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I also feel very strongly about this. Many moons ago I literally got paid half of what a friend of mine got paid for exactly the same position, responsibilities

I also feel very strongly about this. Many moons ago I literally got paid half of what a friend of mine got paid for exactly the same position, responsibilities, and output, and yes, I can gauge the output, as it was a position for which this is quite rigidly defined. Just because he said a different amount than I that he was willing to work for during negotiations. From that point on I have consistently refused to 'name my amount'. Literally, I would say something like: "A company like yours must have a defined salary scale for the given position, why don't we start from there, and see how it aligns with my expectations?". If they push on, it goes something like: "So, are you saying that salaries at your organization are ad-hoc, and you're looking for the cheapest person who can fill the role?". In which case, I'm really not interested anymore.

whatsapps2020 5y ago
Another option is to study the market, interview at multiple places, and give a high but realistic amount. This way you will get ~highest possible offer
- jgilias 5y ago
  The part of the discussion is not just about pay, it is also about company culture. I really don't want to work at a place willing to haggle and fill the position with the cheapest eligible person.
  - pm90 5y ago
    There are often good teams but they need to work with a compensation department/committee to get actual numbers. IMO it seems a bit early to judge the company culture just by an interaction with the recruiter. But maybe you consider that to be a part of company culture too. What I’ve noticed though is even fantastic engineering companies might crappy departments for other things.
    - jgilias 5y ago
      At a point when they ask me my salary expectations, I would expect to be talking to someone who has the authority to speak about salaries.
      - pm90 5y ago
        Doesn’t change the point I’m making unless you’re saying this is a manager you’d be reporting to. In which case your stance is justified. Otherwise my point stands.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    The problem with this approach is that while the team that is spending their budget on your salary probably doesn't give two shits about an extra $5-20k/yr the disconnected HR department has always been laser focused on pushing back on salary numbers for some reason. I interviewed at a place where I knew someone who worked there and knew exactly the number they were looking to hire at, I named that number in my interview and they still tried to undercut me. I said, no I want $original_number in my response email and they caved in literally 5 minutes. Why?!?!? You found someone willing to take the job at exactly the team's budget. Shouldn't you be popping the champagne that it's painless and everyone's happy?
    - compiler-guy 5y ago
      The hiring team and the HR team have different local incentives. The hiring team just needs a position filled within a specific budget. The HR team is doing its best to manage company wide expenses. So it is worth it to them to take a crack at reducing the cost of a hire. If you can identify a company's inconsistencies in policies or behavior, you can identify different sets of incentives different parts of the company are under.
  - P_I_Staker 5y ago
    This attitude is common on Reddit and HN, but I think you misunderstand what the norm is. Comparative few companies "spare no expense" when shopping for their average employee. And yes, a developer is a average employee, a worker bee. A few really big companies might have a different attitude, at least for their major players. I know for a fact that these big companies will offer less than $70k to work in silicon valley, which is a slap in the face to a new grad that was getting better offers in low COL areas. So where are these mythic companies that don't care about money and give all new hires a fortune without trying to control costs at all?
endymi0n 5y ago
That's a fair point indeed, and it's what these laws are supposedly made to counter. I mainly wanted to raise awareness to the fact that tipping the scale in favor of people sharing the same concerns as you do will also tip it to disfavor others.
- jgilias 5y ago
  But transparency doesn't necessarily mean no wage disparity. You can still have bonuses and raises.
bb88 5y ago
Criticizing the HR department I'm possibly gonna be working for, is not the approach I would take. Instead I'd try to get them to understand my perspective. There's lots of approaches to this, but I usually go along these lines at the very start of negotiations: * "I'm well respected and well-paid at my current job. I'd need to see a good salary bump though before I accepted any offer. Moving jobs during a pandemic is, well, risky..." Honest and straightforward. You give them something to work with, and also what you're expecting. * "I would like to see $X" where $X is just outside their zone of comfort. Ideally they should be feeling pain or discomfort because your number is 10% outside their salary window. Usually you can make an educated guess about where $X is, and if you were way outside, you probably didn't want to work for that company anyway. * "I don't want to waste anyone's time here. What's the range you're looking for?" A lot of people in HR will give up the range if they're having trouble filling the position -- which many people are these days. And if the top is acceptable, be honest about it. If it's not, be honest about it with the expectation the call will end after that. If you detect a dodge or resistance (1) to give any detail whatsoever, it's easy just to end the conversation at that point. There's no reason to get angry, frustrated, or to argue your case, you're just turning down a number at that point in time -- or in some cases a lack of a number. (1) I would expect an investment bank (e.g.) to not give up their total compensation package. But they should still be able to say whether it's acceptable or not.
- danaris 5y ago
  > * "I would like to see $X" where $X is just outside their zone of comfort. How, exactly, are you supposed to know their "zone of comfort" if they don't even post a salary range?
  - ASalazarMX 5y ago
    "Look, I'm not comfortable at haggling, so I'm going to treat this question as a binary search: How about $1,000,000? No? How about $500,000?..."
  - bb88 5y ago
    An educated guess, but also a leap of faith. I've been friends with recruiters, so I guess that makes it a little easier. But you can certainly figure that out from looking at job postings. But the easy answer is $200k/year is what most people should be aiming to make professionally (even if they don't currently). And so every job switch you make should be a jump in salary. If you're making $120k, there should be nothing wrong with saying you want $160k. The big issue is just getting yourself psyched up to utter what you want to a recruiter. If you've been paid around $80k for five years with 3% annual raises, it's hard to say to a recruiter, "I want $140k". People tend to internalize that their worth is what that paycheck is, not what the market is willing to pay them. In that sense, it's just a leap of faith you need to make on your part.
colinmhayes 5y ago
Every company is looking for the cheapest person who can fill the role. The question is how skilled does the applicant have to be to be accepted.
tejohnso 5y ago
I think another option when naming your amount is to name an amount that would make you happy, not just one that you are willing to work for. So let's say you name an amount that would make you happy, and you get it. Someone else names their (higher) amount, and they get it. You're both happy! Two months later you find out their amount. Why does their happiness amount affect your happiness? Would you be happier if they were paid less? Maybe they should be paid the amount that would make you happy instead of what would make them happy? Why? Their circumstances are different, they are different people, whose requirement for happiness is different than yours. Surely you'd be happy making more, as much as they do, but we already established that you were already happy two months ago.
- brendoelfrendo 5y ago
  Sure, I’m unhappy in this scenario, because my previous happiness was due to an information asymmetry. I don’t know how high HR is willing to go; apparently they were willing to go higher, and if I had that information I would have specified a bigger number because, while there is certainly a lower bound on numbers that make me happy, there is no upper bound.
  - tejohnso 5y ago
    > there is no upper bound This is essentially saying that you're not happy unless you're being paid the maximum the company is willing to pay, now and in the future rather than choosing to be happy with an amount that fits your own needs. This means your happiness changes based on the circumstances of an external entity, rather than changing based on your own circumstances, which seems strange.
    - jakelazaroff 5y ago
      I am happy if I am paid what my labor is worth. I accept being paid slightly less, because the entity purchasing my labor needs to make a profit. I am not happy if I am paid significantly less — essentially this means that my employer has found a way to arbitrage my labor, and instead of sharing this information (and the value I create) they've decided to simply pocket the difference.
matz1 5y ago
>and you're looking for the cheapest person who can fill the role? So lets say you need plumber and there are 2 plumber who are just as good but with different price, you wouldn't choose the cheaper price ?
jay_kyburz 5y ago
I think this sums up whats wrong with pay transparency perfectly. You feel cheated because a company didn't pay you the same as another employee. But your value should not be measured by how much somebody else is getting paid, but by how much another company is willing to pay you.
- KittenInABox 5y ago
  Your value to the company is also constrained if the company pretend they can't afford your real worth, while they pay that worth to comparable employees. You don't know the worth you should be demanding because there's no transparency. The person was being cheated by their employer here.
  - jay_kyburz 5y ago
    That's the point, you never have any grounds to demand more unless you have another job offer on the table. When companies say they can't afford to pay you x, they mean they don't want to pay you x. Yes, sure, perhaps the employee was being cheated, but pay transparency is not going to fix that, that just insures everybody is being cheated evenly. The cheating happens when the profits of the company are not distributed to the people that run it, but to the people who own it.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  > But your value should not be measured by how much somebody else is getting paid, but by how much another company is willing to pay you. Who are you to say that? Is the invisible hand prescriptive now? What if I value fair treatment over marginal nominal compensation? What if I don't know how much to ask for when I'm looking for work because I'm so underpaid that my perception of the market is fucked?
  - jay_kyburz 5y ago
    Same way you work out how much your house is worth, you get two or more companies in a bidding war for your time.
  - 5y ago
whywhywhywhy 5y ago
>From that point on I have consistently refused to 'name my amount' You're cutting off your nose to spite your face. I don't see why you can't just ask for what you want. When you found out about your friend why not just ask for the same from your manager? If you don't ask you don't get, your problem of being paid less is self inflicted by your refusal to tell them the price you're satisfied with. >and see how it aligns with my expectations You clearly have a concept of your worth, just ask for it with a few grand more, the worst they can say is no and you can just go elsewhere.
- jgilias 5y ago
  Based on my past experiences with the above strategy, both my proverbial face and nose are fine, thank you! Before that though, I have done both - named an amount too high for a job that I really wanted, which I got passed on, and then named an amount too low for a different position leading to the aforementioned situation. So, yeah, YMMV, but for me just not playing the game works great.
  - whywhywhywhy 5y ago
    Definitely can understand and sympathize how you'd end up in that situation after being passed over for a job you really wanted. But please never lowball yourself, the price you walk through the door with defines your entire worth during your time at that company. It can take longer if you ask higher but at least the company you end up with you'll know they're happy to pay more.

whatsapps2020 5y ago

Another option is to study the market, interview at multiple places, and give a high but realistic amount. This way you will get ~highest possible offer

jgilias 5y ago
The part of the discussion is not just about pay, it is also about company culture. I really don't want to work at a place willing to haggle and fill the position with the cheapest eligible person.
- pm90 5y ago
  There are often good teams but they need to work with a compensation department/committee to get actual numbers. IMO it seems a bit early to judge the company culture just by an interaction with the recruiter. But maybe you consider that to be a part of company culture too. What I’ve noticed though is even fantastic engineering companies might crappy departments for other things.
  - jgilias 5y ago
    At a point when they ask me my salary expectations, I would expect to be talking to someone who has the authority to speak about salaries.
    - pm90 5y ago
      Doesn’t change the point I’m making unless you’re saying this is a manager you’d be reporting to. In which case your stance is justified. Otherwise my point stands.
- Spivak 5y ago
  The problem with this approach is that while the team that is spending their budget on your salary probably doesn't give two shits about an extra $5-20k/yr the disconnected HR department has always been laser focused on pushing back on salary numbers for some reason. I interviewed at a place where I knew someone who worked there and knew exactly the number they were looking to hire at, I named that number in my interview and they still tried to undercut me. I said, no I want $original_number in my response email and they caved in literally 5 minutes. Why?!?!? You found someone willing to take the job at exactly the team's budget. Shouldn't you be popping the champagne that it's painless and everyone's happy?
  - compiler-guy 5y ago
    The hiring team and the HR team have different local incentives. The hiring team just needs a position filled within a specific budget. The HR team is doing its best to manage company wide expenses. So it is worth it to them to take a crack at reducing the cost of a hire. If you can identify a company's inconsistencies in policies or behavior, you can identify different sets of incentives different parts of the company are under.
- P_I_Staker 5y ago
  This attitude is common on Reddit and HN, but I think you misunderstand what the norm is. Comparative few companies "spare no expense" when shopping for their average employee. And yes, a developer is a average employee, a worker bee. A few really big companies might have a different attitude, at least for their major players. I know for a fact that these big companies will offer less than $70k to work in silicon valley, which is a slap in the face to a new grad that was getting better offers in low COL areas. So where are these mythic companies that don't care about money and give all new hires a fortune without trying to control costs at all?

endymi0n 5y ago

That's a fair point indeed, and it's what these laws are supposedly made to counter. I mainly wanted to raise awareness to the fact that tipping the scale in favor of people sharing the same concerns as you do will also tip it to disfavor others.

jgilias 5y ago
But transparency doesn't necessarily mean no wage disparity. You can still have bonuses and raises.

bb88 5y ago

Criticizing the HR department I'm possibly gonna be working for, is not the approach I would take. Instead I'd try to get them to understand my perspective. There's lots of approaches to this, but I usually go along these lines at the very start of negotiations: * "I'm well respected and well-paid at my current job. I'd need to see a good salary bump though before I accepted any offer. Moving jobs during a pandemic is, well, risky..." Honest and straightforward. You give them something to work with, and also what you're expecting. * "I would like to see $X" where $X is just outside their zone of comfort. Ideally they should be feeling pain or discomfort because your number is 10% outside their salary window. Usually you can make an educated guess about where $X is, and if you were way outside, you probably didn't want to work for that company anyway. * "I don't want to waste anyone's time here. What's the range you're looking for?" A lot of people in HR will give up the range if they're having trouble filling the position -- which many people are these days. And if the top is acceptable, be honest about it. If it's not, be honest about it with the expectation the call will end after that. If you detect a dodge or resistance (1) to give any detail whatsoever, it's easy just to end the conversation at that point. There's no reason to get angry, frustrated, or to argue your case, you're just turning down a number at that point in time -- or in some cases a lack of a number. (1) I would expect an investment bank (e.g.) to not give up their total compensation package. But they should still be able to say whether it's acceptable or not.

danaris 5y ago
> * "I would like to see $X" where $X is just outside their zone of comfort. How, exactly, are you supposed to know their "zone of comfort" if they don't even post a salary range?
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  "Look, I'm not comfortable at haggling, so I'm going to treat this question as a binary search: How about $1,000,000? No? How about $500,000?..."
- bb88 5y ago
  An educated guess, but also a leap of faith. I've been friends with recruiters, so I guess that makes it a little easier. But you can certainly figure that out from looking at job postings. But the easy answer is $200k/year is what most people should be aiming to make professionally (even if they don't currently). And so every job switch you make should be a jump in salary. If you're making $120k, there should be nothing wrong with saying you want $160k. The big issue is just getting yourself psyched up to utter what you want to a recruiter. If you've been paid around $80k for five years with 3% annual raises, it's hard to say to a recruiter, "I want $140k". People tend to internalize that their worth is what that paycheck is, not what the market is willing to pay them. In that sense, it's just a leap of faith you need to make on your part.

colinmhayes 5y ago

Every company is looking for the cheapest person who can fill the role. The question is how skilled does the applicant have to be to be accepted.

tejohnso 5y ago

I think another option when naming your amount is to name an amount that would make you happy, not just one that you are willing to work for. So let's say you name an amount that would make you happy, and you get it. Someone else names their (higher) amount, and they get it. You're both happy! Two months later you find out their amount. Why does their happiness amount affect your happiness? Would you be happier if they were paid less? Maybe they should be paid the amount that would make you happy instead of what would make them happy? Why? Their circumstances are different, they are different people, whose requirement for happiness is different than yours. Surely you'd be happy making more, as much as they do, but we already established that you were already happy two months ago.

brendoelfrendo 5y ago
Sure, I’m unhappy in this scenario, because my previous happiness was due to an information asymmetry. I don’t know how high HR is willing to go; apparently they were willing to go higher, and if I had that information I would have specified a bigger number because, while there is certainly a lower bound on numbers that make me happy, there is no upper bound.
- tejohnso 5y ago
  > there is no upper bound This is essentially saying that you're not happy unless you're being paid the maximum the company is willing to pay, now and in the future rather than choosing to be happy with an amount that fits your own needs. This means your happiness changes based on the circumstances of an external entity, rather than changing based on your own circumstances, which seems strange.
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    I am happy if I am paid what my labor is worth. I accept being paid slightly less, because the entity purchasing my labor needs to make a profit. I am not happy if I am paid significantly less — essentially this means that my employer has found a way to arbitrage my labor, and instead of sharing this information (and the value I create) they've decided to simply pocket the difference.

matz1 5y ago

>and you're looking for the cheapest person who can fill the role? So lets say you need plumber and there are 2 plumber who are just as good but with different price, you wouldn't choose the cheaper price ?

jay_kyburz 5y ago

I think this sums up whats wrong with pay transparency perfectly. You feel cheated because a company didn't pay you the same as another employee. But your value should not be measured by how much somebody else is getting paid, but by how much another company is willing to pay you.

KittenInABox 5y ago
Your value to the company is also constrained if the company pretend they can't afford your real worth, while they pay that worth to comparable employees. You don't know the worth you should be demanding because there's no transparency. The person was being cheated by their employer here.
- jay_kyburz 5y ago
  That's the point, you never have any grounds to demand more unless you have another job offer on the table. When companies say they can't afford to pay you x, they mean they don't want to pay you x. Yes, sure, perhaps the employee was being cheated, but pay transparency is not going to fix that, that just insures everybody is being cheated evenly. The cheating happens when the profits of the company are not distributed to the people that run it, but to the people who own it.
pessimizer 5y ago
> But your value should not be measured by how much somebody else is getting paid, but by how much another company is willing to pay you. Who are you to say that? Is the invisible hand prescriptive now? What if I value fair treatment over marginal nominal compensation? What if I don't know how much to ask for when I'm looking for work because I'm so underpaid that my perception of the market is fucked?
- jay_kyburz 5y ago
  Same way you work out how much your house is worth, you get two or more companies in a bidding war for your time.
- 5y ago

whywhywhywhy 5y ago

>From that point on I have consistently refused to 'name my amount' You're cutting off your nose to spite your face. I don't see why you can't just ask for what you want. When you found out about your friend why not just ask for the same from your manager? If you don't ask you don't get, your problem of being paid less is self inflicted by your refusal to tell them the price you're satisfied with. >and see how it aligns with my expectations You clearly have a concept of your worth, just ask for it with a few grand more, the worst they can say is no and you can just go elsewhere.

jgilias 5y ago
Based on my past experiences with the above strategy, both my proverbial face and nose are fine, thank you! Before that though, I have done both - named an amount too high for a job that I really wanted, which I got passed on, and then named an amount too low for a different position leading to the aforementioned situation. So, yeah, YMMV, but for me just not playing the game works great.
- whywhywhywhy 5y ago
  Definitely can understand and sympathize how you'd end up in that situation after being passed over for a job you really wanted. But please never lowball yourself, the price you walk through the door with defines your entire worth during your time at that company. It can take longer if you ask higher but at least the company you end up with you'll know they're happy to pay more.