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

On the subject of disclosing your compensation

raganwald.posterous.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 37 posts

Re: On the subject of disclosing your compensation

#21

Post by SimonPStevens »

kscaldef wrote: post #19
SimonPStevens wrote: post #10

This might work fine for contractors, but it's nonsense for permanent employees. 5 years covers a range from my first graduate job to my current reasonably good mid-level salary. If I gave that range to a recruiter I'd end up at a bunch of interviews with companies all trying to offer me close to a graduate salary.

a) what raganwald said. b) Some people have more than 5 years of work experience. One day, you will too. c) 5 years is not hard and fast. Feel free to make it 3 years or whatever you think works for you.

a) What I said ;-)

b/c) My point is that if you give a range, companies will tend to offer towards the lower end of that range. It doesn't matter how many years experience you have or what you change the range dates to. If you are going to give a range, you are essentially giving a low end that you will accept. Many companies will take advantage of that.

Re: On the subject of disclosing your compensation

#22

Post by raganwald »

SimonPStevens wrote: post #21
kscaldef wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a) what raganwald said. b) Some people have more than 5 years of work experience. One day, you will too. c) 5 years is not hard and fast. Feel free to make it 3 years or whatever you think works for you.

a) What I said ;-) b/c) My point is that if you give a range, companies will tend to offer towards the lower end of that range. It doesn't matter how many years experience you have or what you change the range dates to. If you are going to give a range, you are essentially giving a low end that you will accept. Many companies will take advantage of that.

It is not my experience that given a range and a time period that most companies will offer towards the low end. When an employer makes you an offer, they want you to accept. They go to a lot of work to approve that piece of paper, they want to save money but they don't want to have you decline. They ESPECIALLY don't want to give you a low offer and lose you to another employer who outbids them.

If you say that in the past five years your compensation has ranged from $50,000 to $150,000, most people will assume that it was $50,000 five years ago and $150,000 today.

If they offer you $55,000 or even $75,000, they are essentially asking you to move backwards in life. They know full well that most people do not wish to move backwards, so they are wasting your time and theirs.

Worse, if they can afford $125,000 or $150,000 and they offer you $100,000, they risk losing you to OtherCo, who are prepared to pay $125,000. This is not good business.

But the question here isn't whether giving"X" is harmful, it's how does it help? Well, many times they think their budget is $50,000. if you tell them $150,000, you don't even get a call.

But what if the hiring manager actually meets you and looks at your Github and takes you to lunch with the team, and loves you? Then he can take your resumé "upstairs" to the board of directors or wherever and plead for more money.

If you give X and Y, you may get to meet that manager. If you only give Y, you may not.

It's entirely up to you. Given my experience, I believe that saying "no" is the best option if you can still get the interview, but giving X and Y is optimal if (a) you can't get the interview without it, and (b) you actually want to work for that employer if they pony up the lettuce you want.

If your experience differs, I can appreciate choosing a different strategy. That's all these things are, strategies for playing a game with incomplete information.

Re: On the subject of disclosing your compensation

#23

Post by rcoder »

yalurker wrote: post #13

What if you are moving from a low cost area to a high cost area? I just checked out an online cost-of-living calculator and my salary in Austin would have to increase by 2.6x to have the same quality of life in Palo Alto. How many HR types are going to realize that 50 in Austin is 100 in San Fran or Manhattan?

Any "HR type" who does their job well absolutely will know how to do a cost-of-living conversion, and should effectively screen and prepare candidates armed with that knowledge.

It goes both ways, of course; less-savvy candidates might not know what they're getting into, and can be offered what seems like a sizable salary bump only to discover after arrival that they're worse-off in total.

Re: On the subject of disclosing your compensation

#24

Post by jqueryin »

raganwald wrote: post #15
thalur wrote: post #9

How does this work out if you believe you are significantly under-compensated at your current job (assuming it's the peak for the last five years)?

Are you including ALL of the compensation in calculating "Y?" Let me help. I currently work with Unspace Interactive. They're downtown. Most programming jobs require a commute of some sort. What's my time worth? Let's pick $100 an hour based on the fact that I recall paying some random contractor that exact figure for some fun week-end moonlighting recently. So if I save one hour a day because of Unspace's location,…

This yearly savings calculation (albeit an example) of $25k for Unspace is based solely on your assumption that one hour less commute time correlates to an additional work hour every day. While this may be sound for how to express added value, I find it unreasonable to believe that most people would work an extra hour simply because they live closer. Maybe I'm wrong.

In my case, I think what you can do is to let them know just how hardcore you are. If I tell my employer that I'll work on R&D and product development in my spare time at home, they can easily get a ballpark of additional hours worked and added value over Joe Schmoe. If I log an additional 10 hours a week from home after work hours, that could equate to an additional 25% hours over the standard 40. I understand alot of you may be putting in more than 40 hours, but that should also be part of your negotiation.

Re: On the subject of disclosing your compensation

#26

Post by rcfox »

jqueryin wrote: post #24
raganwald wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you including ALL of the compensation in calculating "Y?" Let me help. I currently work with Unspace Interactive. They're downtown. Most programming jobs require a commute of some sort. What's my time worth? Let's pick $100 an hour based on the fact that I recall paying some random contractor that exact figure for some fun week-end moonlighting recently. So if I save one hour a day because of Unspace's location,…

This yearly savings calculation (albeit an example) of $25k for Unspace is based solely on your assumption that one hour less commute time correlates to an additional work hour every day. While this may be sound for how to express added value, I find it unreasonable to believe that most people would work an extra hour simply because they live closer. Maybe I'm wrong. In my case, I think what you can do is to let them…

> This yearly savings calculation (albeit an example) of $25k for Unspace is based solely on your assumption that one hour less commute time correlates to an additional work hour every day.

No, it accounts for time wasted, money spent on travel, stress due to traffic, etc. Basically, it's how much you'd be willing to pay to not have to commute. It has nothing to do with additional working hours.

Re: On the subject of disclosing your compensation

#27

Post by sshumaker »

CodeMage wrote: post #3

Great advice. It took me years to learn it on my own. One thing I would like to add is there are times you have to clam up completely and refuse to give out even a range. At one of the companies I worked for, they had a weird policy of not hiring people if their new salary would exceed their old salary by more than 20%. Now, I can understand some of the reasoning behind it, but I personally find it detestable. The be…

If a company is operating with such byzantine and clearly poorly-implemented hiring practices, there are probably plenty of better opportunities out there.

Re: On the subject of disclosing your compensation

#28

Post by stewiecat »

CodeMage wrote: post #3

Great advice. It took me years to learn it on my own. One thing I would like to add is there are times you have to clam up completely and refuse to give out even a range. At one of the companies I worked for, they had a weird policy of not hiring people if their new salary would exceed their old salary by more than 20%. Now, I can understand some of the reasoning behind it, but I personally find it detestable. The be…

I got screwed by a policy like that years ago when I moved from the DoD back into the private sector. I was honest (and naive) when filling out the HR paperwork and listed my low gov't salary. Come to find out later they knocked 15K off the salary.

Re: On the subject of disclosing your compensation

#29

Post by tptacek »

jemfinch wrote: post #11
CodeMage wrote: post #3

Great advice. It took me years to learn it on my own. One thing I would like to add is there are times you have to clam up completely and refuse to give out even a range. At one of the companies I worked for, they had a weird policy of not hiring people if their new salary would exceed their old salary by more than 20%. Now, I can understand some of the reasoning behind it, but I personally find it detestable. The be…

Can you explain some of the reasoning behind that policy, because I don't understand it.

HR departments are a subclass of the same abstract base class as procurements departments. In both cases, the real job of the department is to reduce specifically-enumerated-company-cost X by Y%. All other responsibilities are window-dressing.

Any simple intervention that can be accomplished by HR that comes with a simple story about reducing salary costs is likely to become company policy.

Re: On the subject of disclosing your compensation

#30

Post by j_baker »

CodeMage wrote: post #3

Great advice. It took me years to learn it on my own. One thing I would like to add is there are times you have to clam up completely and refuse to give out even a range. At one of the companies I worked for, they had a weird policy of not hiring people if their new salary would exceed their old salary by more than 20%. Now, I can understand some of the reasoning behind it, but I personally find it detestable. The be…

This company wasn't in a place like San Francisco or New York was it? Because 20% on top of a salary from most other places would be laughable.
Post reply on HN