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Show me the salary!

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Re: Show me the salary!

#141

Post by crdoconnor »

WhitneyLand wrote: post #89
crdoconnor wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I haven't seen a scalable way to roll out total salary transparency with a net gain in company psychology #1 Make sure everybody is paid as much as they deserve as far as you can tell. #2 Roll out total salary transparency. Not being "scalable" sounds like another way of saying "we don't want to do #1, it sounds expensive. Secrecy is cheaper.".

This implies some sort of unfairness is being hidden, which should be the easy part of the problem. The hard part is that equitable salaries do not mean equal salaries. If you there are large differences based completely on merit it's very difficult to make someone feel good about being lower than the person sitting next to them, even if it's objectively fair.

>This implies some sort of unfairness is being hidden, which should be the easy part of the problem.

You seem to be implying that voluntarily giving out pay rises to the underpaid is easy. It isn't easy.

>The hard part is that equitable salaries do not mean equal salaries. If you there are large differences based completely on merit it's very difficult to make someone feel good about being lower than the person sitting next to them, even if it's objectively fair.

This would be the hard part if American were mostly all secret communists.

Re: Show me the salary!

#142

Post by hippich »

cozuya wrote: post #126
hippich wrote: post #87

I spent quite a bunch of time on interviews with employers who promised to pay above market salary to end up with an offer 30% less than i am making. Put another way - salary is big item in job description for me - amount employer ready to pay too often correlates with problems/technologies/colleagues/innovations i am going to work with. So naturally first question I always ask recruiter - how much. And naturally mos…

Do you get a lot of responses?

zero :) granted, sent there typical spammy "job opportunity" recruiters and responded in usual way to someone who really spent some time on reading my resume :)

Re: Show me the salary!

#143

Post by crdoconnor »

mikeash wrote: post #117
crdoconnor wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I haven't seen a scalable way to roll out total salary transparency with a net gain in company psychology #1 Make sure everybody is paid as much as they deserve as far as you can tell. #2 Roll out total salary transparency. Not being "scalable" sounds like another way of saying "we don't want to do #1, it sounds expensive. Secrecy is cheaper.".

I imagine there would be potential problems due to the fact that people have differing opinions about what people deserve. For one thing, there are different but equally reasonable criteria on which to base "deserve." Maybe Bob in Engineering contributes more to company profits than Steve in janitorial, so Bob deserves to get paid more. Or maybe Steve is intensely loyal and stuck with the company through hard times a…

>I imagine

Perhaps you should look at some real examples rather than your imagination:

http://99u.com/articles/15527/the-age-of-salary-transparency

Re: Show me the salary!

#144

Post by ryandrake »

Silhouette wrote: post #140
ryandrake wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, yea.. On the Internet, everyone has a fully-stocked 12-month emergency fund (and a supermodel girlfriend). In reality, nobody does. I can tell you, as someone who's been unemployed and a month away from living in my car, you take whatever job comes along. You can fret about your "optimal strategy" and "future negotiating power" while you are enjoying your next hot meal.

In reality, nobody does. I'm sorry for the situation you found yourself in, but that isn't remotely true. I've been working independently for a while, and I've sometimes discussed how much is worth putting somewhere safe in the current economic climate with friends in broadly similar positions. The idea that anyone wouldn't do that was universally regarded as crazy. Of course there might be exceptions. If you're star…

That's awesome that you can do that, congrats! It's definitely a great goal for anyone, to one day get to that point, I totally agree.

Re: Show me the salary!

#145

Post by grecy »

wallflower wrote: post #70

It is all about the employer maintaining the power in salary setting. Think of airlines. In the handful of times, I've asked how much people have paid for their seat. I've gotten ranges of a couple hundred dollars in both directions for a cross-country flight. Some of it was when the ticket was bought. And I thought I was getting a deal on Priceline... There are always disparities in salary. The most glaring and entr…

> It is all about the employer maintaining the power in salary setting.

I agree 100% and I've always found it kind of creepy - like giving candy to a kid levels of creepy.

"Here is your pay check Mr. Jones - but be sure not to tell anyone how much it is"

is very similar to

"Here is some candy Jonny, but make sure you don't tell anyone else I gave you that candy, or how much I gave you"

In both scenarios why is the "giver" trying to conceal the details of the transaction?

Because they've got something to gain by keeping it a secret.

Re: Show me the salary!

#146

Post by adffasdadf »

fukupayme2 wrote: post #67
MagicWishMonkey wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty ridiculous. I guess I don't feel bad about being less than honest when asked by a potential employer about my current salary. It's really none of their business.

It can get worse - I know of people who have been asked by the IB to prove their current salary/bonus levels, to avoid inflation or overstated earnings. They do also verify via the P45 as well. Best bet is to join one, if you have to, from a contractor route. Then you have an advantage, as they know you are most likely on a higher rate and are not willing to muck around with the usual HR demands.

thats absolutely batshit. just agog at other comments claiming this is a feature. no way it's worth tiny amount of time and effort saved.

Re: Show me the salary!

#147

Post by crpatino »

gambiting wrote: post #127
lione wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, isn't the games industry one of those industries where lower salary is one of the tradeoffs for a "fun" job? I mean so many young coders want to go into the games industry to make games and do what their passionate about. The majority of them realize that being underpaid and overworked isn't their cup of tea, and that they are more likely to be working on the next Super Street Sweeper instead of Halo, but…

Everything you said is true, and that's exactly why I am here. I get to work on one of the biggest games of 2015, but the financial hit I am taking for having a "fun" job is huge. And the demand/supply is a problem,but I think it's overplayed. Like I've said, I work for one of the largest studios in the country, so there is a thousand people applying for every junior position we have, but we have some intermediate/se…

The problem with senior positions being that older people have usually seen better and saner than you can offer, so your recruit pool is limited to within-industry pouching?

Re: Show me the salary!

#148

Post by vinceguidry »

steverb wrote: post #30
odonnellryan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, and this has happened to me personally, is you'll be told the salary is "competitive" without further details even when pushed. Of course, everyone wants to save a buck, but when you've gone through multiple rounds of interviews...spending personal days...personal time doing projects.. then you get an offer that is 1/2 the starting range for the industry and location, you have a problem!

The two times I've had that response, I've just taken my current estimate of high salary, added $20,000 and then asked them to confirm that that amount is in their definition of competitive. First time, they said no and we stopped talking. Second time got me my current job. YMMV.

That is an excellent approach to this problem. Thanks.

Re: Show me the salary!

#149

Post by mikeash »

crdoconnor wrote: post #143
mikeash wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine there would be potential problems due to the fact that people have differing opinions about what people deserve. For one thing, there are different but equally reasonable criteria on which to base "deserve." Maybe Bob in Engineering contributes more to company profits than Steve in janitorial, so Bob deserves to get paid more. Or maybe Steve is intensely loyal and stuck with the company through hard times a…

>I imagine Perhaps you should look at some real examples rather than your imagination: http://99u.com/articles/15527/the-age-of-salary-transparency

I said, "and it definitely can work in a smaller company." I don't have to look at outside examples, I'm part of such a company myself. But if you want to say I'm wrong, show me a company doing this with 10,000 employees rather than 10.

Re: Show me the salary!

#150

Post by jonnathanson »

austenallred wrote: post #3

We don't broadcast our salaries with our job listings because reality is how much we're willing to pay varies candidate to candidate. Interviewing, for example, someone with seven years experience vs. fifteen (I'm simplifying what matters greatly for the sake of argument - years experience is the easiest thing to put a number to) and we would pay way more for one than the other. Maybe that's unfair, but I don't think…

"We don't broadcast our salaries with our job listings because reality is how much we're willing to pay varies candidate to candidate."

This sounds reasonable. But just to play devil's advocate for a second -- for any given role, is your variance really that high? Do you expect to field a dramatically variable range of candidates for the same level, title, or position? So variable, in fact, that establishing a ballpark range is an exercise in futility?

If you're fielding candidates with N years of experience, 1.5N years of experience, or 2N+ years of experience for the same role, maybe it's worth recalibrating your expectations for that role. Fine-tune them a bit. If your expectations are all over the map, then you're going to make a lot more work for yourself by taking on variance and trying to sift through it.

It's totally fine, even admirable, to take the position that each candidate is unique. But how unique, really? Unless we're talking about very high-level or rare positions, a reasonable and market-appropriate range will usually cover most of the variance. (That's not to say that you can't have some sort of discretionary, secondary range available for rockstars or competitive bidding situations. But aren't those typically the edge cases, and not the norm?)

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