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

An update on salary transparency in job posts

directlyapply.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 150 posts

Re: An update on salary transparency in job posts

#131

Post by nytesky »

LtWorf wrote: post #111
nytesky wrote: post #40

This will lead to universal low salaries, and real comp decided by bonuses and equity grants like with IB and Amazon. You don’t see full comp revealed, so since they have to show their hand it will trend down and make up the money for who they want to pay more with bonus etc

Salary is money, bonuses are a bet. The 2 are not the same.

You should look into how investment bankers bonus work.

If bonus was actual profit sharing, I would agree that it would be a different thing more akin to a bet, but the bonus is contingent mostly on your personal “performance” with some bail options if company hits the skids, but salary is a bet in that case as well, as you are an at will employee.

Re: An update on salary transparency in job posts

#132

Post by nytesky »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #130

Does anyone know what happens if someone posts a job at one range and then hires outside of it? Like if i get a competing offer outside their listed band, do they get in trouble for negotiating?

Hah, who is going to report: I got paid too much.

Re: An update on salary transparency in job posts

#133

Post by LtWorf »

nytesky wrote: post #131
LtWorf wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salary is money, bonuses are a bet. The 2 are not the same.

You should look into how investment bankers bonus work. If bonus was actual profit sharing, I would agree that it would be a different thing more akin to a bet, but the bonus is contingent mostly on your personal “performance” with some bail options if company hits the skids, but salary is a bet in that case as well, as you are an at will employee.

My company (USA located) paid less than the entirety of our bonuses because they lack money.

My personal "performance" was fine.

However performance without clear goals is useless, and with clear goals becomes a gamed metric.

Re: An update on salary transparency in job posts

#134

Post by bob_theslob646 »

JohnFen wrote: post #125
seadan83 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competing job offers and other interviews lined up are excellent, excellent, excellent to have! For this reason always try to cluster job interviews together as much as possible so that the offers come out around the same time. This situation is generally going to be very favorable for you as an engineer! Consider that some hiring manager probably has been played games with for months in terms of head count and inter…

> Mentioning "I have 2 offers, I've had 100% offers for every interview so far, and btw I'm interviewing at a FAANG tomorrow." - that will perk up some interest and can elicit a pro-active better offer. It's also a risky maneuver. There are a lot of companies that will immediately, as a matter of policy, reply "then take one of those offers". That's not to say it isn't a gamble worth taking, of course. Just that it c…

"It's also a risky maneuver. There are a lot of companies that will immediately, as a matter of policy, reply "then take one of those offers"."

Have they ever said that? Why would they interview you or make a job offer? I find this sentence hard to believe. Having a job offer is a signal that someone else did due diligence on you and is willing to commit capital at a year rate for your talents. Skin in the game.

Sure other companies don't have to compete on the price is if what you are trying to state that, but you didn't state that clearly.

Re: An update on salary transparency in job posts

#135

Post by thebradbain »

bdw5204 wrote: post #85
tempsy wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you in the US in a coastal market? $200k+ base is very normal.

I'm in Philadelphia which is definitely a coastal city in the US and $200k would be way above market here unless my understanding of the local market is dramatically wrong.

My experience is based in SF and Los Angeles, but I personally know many new/recent-grads who were recently hired at $150-$180k (cash) comp including bonus, to say nothing of options, from FAANGs to well-funded later-stage startups to even run-of-the-mill legacy corporate tech positions.

Even GitHub, which pre-Microsoft was more stingy with its money, is offering $160k for entry-level new-grad hires last time I checked.

Re: An update on salary transparency in job posts

#136

Post by JohnFen »

bob_theslob646 wrote: post #134
JohnFen wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mentioning "I have 2 offers, I've had 100% offers for every interview so far, and btw I'm interviewing at a FAANG tomorrow." - that will perk up some interest and can elicit a pro-active better offer. It's also a risky maneuver. There are a lot of companies that will immediately, as a matter of policy, reply "then take one of those offers". That's not to say it isn't a gamble worth taking, of course. Just that it c…

"It's also a risky maneuver. There are a lot of companies that will immediately, as a matter of policy, reply "then take one of those offers"." Have they ever said that? Why would they interview you or make a job offer? I find this sentence hard to believe. Having a job offer is a signal that someone else did due diligence on you and is willing to commit capital at a year rate for your talents. Skin in the game. Sure…

> Have they ever said that?

Yes.

> Having a job offer is a signal that someone else did due diligence on you and is willing to commit capital at a year rate for your talents.

Sure, but applicants can and do lie about the existence of such offers, so ignoring such statements is not a terrible strategy. And that another company did "due diligence" is not as valuable as you might think. The investigation prior to an offer letter is often cursory, and different companies have different concerns they're looking for as well as differing levels of scrutiny.

Some companies also view an applicant leveraging other offers as a negotiation tactic as a bit of a red flag, depending on the sort of applicant they want to hire.

I'm not saying any of this is universal, nor that any of it is smart or appropriate. I'm just saying that I know there are a nontrivial number of companies that think like this.

> Sure other companies don't have to compete on the price is if what you are trying to state that, but you didn't state that clearly.

No, that wasn't what I was saying.

Re: An update on salary transparency in job posts

#137

Post by dantyti »

bearjaws wrote: post #2

Now lets quantify how many of them are absurd listings. Recently saw a Senior Security Engineer role for Netflix, $100-$700k salary range. How is someone supposed to reasonably negotiate that role? $100k is clearly a joke, $700k is clearly a salary someone got during the bubble. Do I come in at $400k? Is $250k a bargain rate? https://imgur.com/a/0Fe00Qf

> $100k is clearly a joke, $700k is clearly...

These are just your assumptions, but I aggree. However, when I see job posts with ranges like these, I just avoid the company, since it shows me that the company is: -lowballing employees -not transparent (i.e., posting nonsense salary ranges just to tick off the requirement)

Re: An update on salary transparency in job posts

#138

Post by mock-possum »

bearjaws wrote: post #2

Now lets quantify how many of them are absurd listings. Recently saw a Senior Security Engineer role for Netflix, $100-$700k salary range. How is someone supposed to reasonably negotiate that role? $100k is clearly a joke, $700k is clearly a salary someone got during the bubble. Do I come in at $400k? Is $250k a bargain rate? https://imgur.com/a/0Fe00Qf

I just applied for an engineer position that listed it’s salary range as $130k-$190k - and part of the application process asked for a salary range, to which I replied $130k-$190k - what’s the point of that? Just say “this position starts at $130k” and let the details get worked out during the hiring process.

Re: An update on salary transparency in job posts

#139

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

no_wizard wrote: post #129
sokoloff wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve never heard of a company pulling an offer because a candidate was applying somewhere else. As a hiring manager, I’ve certainly never done it, because I basically don’t care where else you’re considering working. I’ll put our situation (project, team, comp, culture, etc) forward and you decide if you think it’s your best option. We might negotiate a tiny amount, but if you find a place that’s a lot better for you…

I do want to clarify, its not common (the pull the offer part), but I've had a friend go through it, and I once had it happen. More often, alot of times the company will say something about going with the other offer, like you stated, or something in that ballpark. A couple times though, I had a company dutifully try and convince me that the perks and work-life balance were better, even thought the salary maybe was n…

If you told me I got a ton of vacation time for a significant salary cut I would seriously consider the offer. Or some 4-day workweek setup. Those are the kind of things I would take a significant chunk of less money for.

Re: An update on salary transparency in job posts

#140

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

vsareto wrote: post #56
pxx wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counteroffer can easily be conditioned on seeing a copy of your offer. They don't need to see it today, but they might when you start your job...

How far are they going to go to validate it’s legit if you make one up? But say you don’t want to forge one for just any company because that might not be legal. You could make your own company with a site and make offer letters that way.

All you say in this case is that "the actual offer letters are proprietary information of the company that I'm applying to and I'm not at liberty to share them" or some similar verbiage.

FWIW I've done this several times (multiple offer scenarios where I have companies compete against each other for me) and never once has a company asked to see actual proof of the other offers on condition of hiring me. If that was a condition, I would say, sorry, I'll go with one of the other ones

Post reply on HN