Post reply on HN