4 ms·

To answer your question as posed: to fix the power/information imbalance that is used to pay people less than they are worth. To answer your question the way I

by 1991g 4y ago

To answer your question as posed: to fix the power/information imbalance that is used to pay people less than they are worth. To answer your question the way I wish to: thanks to Equifax's TWN, candidate resumes, reference checks, background checks etc - the candidate is already showing all their cards.

WalterBright 4y ago
> the power/information imbalance that is used to pay people less than they are worth Candidates often pad their resumes with skills they don't have. They'll pad their salary history. They'll hide things like stretches in jail. They'll list degrees they don't have. All to get a higher salary. The employer often doesn't realize for months that the employee wasn't as represented, and way overpaid. It goes both ways. I know you likely don't believe me, but I've been employer and employee, at min wage and professional wages. If you ever become an employer, you'll find out real fast how little power you have over employees. Anecdotally, I know employees with million dollar salaries. Is it credible that if corporations really had all this power, they'd be paid that much?
- WalterBright 4y ago
  BTW, I have a friend who, when he interviews candidates for professional positions like accounting and such, asks them "how much is 20% of $20,000?" A significant fraction, even those with masters degrees, even those who claim to be accountants, are flummoxed by it. There's a lot of resume inflation going on.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Doing that sort of mental arithmetic in a high pressure situation has very little to do with an accounting degree. Yes, it should be easy but I imagine I could make a lot of people flail at questions that they could answer easily sitting around a coffee table.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      > Doing that sort of mental arithmetic in a high pressure situation has very little to do with an accounting degree. Yeah, it does. Accountants work with percentages all the time. And if they can't do literally trivial arithmetic, they aren't fit to be accountants. He'd give them an hour. So let's see. What's 10% of $20,000? Then double it? (There are many other shortcuts to the answer.)
      - ghaff 4y ago
        Yes. Give someone an hour, of course. I'd expect any minimally educated white collar professional to be able to that without a calculator. As a verbal problem to answer in ten seconds? I'm more sympathetic with people freezing even if I certainly expect I'd be able to do it absent extreme pressure.
        WalterBright 4y ago
        If someone regards an interview question as extreme pressure, I don't know what to say. Except advise the person to do more job interviews until they get used to it.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    I sometimes ask people who claim a lot of C experience "could you give me an approximate value for 2^30?", which is vastly more difficult than 20% of $20K for an accountant. I find it interesting the different approaches that people take. They've ranged from "I know 2^32 is a little over 4B, so 2^30 is a little over 1B", "I know max signed 32-bit int is a little over 2B, so...", "2^10 is a little over 1K, so 2^30 is a little over 1B", to "that's literally impossible and there's no way I could give you so much as an indication as to whether it's positive or negative, even or odd; I'm not even sure it's an integer..."
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      There are lots and lots and lots of mental shortcuts one can take to get an approximate answer.
- NoraCodes 4y ago
  > They'll hide things like stretches in jail. Why would a company pay someone less because they've been in jail?
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    There's the elevated risk of re-offending, or being less trustworthy. For example, if they did a stretch for embezzling, they'd be placed in a position where trust is less of an issue, which would likely pay less. I wouldn't want to hire someone to operate heavy machinery if he did a stretch for drunk driving. Would you?
    - Supermancho 4y ago
      > I wouldn't want to hire someone to operate heavy machinery if he did a stretch for drunk driving. Would you? Funny enough, that comes back on a background check...if it was within 7-10yrs depending on source, if you want to pay for it, iirc. JP Morgan will go back as far as they can to seek out any sort of theft or fraud charge for ANY position. Ostensibly this is about transparency for developers, so alcoholics are pretty common in corporate jobs the higher up you go in salary.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    If you invent a 4-year stint at respected company XYZ to cover your resume gap, the company might pay you based on the value that faked experience brought. It’s not that I’ll pay less because you were in jail a while, but rather that being in jail likely makes you less competitive skills and experience wise compared to someone who worked straight through.
- antisthenes 4y ago
  > Candidates often pad their resumes with skills they don't have. They'll pad their salary history. They'll hide things like stretches in jail. They'll list degrees they don't have. All to get a higher salary. The employer often doesn't realize for months that the employee wasn't as represented, and way overpaid. It goes both ways. I'll explain why I disagree with you and downvoted you (since you are making an argument in bad faith). 1. Padding a resume is sometimes necessary to bypass automated systems. If the choice is between slight embellishment and never getting an offer, then I believe it is morally justifiable to pad the resume just enough to conform to requirements. It's really an open secret - recruiters will openly tell you to do this. Also, to go further on this, job requirements are very often written by less technical people (HR) who will make mistakes in the number of required years in tech, or have ridiculous requirements that would limit the candidate pool to maybe...10 people on this entire planet. 2. Padding the salary history is almost impossible and easily verifiable through pay stubs. I very much doubt this happens often enough at desirable jobs, especially where people's reputation is on the line. 3. They'll hide things like stretches in jail - Again, almost impossible to hide, considering court records are public record. Even you or I could check this and not proceed with offering them a job. If the company doesn't do this diligence - that's on them, they certainly have the resources to do so. > The employer often doesn't realize for months that the employee wasn't as represented, and way overpaid. What about cases where the employee ends up being better than expected and brings way more value to the company than the originally agreed upon offer? How quickly is that reconciled? It goes both ways, after all. > It goes both ways. While it does go both ways, it's like saying a pedestrian is also causing damage to the car during a collision. The amount of resources a company/corp has is insurmountably higher than any individual could hope to achieve (barring billionaires). This is why we have multitude of protections for employees (that corporations are continuously trying to circumvent) > Anecdotally, I know employees with million dollar salaries. Is it credible that if corporations really had all this power, they'd be paid that much? The mere fact that they are able to pay a million dollar salary to a single employee signifies one of the following: 1. The employee is indeed a genius who brings this amount of money in or more, or contributes to the company growth in a way to justify this. 2. The company enjoys something like monopoly presence on the market and can afford to overpay for truly mediocre employees. If this is the case, then it's hard to feel sorry for the company.
- colinsane 4y ago
  > The employer often doesn't realize for months that the employee wasn't as represented, and way overpaid. that employee's coworkers and team members surely would realize how well the pay matches though. or at least, they could, wherever the employer makes that info public. my own experience with internally-public compensation at a 70-engineer company: is that there's so much _error_ in setting salaries. i don't think my employer really cared if the salary they pay for equivalent work varies randomly by 20%: to them that's just the cost of doing business and they have enough margin to cover that. but when i see that my teammate, who's putting in literally 20-hr weeks and producing half the output as the rest of the team, is being paid 20% more than me? that's reason to feel that my employer isn't treating me fairly and to leave. that hurts my employer more than the 20% extra they're paying the other guy. i felt like there was a catch-22 here: in theory erroneous salaries could be more quickly corrected if they were internally public. but it's risky to make salaries public before the employer is reasonably confident that they're accurate.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    You don't have to leave. Just document the value you provide, and go negotiate. Yes, you can do that. I have. > that hurts my employer more than the 20% extra they're paying the other guy. I.e. there's your leverage. Go make your case. No excuses!
    - colinsane 4y ago
      i made my case. i pushed for negotiations. i presented the ultimatum as tactfully as i could manage. and i exercised that ultimatum. i believe the company truly just did not have the resources to expend on getting everyone's salary as accurate as would take to make me happy. it was a flat organization, in such a way that only a handful of people were responsible -- on top of their other duties -- for the determination of salaries for those 70 engineers. i think they are on track to fixing this broadly, but just not in time for me.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        Leaving was the right choice. It's the only power you need.
JamesianP 4y ago
You can gather info on companies just as well.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  As a bonus, you're more likely to get an offer by researching the company beforehand and demonstrating familiarity with it.

by 1991g 4y ago

WalterBright 4y ago

> the power/information imbalance that is used to pay people less than they are worth Candidates often pad their resumes with skills they don't have. They'll pad their salary history. They'll hide things like stretches in jail. They'll list degrees they don't have. All to get a higher salary. The employer often doesn't realize for months that the employee wasn't as represented, and way overpaid. It goes both ways. I know you likely don't believe me, but I've been employer and employee, at min wage and professional wages. If you ever become an employer, you'll find out real fast how little power you have over employees. Anecdotally, I know employees with million dollar salaries. Is it credible that if corporations really had all this power, they'd be paid that much?

WalterBright 4y ago
BTW, I have a friend who, when he interviews candidates for professional positions like accounting and such, asks them "how much is 20% of $20,000?" A significant fraction, even those with masters degrees, even those who claim to be accountants, are flummoxed by it. There's a lot of resume inflation going on.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Doing that sort of mental arithmetic in a high pressure situation has very little to do with an accounting degree. Yes, it should be easy but I imagine I could make a lot of people flail at questions that they could answer easily sitting around a coffee table.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > Doing that sort of mental arithmetic in a high pressure situation has very little to do with an accounting degree. Yeah, it does. Accountants work with percentages all the time. And if they can't do literally trivial arithmetic, they aren't fit to be accountants. He'd give them an hour. So let's see. What's 10% of $20,000? Then double it? (There are many other shortcuts to the answer.)
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Yes. Give someone an hour, of course. I'd expect any minimally educated white collar professional to be able to that without a calculator. As a verbal problem to answer in ten seconds? I'm more sympathetic with people freezing even if I certainly expect I'd be able to do it absent extreme pressure.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        If someone regards an interview question as extreme pressure, I don't know what to say. Except advise the person to do more job interviews until they get used to it.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  I sometimes ask people who claim a lot of C experience "could you give me an approximate value for 2^30?", which is vastly more difficult than 20% of $20K for an accountant. I find it interesting the different approaches that people take. They've ranged from "I know 2^32 is a little over 4B, so 2^30 is a little over 1B", "I know max signed 32-bit int is a little over 2B, so...", "2^10 is a little over 1K, so 2^30 is a little over 1B", to "that's literally impossible and there's no way I could give you so much as an indication as to whether it's positive or negative, even or odd; I'm not even sure it's an integer..."
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    There are lots and lots and lots of mental shortcuts one can take to get an approximate answer.
NoraCodes 4y ago
> They'll hide things like stretches in jail. Why would a company pay someone less because they've been in jail?
- WalterBright 4y ago
  There's the elevated risk of re-offending, or being less trustworthy. For example, if they did a stretch for embezzling, they'd be placed in a position where trust is less of an issue, which would likely pay less. I wouldn't want to hire someone to operate heavy machinery if he did a stretch for drunk driving. Would you?
  - Supermancho 4y ago
    > I wouldn't want to hire someone to operate heavy machinery if he did a stretch for drunk driving. Would you? Funny enough, that comes back on a background check...if it was within 7-10yrs depending on source, if you want to pay for it, iirc. JP Morgan will go back as far as they can to seek out any sort of theft or fraud charge for ANY position. Ostensibly this is about transparency for developers, so alcoholics are pretty common in corporate jobs the higher up you go in salary.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  If you invent a 4-year stint at respected company XYZ to cover your resume gap, the company might pay you based on the value that faked experience brought. It’s not that I’ll pay less because you were in jail a while, but rather that being in jail likely makes you less competitive skills and experience wise compared to someone who worked straight through.
antisthenes 4y ago
> Candidates often pad their resumes with skills they don't have. They'll pad their salary history. They'll hide things like stretches in jail. They'll list degrees they don't have. All to get a higher salary. The employer often doesn't realize for months that the employee wasn't as represented, and way overpaid. It goes both ways. I'll explain why I disagree with you and downvoted you (since you are making an argument in bad faith). 1. Padding a resume is sometimes necessary to bypass automated systems. If the choice is between slight embellishment and never getting an offer, then I believe it is morally justifiable to pad the resume just enough to conform to requirements. It's really an open secret - recruiters will openly tell you to do this. Also, to go further on this, job requirements are very often written by less technical people (HR) who will make mistakes in the number of required years in tech, or have ridiculous requirements that would limit the candidate pool to maybe...10 people on this entire planet. 2. Padding the salary history is almost impossible and easily verifiable through pay stubs. I very much doubt this happens often enough at desirable jobs, especially where people's reputation is on the line. 3. They'll hide things like stretches in jail - Again, almost impossible to hide, considering court records are public record. Even you or I could check this and not proceed with offering them a job. If the company doesn't do this diligence - that's on them, they certainly have the resources to do so. > The employer often doesn't realize for months that the employee wasn't as represented, and way overpaid. What about cases where the employee ends up being better than expected and brings way more value to the company than the originally agreed upon offer? How quickly is that reconciled? It goes both ways, after all. > It goes both ways. While it does go both ways, it's like saying a pedestrian is also causing damage to the car during a collision. The amount of resources a company/corp has is insurmountably higher than any individual could hope to achieve (barring billionaires). This is why we have multitude of protections for employees (that corporations are continuously trying to circumvent) > Anecdotally, I know employees with million dollar salaries. Is it credible that if corporations really had all this power, they'd be paid that much? The mere fact that they are able to pay a million dollar salary to a single employee signifies one of the following: 1. The employee is indeed a genius who brings this amount of money in or more, or contributes to the company growth in a way to justify this. 2. The company enjoys something like monopoly presence on the market and can afford to overpay for truly mediocre employees. If this is the case, then it's hard to feel sorry for the company.
colinsane 4y ago
> The employer often doesn't realize for months that the employee wasn't as represented, and way overpaid. that employee's coworkers and team members surely would realize how well the pay matches though. or at least, they could, wherever the employer makes that info public. my own experience with internally-public compensation at a 70-engineer company: is that there's so much _error_ in setting salaries. i don't think my employer really cared if the salary they pay for equivalent work varies randomly by 20%: to them that's just the cost of doing business and they have enough margin to cover that. but when i see that my teammate, who's putting in literally 20-hr weeks and producing half the output as the rest of the team, is being paid 20% more than me? that's reason to feel that my employer isn't treating me fairly and to leave. that hurts my employer more than the 20% extra they're paying the other guy. i felt like there was a catch-22 here: in theory erroneous salaries could be more quickly corrected if they were internally public. but it's risky to make salaries public before the employer is reasonably confident that they're accurate.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  You don't have to leave. Just document the value you provide, and go negotiate. Yes, you can do that. I have. > that hurts my employer more than the 20% extra they're paying the other guy. I.e. there's your leverage. Go make your case. No excuses!
  - colinsane 4y ago
    i made my case. i pushed for negotiations. i presented the ultimatum as tactfully as i could manage. and i exercised that ultimatum. i believe the company truly just did not have the resources to expend on getting everyone's salary as accurate as would take to make me happy. it was a flat organization, in such a way that only a handful of people were responsible -- on top of their other duties -- for the determination of salaries for those 70 engineers. i think they are on track to fixing this broadly, but just not in time for me.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      Leaving was the right choice. It's the only power you need.

JamesianP 4y ago

You can gather info on companies just as well.

WalterBright 4y ago
As a bonus, you're more likely to get an offer by researching the company beforehand and demonstrating familiarity with it.