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No salary wastes everyone's time

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Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#41

Post by danwee »

hirundo wrote: post #3

There's more to a job than the salary, and it can be reasonable for a company to leave salary ambiguous in order to make that sales pitch. Sometimes it's half the company; sometimes it's a set of steak knives. And it's reasonable for an applicant to decide that they're all about the salary and don't want to waste time on the sales pitch, and move on.

> There's more to a job than the salary

That only works for people who are earning a lot. I mean, for SV engineers there's probably a big difference between company A paying $350K/year with 10 days of vacation per year, and company B paying $300K/year with 30 days of vacation per year (I bet most would apply for company B, because the +$50K is not such a big difference).

For the rest of the engineers in the world (99% of us), a salary of $80K/year vs $130K/year is big difference and I don't know who would go for a job that pays $50K less no matter the other perks (which, at least in Europe are quite standard, so there's not much to be picky about)

Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#42

Post by hitsurume »

hakunin wrote: post #30
hitsurume wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mindset doesn't count for the wasted time on being lowballed by companies. Say you have your 20 years of experience, you go through several rounds of interviews and they offer you a junior level salary with their big fat smile. Now what? They wasted your time from the very beginning hoping to charm you into wanting to work there. The people interviewing you are all getting paid, yet you are the one who have time…

I see your point, but not sure if a number up front would be honesty, seems more of a gamble. They need to find a number that's not too low, not too high, for an abstract average human. I've managed to detect a lowball danger fairly early on in my past negotiations, but can't claim that it's easy. That said, maybe knowing their "hedge rate" is a useful tell, even if you don't entirely trust it.

Another better alternative is for these companies who can't afford the top talent, to train new talent (new grads, new juniors or people with less then 3 years experience) and upgrade them into where they need to be for the companies long term benefit. Also if you are going to say next that these people will just eventually leave, the number one reason people leqve a job is because of a shitty boss/manager. A company who invests in their employees will hopefully not develop bad managers, who can keep good individual contributors. Hell that's in my situation, i'm underpaid, but I also am working for the best manager i've had so far in my career, so I trade off stress and money for a relaxed and longer life.

Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#43

Post by hakunin »

iExploder wrote: post #37
hakunin wrote: post #27

This is probably going to be controversial. I find salary to be really weird for many reasons. One of them is that I just can't imagine a sustainable world where salary is proactively offered, raised, etc. I think it necessarily must be negotiated. I say this as a person who spent most of my 20y career negotiating for my salary and hating the process. It feels attractive on the surface to see a concrete number, kind…

> I think it necessarily must be negotiated it cant be negotiated fairly. negotiating works for people who are "in the know" and have been in the industry for years such as yourself. everyone else gets shit end of the stick, because the company is negotiation from position of power with much more knowledge. thats why some governments mandate minimum salary based on collective agreement or make it a law to provide sal…

I agree that senior experience is probably important, but also it’s knowing how to negotiate.

What does it mean to be negotiated “fairly”? If you don’t like the rate, you come with a counter proposal, for which ideally you have leverage. The leverage is another job offer you found. If you don’t have leverage, you could negotiate a few other ways but they’re less effective. In the end, if you feel you can’t get a competing offer and you can’t wait, essentially you have to accept the terms, but also you can continue the search, and quit when you find something better. This is why companies don’t like to lowball you - they don’t want you to come in with one foot out the door. So one of those “less effective” ways is to explain honestly how their offer might not be sufficient for you to be able to focus on your work without worrying about rent and food. It’s in the best interest of both of you for you to focus on work.

Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#44

Post by hakunin »

soupfordummies wrote: post #32
hakunin wrote: post #27

This is probably going to be controversial. I find salary to be really weird for many reasons. One of them is that I just can't imagine a sustainable world where salary is proactively offered, raised, etc. I think it necessarily must be negotiated. I say this as a person who spent most of my 20y career negotiating for my salary and hating the process. It feels attractive on the surface to see a concrete number, kind…

>>I can't imagine a situation where they go "sorry, we really think we need you, but our job listing only goes up to this number, oops". But that happens often. Maybe not as much for very senior (10+ years) but I’ve been there myself. I do highly agree with your points and analogies about negotiation however

What I saw happen is “we can’t afford you”, not “we can’t go over the number we posted”. I think that’s fine.

Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#45

Post by schwartzworld »

jcpsimmons wrote: post #22

Eloquently put. The last time I was on the market I didn’t apply to a single company that didn’t list salary - every time I’ve done that their pitch was underwhelming. To those saying “there’s more than salary” - that’s a privileged take. I hate to use that word but it’s appropriate here. Salary ONLY MEANS being able to put a roof over your family’s head and feed them.

There _is_ more than salary, but most of it would be classified as "nice-to-haves". Would I take an offer that wasn't the highest one I got if I thought the WLB or culture was better? Probably, but there's a limit. $10k less for a better WLB, sure. $50k less? Probably not.

Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#46

Post by schwartzworld »

hakunin wrote: post #27

This is probably going to be controversial. I find salary to be really weird for many reasons. One of them is that I just can't imagine a sustainable world where salary is proactively offered, raised, etc. I think it necessarily must be negotiated. I say this as a person who spent most of my 20y career negotiating for my salary and hating the process. It feels attractive on the surface to see a concrete number, kind…

> I can't imagine a situation where they go "sorry, we really think we need you, but our job listing only goes up to this number, oops"

Lots of big companies have very well-defined salary bands, and you can only negotiate up to the top of that band. There are other things you can negotiate for, hiring bonus, time off, WFH, equipment budget, etc, but you don't get higher salary unless you get a higher title too.

> I just can't imagine a sustainable world where salary is proactively offered, raised, etc

Flex your imagination muscles a little harder. Companies already know how much they want to pay you, but are hoping you'll accidentally lowball yourself by quoting them a lower number. That's what the negotiation is. The average working dev only has so much power in a situation like this.

The problem comes from the non-standardization of titles and salaries across the industry. Two "senior engineers" can have widely varying salaries and sets of responsibilities. So if a dev can't or won't take any job that pays under $125k, it might helpful find out that the maximum salary for the role is $95k before going through the application process and speaking to a recruiter.

Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#47

Post by paulddraper »

danwee wrote: post #40
paulddraper wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next question is "what does junior mean" and "what does senior mean". There's always another question

If you're looking for a "junior" and you don't know what a "junior" means, then that's your problem, no? I mean, if you are willing to pay X for position Y, you (your company) should know exactly what you are looking for. Otherwise you are just fishing and see what happens. Not bad, though, but I don't think that's an excuse for "can't list salaries in job ads"

The concern isn't knowing that "junior" mean. The concern is explaining it clearly enough in 150 words or less.

Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#48

Post by psyfi »

danwee wrote: post #39

The junior version of myself would agree: when you are a junior you have little power of negotiation and you accept whatever the company offers to you at the end of the interview cycle (besides, if you manage to get to the end of the cycle, then you're probably thinking "I cannot let this opportunity pass"). So, if salaries are public, then you know what you are going for. The senior version of myself wouldn't mind h…

It is quite the opposite.

As a junior, you are more desperate for work to get experience, have less liabilities and would accept anything anyway, so the salary won't make much difference.

As a senior, your time worth more and you should not waste it on companies you are out of their league, you are less likely to accept a low salary as your liabilites need to be covered.

Yes, you can negotiate but your prespective assumes most companies would give you what you want eventually, which isn't true.

Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#49

Post by psyfi »

I tend to focus on what I can control:

I cannot make the job market makers play fair(?) game, but I can reach to current and past employees on linkedin and get the salary range myself, and discard interviews where it is hard to negotiate to an acceptable salary.

Also, some keywords in job ads shows more probabilty of lower than market salary, no company is really looking for someone who is looking for new challenges or who can wear many hats, they are just looking for affordable candidates

Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#50

Post by psyfi »

hakunin wrote: post #31
lapcat wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, the issue is that you're probably overpaying for the car On the contrary. People have options for cars. You don't have to buy a specific brand or a specific model. If every car's price is listed publicly, then consumers can easily shop around for the best price, and it would be difficult for a dealer to get away with overcharging everyone with a publicly listed price. People just won't buy from a dealer wi…

That's probably more true for simple products like toasters. For products where each one is almost always unique (has tons of optional choices, details) you can't easily shop around and compare apples to apples. You end up narrowing down to a few _mostly acceptable_ products in your vicinity, and then negotiating among those few. To add: it's already difficult for a dealer to overcharge because even for complex/uniqu…

I like the rogue idea.
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