5 ms·

I've struggled with this a lot. I used to believe in making it a negotiation. The more I've seen, I've switched to paying for the position. Unless hard negot

I've struggled with this a lot. I used to believe in making it a negotiation. The more I've seen, I've switched to paying for the position. Unless hard negotiation is part of the job description, it shouldn't be rewarded. I've also found that rewarding hard negotiators pushes companies down the path of paying men more than women for the same job. If you can't stay in business without underpaying a lot of people, your business is in trouble.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
xviia 10y ago
Without salary negotiation, the company gets to choose the price. Unfortunately, Silicon Valley has shown that it is willing to collude to keep that price down. Therefore, when companies argue that they're banning salary negotiation to "promote equality", you should assume that this equality is merely a gimmick to hide the true purpose: lower wages. If there really is a difference in negotiating ability between women and men, it would seem far more beneficial to teach women how to negotiate for a fair wage rather than abolish the entire thing altogether. In fact, teach all employees to quantify their abilities and how much value they will provide to their employer. Demonstrate that if companies are unwilling to pay them a fair wage, that they should not devalue their employment. But the most recent steps toward banning negotiation will ultimately hurt all employees. When companies like Apple, Google, and other Silicon Valley companies agree not to hire employees from each other, and threaten to replace tech workers in the US with less-expensive H1B visas, we should question their true motives. This newest idea of "banning negotiation" is nothing more than another tactic used by a profit-maximizing entity to reduce costs.
- mathattack 10y ago
  I don't think "teaching women to negotiate" is practical. Is Google or Facebook supposed to send candidates to negotiation classes before offer negotiation time? Is there evidence that a training class can overcome whatever combination of nature and nurture causes the discrepancy? Let the market drive the compensation level. If "the compensation for the position - take it or leave it" is too low, then the company won't be able to hire anyone, and they will have to alter it over time. If it's "take it or leave it" from the employee, you wind up underpaying people with humility, and overpay people who are overconfident. Note: I'm not at one of the large companies that have been in these lawsuits, and lost an internal fight to move to the "one price" policy that I'm advocating for. I'm doing my best to implement it in my part of the organization, and even there it doesn't always work.
  - xviia 10y ago
    Of course Google and Facebook are not going to send candidates to negotiation classes; they would stand to lose from such an arrangement. Rather, there are many ways to approach this: 1. Salary negotiation could be included within curriculum at CS schools. (Schools would love if alumni made more money!) 2. Techniques could be included in books (like "Soft Skills"), podcasts, etc. 3. The culture in Silicon Valley could emphasize the importance of negotiating a fair wage. Left to their own devices, companies WILL exploit those who believe that negotiation is "bad". Companies might not even do so intentionally, but might do so merely by hiring the cheapest employees who have the highest skills. A side effect is that even if only 75% of employees negotiate to higher wages, the "market rate salary" for employees will increase. If, instead, 75% of employees did NOT negotiate, you'd see a depression in wages.
    - toyg 10y ago
      > 1. Salary negotiation could be included within curriculum at CS schools. This is such a good idea. The modern school system oscillates between industrial training and academic pursuit, and very practical skills like this one (or householding finances) which could directly benefit the actual person, are terribly neglected. What is it that stops teachers from talking about everyday matters related to money? Is it their own sense of inadequacy on the subject? Fear of letting out how much they (don't) make? Is it "political pressure"? Or simply that they love their academic subjects so much, they'd rather not talk about more prosaic stuff?
      - bphogan 10y ago
        Taught software dev for four years in higher ed. I always had modules on resume/cover letter, behavioral interviews, core value matching, self promotion, salary negotiation, and other job-related things. Student feedback always suggested these were incredibly valuable lessons.
  - kaybe 10y ago
    > Is there evidence that a training class can overcome whatever combination of nature and nurture causes the discrepancy? There is also the issue that the same behaviour is seen differently when coming from men and women. What is assertive in a man can be aggressive and offputting in a woman. Which means you'd have to have different kinds of courses for different genders, and it only starts there (more minority groups with less studies of what happens when they act the same as a white male). So, there is even more of a hurdle for potential training classes to overcome.
- pyoung 10y ago
  Negotiations still take place, they just happen in a different format. For example if the Technical Lead is having trouble hiring due to low salaries for the positions, he would make the case to management that they need to raise the salary range for those positions. And the added benefit to this format (in a transparent organization) current employees would also get a raise which would probably help with attrition. I think for very senior roles, individual negotiations still might make sense, as the value prop of those hires is highly variable and can have big impacts on the organization. But for roles like Software Eng I, and Software Eng II, etc... in the long run it is better for morale, attrition, and equality to use defined salary ranges. And you can still use bonuses to adjust compensation based on performance.
  - xviia 10y ago
    In these cases, though, we're relying on the employer to institute those salaries. However, the employer usually does not have an incentive to pay more if they can get the same thing for cheaper.
    - pyoung 10y ago
      The employer isn't magically immune to market forces simply because they move to a transparent salary system. If they are significantly under-paying their employees, and they are not making up the difference via other benefits (shorter working hours, bonuses, etc...) then they are going to run into a lot of trouble hiring and holding onto employees. And just because a company has defined salary ranges doesn't mean employees have no voice in the matter. If they feel those salaries are not keeping up with market rates, they can make that known to management, or they can go find greener pastures.
      - xviia 10y ago
        Except when they overcome those market forces through collusion. See: wage lawsuit against Apple, Google, and other tech Titans
        10y ago
- prutschman 10y ago
  Women can get (possibly unintentionally, possibly not) punished for exhibiting negotiation and leadership traits that are valued in men. A friend recently had an offer, ready to sign, but the salary was lower than she wanted. She wrote back asking if there was room to move upward. She had the offer withdrawn.
  - xviia 10y ago
    This is pretty unfortunate. But we don't know if the company would have done the same for a male.
    - jacalata 10y ago
      We don't know for sure about this instance, but evidence suggests that it's more likely to happen to a woman than a man - https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/cfawis/bowles.pdf https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/cfawis/bowles.pdf
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    Sometimes it's worse than that -- women are seen as a cheap ticket. I remember one of my first colleagues as a professional in this industry had to fight and fight to eke out a lousy 3% raise, despite being s superstar employee. Later I found out that she was making 30% less than me, and They had just threw a ton of equity at me to try and keep me from leaving.
- mavelikara 10y ago
  > When companies like Apple, Google, and other Silicon Valley companies agree [..], and threaten to replace tech workers in the US with less-expensive H1B visas [..] When did these Silicon Valley companies threaten to hire less-expensive H1B visas? Do you have any citation on this? Are the H1Bs working for these companies paid less than non-H1Bs? Looking at the publicly available salary data for these companies - AmaGoogFaceSoft kind - seem to pay their H1Bs very well.
  - mangahero 10y ago
    The reason is that psychologically, humans already account for the fact that women have it easier in life.
15155 10y ago
Take Buffer, for instance: their salary information is "transparent." Consequently, since they've eliminated the possibility for negotiation, I will never approach them for prospective employment. A "master" engineer taking low equity living/working in SF only makes ~$155k: no thanks. https://buffer.com/salary?r=1&l=10&e=3&q=1 https://buffer.com/salary?r=1&l=10&e=3&q=1 In my humble opinion: this kind of hiring strategy rewards low performers who get lucky and dissuades and marginalizes A-players who know what they are worth.
- swombat 10y ago
  This is a fantastic side-effect of transparent cultures and salary structure: people like you who, for reasons good or bad, do not want to work in this kind of environment, don't apply. You may believe that sets you apart as an "A player" and means we only hire B players. I believe the concept of A players and B players is false, and have discussed this here: http://danieltenner.com/2014/09/11/there-are-no-b-players/ http://danieltenner.com/2014/09/11/there-are-no-b-players/ . That said it is your right to believe this dichotomy exists and that you are on the right side of it. I put it to you that if you insist on having an A/B player dichotomy your desire for an environment which makes you feel worthy through paying you more makes you inherently a B player in the environment at Buffer or GrantTree, where this kind of mindset will have all sorts of side-effects that will make it difficult to work with you. Almost all the people who we interview are very keen to work in this kind of environment. The last job we had opened (admittedly a relatively low skilled job) we had 200 applicants, interviewed about 20, and almost all those 20 were really, really keen to work in this open environment (and none found it a turnoff, though some didn't really understand what it meant). I like to think we hired someone who will be able to do the role very well and be happy doing it in our company. What I love about your comment is that you are far from alone to have this reaction, but because we are very upfront about our culture, people with your reaction never seem to apply. That's a win on both sides: you don't waste your time interviewing with us, and we don't waste our time interviewing you.
  - 15155 10y ago
    > where this kind of mindset will have all sorts of side-effects that will make it difficult to work with you. I find it difficult to work with people who are compensated less than me. I want my coworkers to be better than me. I do not want to work with people assessed as "masters" making $155,000/year in San Francisco, CA. I am accustomed to working with people being paid more. Full disclosure: Over four years ago, I was receiving offers $10,000+/year more for like roles (SF, FTE, backend development). I would certainly not proclaim myself a "master," either. Especially not 4 years ago. > I love about your comment is that you are far from alone to have this reaction, but because we are very upfront about our culture, people with your reaction never seem to apply. Please do not turn this into a matter of "culture." I find nothing wrong with a culture of transparency. I find Buffer's actual compensation packages problematic. The lack of negotiation ability makes what might otherwise be a fruitful business relationship impossible. I do not believe that transparency and negotiations are mutually exclusive. Sincere counter-question: how can you retain talent with fixed salary ceilings? Why would someone stick around when they're leaving a ton of money on the table? Entirely my opinion: this is potentially the A/B dichotomy. If someone is developing their skills, is extremely productive, is increasing their worth, at one of these companies they can choose to leave money on the table (altruistically donating their higher value to a for-profit company) or leave. Are they a "bad culture fit" because they wanted to make what they are worth?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

xviia 10y ago

Without salary negotiation, the company gets to choose the price. Unfortunately, Silicon Valley has shown that it is willing to collude to keep that price down. Therefore, when companies argue that they're banning salary negotiation to "promote equality", you should assume that this equality is merely a gimmick to hide the true purpose: lower wages. If there really is a difference in negotiating ability between women and men, it would seem far more beneficial to teach women how to negotiate for a fair wage rather than abolish the entire thing altogether. In fact, teach all employees to quantify their abilities and how much value they will provide to their employer. Demonstrate that if companies are unwilling to pay them a fair wage, that they should not devalue their employment. But the most recent steps toward banning negotiation will ultimately hurt all employees. When companies like Apple, Google, and other Silicon Valley companies agree not to hire employees from each other, and threaten to replace tech workers in the US with less-expensive H1B visas, we should question their true motives. This newest idea of "banning negotiation" is nothing more than another tactic used by a profit-maximizing entity to reduce costs.

mathattack 10y ago
I don't think "teaching women to negotiate" is practical. Is Google or Facebook supposed to send candidates to negotiation classes before offer negotiation time? Is there evidence that a training class can overcome whatever combination of nature and nurture causes the discrepancy? Let the market drive the compensation level. If "the compensation for the position - take it or leave it" is too low, then the company won't be able to hire anyone, and they will have to alter it over time. If it's "take it or leave it" from the employee, you wind up underpaying people with humility, and overpay people who are overconfident. Note: I'm not at one of the large companies that have been in these lawsuits, and lost an internal fight to move to the "one price" policy that I'm advocating for. I'm doing my best to implement it in my part of the organization, and even there it doesn't always work.
- xviia 10y ago
  Of course Google and Facebook are not going to send candidates to negotiation classes; they would stand to lose from such an arrangement. Rather, there are many ways to approach this: 1. Salary negotiation could be included within curriculum at CS schools. (Schools would love if alumni made more money!) 2. Techniques could be included in books (like "Soft Skills"), podcasts, etc. 3. The culture in Silicon Valley could emphasize the importance of negotiating a fair wage. Left to their own devices, companies WILL exploit those who believe that negotiation is "bad". Companies might not even do so intentionally, but might do so merely by hiring the cheapest employees who have the highest skills. A side effect is that even if only 75% of employees negotiate to higher wages, the "market rate salary" for employees will increase. If, instead, 75% of employees did NOT negotiate, you'd see a depression in wages.
  - toyg 10y ago
    > 1. Salary negotiation could be included within curriculum at CS schools. This is such a good idea. The modern school system oscillates between industrial training and academic pursuit, and very practical skills like this one (or householding finances) which could directly benefit the actual person, are terribly neglected. What is it that stops teachers from talking about everyday matters related to money? Is it their own sense of inadequacy on the subject? Fear of letting out how much they (don't) make? Is it "political pressure"? Or simply that they love their academic subjects so much, they'd rather not talk about more prosaic stuff?
    - bphogan 10y ago
      Taught software dev for four years in higher ed. I always had modules on resume/cover letter, behavioral interviews, core value matching, self promotion, salary negotiation, and other job-related things. Student feedback always suggested these were incredibly valuable lessons.
- kaybe 10y ago
  > Is there evidence that a training class can overcome whatever combination of nature and nurture causes the discrepancy? There is also the issue that the same behaviour is seen differently when coming from men and women. What is assertive in a man can be aggressive and offputting in a woman. Which means you'd have to have different kinds of courses for different genders, and it only starts there (more minority groups with less studies of what happens when they act the same as a white male). So, there is even more of a hurdle for potential training classes to overcome.
pyoung 10y ago
Negotiations still take place, they just happen in a different format. For example if the Technical Lead is having trouble hiring due to low salaries for the positions, he would make the case to management that they need to raise the salary range for those positions. And the added benefit to this format (in a transparent organization) current employees would also get a raise which would probably help with attrition. I think for very senior roles, individual negotiations still might make sense, as the value prop of those hires is highly variable and can have big impacts on the organization. But for roles like Software Eng I, and Software Eng II, etc... in the long run it is better for morale, attrition, and equality to use defined salary ranges. And you can still use bonuses to adjust compensation based on performance.
- xviia 10y ago
  In these cases, though, we're relying on the employer to institute those salaries. However, the employer usually does not have an incentive to pay more if they can get the same thing for cheaper.
  - pyoung 10y ago
    The employer isn't magically immune to market forces simply because they move to a transparent salary system. If they are significantly under-paying their employees, and they are not making up the difference via other benefits (shorter working hours, bonuses, etc...) then they are going to run into a lot of trouble hiring and holding onto employees. And just because a company has defined salary ranges doesn't mean employees have no voice in the matter. If they feel those salaries are not keeping up with market rates, they can make that known to management, or they can go find greener pastures.
    - xviia 10y ago
      Except when they overcome those market forces through collusion. See: wage lawsuit against Apple, Google, and other tech Titans
      - 10y ago
prutschman 10y ago
Women can get (possibly unintentionally, possibly not) punished for exhibiting negotiation and leadership traits that are valued in men. A friend recently had an offer, ready to sign, but the salary was lower than she wanted. She wrote back asking if there was room to move upward. She had the offer withdrawn.
- xviia 10y ago
  This is pretty unfortunate. But we don't know if the company would have done the same for a male.
  - jacalata 10y ago
    We don't know for sure about this instance, but evidence suggests that it's more likely to happen to a woman than a man - https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/cfawis/bowles.pdf https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/cfawis/bowles.pdf
- Spooky23 10y ago
  Sometimes it's worse than that -- women are seen as a cheap ticket. I remember one of my first colleagues as a professional in this industry had to fight and fight to eke out a lousy 3% raise, despite being s superstar employee. Later I found out that she was making 30% less than me, and They had just threw a ton of equity at me to try and keep me from leaving.
mavelikara 10y ago
> When companies like Apple, Google, and other Silicon Valley companies agree [..], and threaten to replace tech workers in the US with less-expensive H1B visas [..] When did these Silicon Valley companies threaten to hire less-expensive H1B visas? Do you have any citation on this? Are the H1Bs working for these companies paid less than non-H1Bs? Looking at the publicly available salary data for these companies - AmaGoogFaceSoft kind - seem to pay their H1Bs very well.
- mangahero 10y ago
  The reason is that psychologically, humans already account for the fact that women have it easier in life.

15155 10y ago

Take Buffer, for instance: their salary information is "transparent." Consequently, since they've eliminated the possibility for negotiation, I will never approach them for prospective employment. A "master" engineer taking low equity living/working in SF only makes ~$155k: no thanks. https://buffer.com/salary?r=1&l=10&e=3&q=1 https://buffer.com/salary?r=1&l=10&e=3&q=1 In my humble opinion: this kind of hiring strategy rewards low performers who get lucky and dissuades and marginalizes A-players who know what they are worth.

swombat 10y ago
This is a fantastic side-effect of transparent cultures and salary structure: people like you who, for reasons good or bad, do not want to work in this kind of environment, don't apply. You may believe that sets you apart as an "A player" and means we only hire B players. I believe the concept of A players and B players is false, and have discussed this here: http://danieltenner.com/2014/09/11/there-are-no-b-players/ http://danieltenner.com/2014/09/11/there-are-no-b-players/ . That said it is your right to believe this dichotomy exists and that you are on the right side of it. I put it to you that if you insist on having an A/B player dichotomy your desire for an environment which makes you feel worthy through paying you more makes you inherently a B player in the environment at Buffer or GrantTree, where this kind of mindset will have all sorts of side-effects that will make it difficult to work with you. Almost all the people who we interview are very keen to work in this kind of environment. The last job we had opened (admittedly a relatively low skilled job) we had 200 applicants, interviewed about 20, and almost all those 20 were really, really keen to work in this open environment (and none found it a turnoff, though some didn't really understand what it meant). I like to think we hired someone who will be able to do the role very well and be happy doing it in our company. What I love about your comment is that you are far from alone to have this reaction, but because we are very upfront about our culture, people with your reaction never seem to apply. That's a win on both sides: you don't waste your time interviewing with us, and we don't waste our time interviewing you.
- 15155 10y ago
  > where this kind of mindset will have all sorts of side-effects that will make it difficult to work with you. I find it difficult to work with people who are compensated less than me. I want my coworkers to be better than me. I do not want to work with people assessed as "masters" making $155,000/year in San Francisco, CA. I am accustomed to working with people being paid more. Full disclosure: Over four years ago, I was receiving offers $10,000+/year more for like roles (SF, FTE, backend development). I would certainly not proclaim myself a "master," either. Especially not 4 years ago. > I love about your comment is that you are far from alone to have this reaction, but because we are very upfront about our culture, people with your reaction never seem to apply. Please do not turn this into a matter of "culture." I find nothing wrong with a culture of transparency. I find Buffer's actual compensation packages problematic. The lack of negotiation ability makes what might otherwise be a fruitful business relationship impossible. I do not believe that transparency and negotiations are mutually exclusive. Sincere counter-question: how can you retain talent with fixed salary ceilings? Why would someone stick around when they're leaving a ton of money on the table? Entirely my opinion: this is potentially the A/B dichotomy. If someone is developing their skills, is extremely productive, is increasing their worth, at one of these companies they can choose to leave money on the table (altruistically donating their higher value to a for-profit company) or leave. Are they a "bad culture fit" because they wanted to make what they are worth?