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Ask HN: Are “no negotiation” offers hurting candidates?

14 points by seattle_spring 11y ago

One of my good friends recently received an offer from a "no negotiation" startup. They claimed not to do negotiations because it statistically puts marginalized candidates at a disadvantage. Here's the rub: The offer was horrible. Seriously, my friend has 2x as much as experience as me and now I make 3.5x more than them. There's not even a equity upside: It was less than 0.1%. I couldn't believe the offer when they told me. I had higher offers from startups straight out of college. It seems that this might be common with startups that refuse to negotiate. Reddit, Stripe, etc: All of them report pretty low salaries. I couldn't find any salary stats on Jet.com or Magoosh, but they both hard sell their "awesome cultures" so I wouldn't be surprised if they pay beans too. Is this just a clever way to take even more advantage of engineers, or do these particular companies just pay poorly across the board due to their "amazing culture?" Do they really think they're putting candidates at an advantage? It looks like they draw more underrepresented candidates in, but the result seems to be that the supposed wage gap is made even larger.

JSeymourATL 11y ago
> Are “no negotiation” offers hurting candidates? No, strong candidates ALWAYS know their relative worth in the marketplace. They naturally gravitate to the most competitive offers. But some employers still take a backward view of talent as a 'resource', rather than intellectual capital. These guys put-out unsophisticated, low-ball offers to marginal, even desperate job-seekers just fill seats. Relative to the company's "no negotiation" stance, there are almost always exceptions. On this subject, Stuart Diamond is masterful > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOZo6Lx70ok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOZo6Lx70ok
- seattle_spring 11y ago
  I would normally agree with you, but I've seen first hand this not being the case. People get starry eyed over "neat" products or cultures, or they might be burnt out from toxic cultures from previous employers, enough to ignore being taken serious advantage of.
  - trcollinson 11y ago
    I wouldn't down play the "neat" product or culture, or the burn out from past experience. Money isn't everything. Personally, if I was given a low ball offer and was told I wasn't allowed to negotiate, I would negotiate anyway. That might include negotiating with my feet: "Sorry I can't accept that offer, if you aren't willing to come up to $X then I will have to look elsewhere." Of course, they might say "We can't negotiate" and I will have to look elsewhere. On the other hand, there are times when making less money but enjoying what I do is very much worth it. These jobs aren't forever, we don't get into jobs in this industry and stay there until we retire very often. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad making half as much but really enjoying getting up every morning and having the opportunity to go into work because the product challenges are exciting or because the culture makes me feel good about myself. Obviously, if it causes deep financial stresses than that's not a good trade off. But if you can swing it personally, it might be a great experience. I wouldn't call this "being taken serious advantage of". This could be just the benefit some engineers are looking for in their career.
brudgers 11y ago
A bad no-negotiation offer seems beneficial to candidates since it makes the decision easy and doesn't create the illusion that there's a good deal there to be had. It's hard to see how a good no-negotiation offer is bad for candidates either, since it's easy to decide and doesn't waste their time with something they're not going to get. Middling no-negotiation offers would make the decision straight forward if not easier or harder...and again, not waste the candidate's time. So at worst it seems to me a wash. Good luck.
MalcolmDiggs 11y ago
I don't think it hurts or helps really. Simply because salary is only one small part of a constellation of things that are up for negotiation when you're considering an offer. If a company has a hard line drawn in the sand in regards to salary, you can still negotiate working hours, working from home, job-title/responsibilities, benefit plans, commuting stipends, free lunches, 401k matching, extra paid time off, faster vesting of your options, etc etc. So even if you end up with a low salary, that doesn't mean that you're under-compensated overall. It might just be that you're over-compensated in other areas.
chrisbennet 11y ago
I can't answer that question but when I'm faced with a horrible/unfair offer, I take it as a crystal clear signal that they just don't value what I can bring to the table or, to be charitable, the position just can't generate enough value for the company to justify paying market rates.
crmd 11y ago
Make a counteroffer and say it's not up for negotiation.
msh 11y ago
No negotiation offers, a new way of shafting employees disguised as helping marginalized candidates. Ok, if they also have open payrolls where every employee can see what other employees make there might be something about it but otherwise I think its BS.
rajacombinator 11y ago
Lol just lol at their supposed reason.
err4nt 11y ago
I'm so glad you asked, I have never really though about it before. I think it all depends on the offer. I can think of a situation where a benevolent employer might offer somebody a price they dont see they are worth and not allow them to negotiate, but I would imagine there are fewer of these benevolent good samaritans as there would be people trying to justify low salaries on things like equality when the distribution of talent may not be equally uniform. If I was offered a no-negotiation offer that I felt was low, I would ask for what was fair for what I was worth and if that means I'm breaking the rules then we really arent going to get along.
faet 11y ago
State and Federal government has done "No Negotiation" for a while. Based on your experience (and they usually have hard guidelines) you fit into a specific grade/step. Generally, the only 'negotiation' you can do is to try and sway their guidelines. "I feel that even though I have 2 years of work experience I had extensive internship experience that should move me from a step 3 to a step 5." (But, everyone in a step 5 makes the same) And even then some (my state govt) still limits where they can put you. Eg, programmers make between $X-$Yk. You cannot make more starting than ($Y+$X)/2 even if you invented the tech they're using. A lot of 'cool jobs' pay shit anyway. I moved from a 'boring job' to a 'cool job' and took a very slight pay cut (although I did negotiate). But, I enjoy the work a lot more. There are tons of people who want to work at startups or places like stripe/reddit and are willing to take 'shitty pay'. Even if they allowed for negotiation the pay would still probably be less than what you get.

JSeymourATL 11y ago

> Are “no negotiation” offers hurting candidates? No, strong candidates ALWAYS know their relative worth in the marketplace. They naturally gravitate to the most competitive offers. But some employers still take a backward view of talent as a 'resource', rather than intellectual capital. These guys put-out unsophisticated, low-ball offers to marginal, even desperate job-seekers just fill seats. Relative to the company's "no negotiation" stance, there are almost always exceptions. On this subject, Stuart Diamond is masterful > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOZo6Lx70ok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOZo6Lx70ok

seattle_spring 11y ago
I would normally agree with you, but I've seen first hand this not being the case. People get starry eyed over "neat" products or cultures, or they might be burnt out from toxic cultures from previous employers, enough to ignore being taken serious advantage of.
- trcollinson 11y ago
  I wouldn't down play the "neat" product or culture, or the burn out from past experience. Money isn't everything. Personally, if I was given a low ball offer and was told I wasn't allowed to negotiate, I would negotiate anyway. That might include negotiating with my feet: "Sorry I can't accept that offer, if you aren't willing to come up to $X then I will have to look elsewhere." Of course, they might say "We can't negotiate" and I will have to look elsewhere. On the other hand, there are times when making less money but enjoying what I do is very much worth it. These jobs aren't forever, we don't get into jobs in this industry and stay there until we retire very often. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad making half as much but really enjoying getting up every morning and having the opportunity to go into work because the product challenges are exciting or because the culture makes me feel good about myself. Obviously, if it causes deep financial stresses than that's not a good trade off. But if you can swing it personally, it might be a great experience. I wouldn't call this "being taken serious advantage of". This could be just the benefit some engineers are looking for in their career.

brudgers 11y ago

A bad no-negotiation offer seems beneficial to candidates since it makes the decision easy and doesn't create the illusion that there's a good deal there to be had. It's hard to see how a good no-negotiation offer is bad for candidates either, since it's easy to decide and doesn't waste their time with something they're not going to get. Middling no-negotiation offers would make the decision straight forward if not easier or harder...and again, not waste the candidate's time. So at worst it seems to me a wash. Good luck.

MalcolmDiggs 11y ago

I don't think it hurts or helps really. Simply because salary is only one small part of a constellation of things that are up for negotiation when you're considering an offer. If a company has a hard line drawn in the sand in regards to salary, you can still negotiate working hours, working from home, job-title/responsibilities, benefit plans, commuting stipends, free lunches, 401k matching, extra paid time off, faster vesting of your options, etc etc. So even if you end up with a low salary, that doesn't mean that you're under-compensated overall. It might just be that you're over-compensated in other areas.

chrisbennet 11y ago

I can't answer that question but when I'm faced with a horrible/unfair offer, I take it as a crystal clear signal that they just don't value what I can bring to the table or, to be charitable, the position just can't generate enough value for the company to justify paying market rates.

crmd 11y ago

Make a counteroffer and say it's not up for negotiation.

msh 11y ago

No negotiation offers, a new way of shafting employees disguised as helping marginalized candidates. Ok, if they also have open payrolls where every employee can see what other employees make there might be something about it but otherwise I think its BS.

rajacombinator 11y ago

Lol just lol at their supposed reason.

err4nt 11y ago

I'm so glad you asked, I have never really though about it before. I think it all depends on the offer. I can think of a situation where a benevolent employer might offer somebody a price they dont see they are worth and not allow them to negotiate, but I would imagine there are fewer of these benevolent good samaritans as there would be people trying to justify low salaries on things like equality when the distribution of talent may not be equally uniform. If I was offered a no-negotiation offer that I felt was low, I would ask for what was fair for what I was worth and if that means I'm breaking the rules then we really arent going to get along.

faet 11y ago

State and Federal government has done "No Negotiation" for a while. Based on your experience (and they usually have hard guidelines) you fit into a specific grade/step. Generally, the only 'negotiation' you can do is to try and sway their guidelines. "I feel that even though I have 2 years of work experience I had extensive internship experience that should move me from a step 3 to a step 5." (But, everyone in a step 5 makes the same) And even then some (my state govt) still limits where they can put you. Eg, programmers make between $X-$Yk. You cannot make more starting than ($Y+$X)/2 even if you invented the tech they're using. A lot of 'cool jobs' pay shit anyway. I moved from a 'boring job' to a 'cool job' and took a very slight pay cut (although I did negotiate). But, I enjoy the work a lot more. There are tons of people who want to work at startups or places like stripe/reddit and are willing to take 'shitty pay'. Even if they allowed for negotiation the pay would still probably be less than what you get.