New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary • Hacker News Board

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#481

Post by w0rd-driven » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 2:52 AM UTC

jimparkins wrote: post #20

Have a google for: "can i lie to a employer about past salary" - it really really messes with people - people feel super uncertain about how to approach this situation. Throwing any confidence they have during the negotiation out the window. Even now I hesitate to write this as a million people will come out and say never lie - what if they found out. More than banning. There needs to be acceptance that if someone as…

The immediate information I found when doing that was that background checks, which almost always happen at least in Georgia, disclose the exact amount. I would rather just be honest and say I've been making below market rate and I'm looking for that to change. I feel asking my current salary is a tell whereas asking my expected compensation treats it more as it should be, a negotiation. Being asked both my current rate and expected doesn't sting as much because I feel they understand the realities of the situation but at the same time I still feel like I don't have as much bargaining power. I know I don't have much on my own merits coming in but even having the illusion helps tremendously for someone like me.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#482

Post by lloydde » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 2:59 AM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #281

jnwatson wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anchoring only works if the potential employer is ready to buy. Many, many organizations will simply use the number as yet another filter, and you won't even begin discussions. By giving a number first, you're either too high and you won't have an opportunity to sell yourself, you're too low and you've literally already negotiated against yourself, or you're lucky and right at their expectation, which you could have…

> By giving a number first, you're either too high and you won't have an opportunity to sell yourself, you're too low and you've literally already negotiated against yourself, or you're lucky and right at their expectation, which you could have gotten to by simply not giving the first number. And that's why salary is a binary search! https://thehftguy.com/2017/01/23/career-advice-and-salary-ne...

"Basically, you need to perform a binary search. When you get an offer, you know that you can get at least that. Then you repeat the process a bit higher." https://thehftguy.com/2017/01/23/career-advice-and-salary-ne...

Except that isn't a binary search.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#483

Post by sitkack » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 3:02 AM UTC

mahyarm wrote: post #332

sitkack wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Google and Oracle made it a condition of getting hired. Meaning they were ready to walk away if previous pay wasn't disclosed. Oracle even wanted scans of W2s ...

Is that after or before you have a finalized offer in your hands?

It was after a written offer, during the background check.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#484

Post by abalashov » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 4:11 AM UTC

lloydde wrote: post #482

user5994461 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By giving a number first, you're either too high and you won't have an opportunity to sell yourself, you're too low and you've literally already negotiated against yourself, or you're lucky and right at their expectation, which you could have gotten to by simply not giving the first number. And that's why salary is a binary search! https://thehftguy.com/2017/01/23/career-advice-and-salary-ne...

"Basically, you need to perform a binary search. When you get an offer, you know that you can get at least that. Then you repeat the process a bit higher." https://thehftguy.com/2017/01/23/career-advice-and-salary-ne... Except that isn't a binary search.

But it sounds cool when you call it a binary search. Poetic licence.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#485

Post by mattnewton » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 4:17 AM UTC

clavalle wrote: post #419

Sorreah wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And my experience is that never, ever, has a potential employer expressed a "pretty good idea" about what a "normal" salary for a position is.

That's a bit strange. It's like buying milk. I couldn't tell you exactly how much I could buy a gallon of milk for right now (without looking it up). But I could tell you that it is for around five or six dollars. I could also tell you that organic milk is a bit more and the store brand is a bit less. I could also tell you it is likely to be a bit more in a small, boutique store than a large chain store and cost a bi…

The difference is most people are in the market for hood and I see myself as the local brand organic fair trade vanilla soy milk. No one wants to be hood.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#486

Post by abalashov » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 4:21 AM UTC

collyw wrote: post #236

pm90 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never consider interviewing and negotiations a waste of time. It's very valuable practice, no matter what the outcome. Practice is how I get better at both. The more interviews I go on and the more times I negotiate salary, the better I get. This. I get the impression that most software devs don't make an effort to learn this incredibly valuable skill. It doesn't even have to be haggling, per se. Just asking for…

Whenever I have done that its been a "we can't right now" for such and such reason, have some extra responsibilities instead and make it feel like a promotion. It been easier to get another job with more pay.

Ditto. The only way I've ever meaningfully increased my income was by leaving, even though it wouldn't have taken much for me to stay.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#487

Post by abalashov » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 4:25 AM UTC

clavalle wrote: post #419

Sorreah wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And my experience is that never, ever, has a potential employer expressed a "pretty good idea" about what a "normal" salary for a position is.

That's a bit strange. It's like buying milk. I couldn't tell you exactly how much I could buy a gallon of milk for right now (without looking it up). But I could tell you that it is for around five or six dollars. I could also tell you that organic milk is a bit more and the store brand is a bit less. I could also tell you it is likely to be a bit more in a small, boutique store than a large chain store and cost a bi…

Alas, software developers are not an agricultural commodity with a highly transparent and uniform underlying cost structure. :-)

The "10X developer" may be a bit of overhyped mythology, but underneath it is the very real idea that developers vary enormously in their abilities and the amount of value they can add. While the variance in their salaries doesn't capture the variance in their productivity, perhaps, there are many situations where there is profound business sense in paying one developer 2-3x more than another.

The problems are: (1) Everyone thinks they're that 2-3x guy; (2) office politics would sooner or later lead to the news getting out and a profound sense of injustice spreading like a wildfire.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#488

Post by abalashov » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 4:34 AM UTC

imsofuture wrote: post #237

jnwatson wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anchoring only works if the potential employer is ready to buy. Many, many organizations will simply use the number as yet another filter, and you won't even begin discussions. By giving a number first, you're either too high and you won't have an opportunity to sell yourself, you're too low and you've literally already negotiated against yourself, or you're lucky and right at their expectation, which you could have…

Pricing yourself out of a job with an organization that uses salary as an first-line filter is maybe not the worst thing in the world. There are a lot of bad jobs in the world, you should be happy to turn down or be turned down by many jobs that you apply to. It's kind of a sad cultural trope that the employee is desperate for a 'yes' at every job they apply for, when that is often not true at all.

Unconventional opinion on this Valley bubble circuit, I'm sure, but I think you need to be mindful of what kind of business you're applying to.

Yes, salary is a filter, because money isn't infinite and the hiring budget is only so much. Yes, a certain category of hyped-up, massively funded startup may (temporarily) exist in an alternate universe where the laws of economics don't apply and all budgets are imaginary ("for the right people..."), but the rest of the universe doesn't work like that.

For example, a small company bootstrapped by the founder's limited personal funds simply isn't going to offer $250k pay packages to Full Stack JavaScript Rock Star Ninjas. In some cases, that's close to the entire gross revenue of the company. Yet there may be advantages to working for a company like that.

Likewise, large orgs and state agencies function in normal-law economics, not RockStar VC economics. There's only so much they can afford to pay, and that's that.

Negotiations aren't just a staring contest where, if you do the right things, you get paid like a banker, otherwise you toil in the lowly ranks of the unwashed proletariat. In theory, negotiation leads to compromise. Yes, employers have more leverage in these conversations often, but it doesn't change the fact that negotiation requires credible and bona fide compromise intentions from both sides.

Take the time to understand the nature of the business to which you are applying. Yeah, you might just be getting squeezed by MBA frat boys sitting on top of tens of millions in VC who are going to get rich off the sweat of your toil for peanuts, but in 90% of the country, that probably shouldn't be your first thought.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#489

Post by haikuginger » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 4:53 AM UTC

clavalle wrote: post #419

Sorreah wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And my experience is that never, ever, has a potential employer expressed a "pretty good idea" about what a "normal" salary for a position is.

That's a bit strange. It's like buying milk. I couldn't tell you exactly how much I could buy a gallon of milk for right now (without looking it up). But I could tell you that it is for around five or six dollars. I could also tell you that organic milk is a bit more and the store brand is a bit less. I could also tell you it is likely to be a bit more in a small, boutique store than a large chain store and cost a bi…

...where are you buying milk? $2.59/gallon here in the Boston metro.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#490

Post by poikniok » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 5:08 AM UTC

matwood wrote: post #437

pc86 wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our internal recruiters ask but it's not a deal breaker if someone doesn't answer. You know what is a deal breaker? Lying. I've personally seen two offers rescinded after it came out that someone added an egregious amount of money to their previous salary (one to the effect of made approx $100k, said they made $185 and took $175 while complaining loudly about their "pay cut"). What sucks for them is: A) Everyone invo…

Wait, so you were ready to pay someone 175k until you found out they only made 100k at their last job and rescinded the offer? How about name the company so people can make sure to avoid them. I hope this company also lists their internal budget for every position, since you know we want to all be honest and everything.

If the user's summary is accurate / I found the correct individual on Linkedin the company is [redacted]. I agree with your assessment that this sounds like a unethical company, not to mention the amount of glee expressed in the post over an individual being screwed by the company is disconcerting.