4 ms·

Sigh. Seldom on HN do I see terrible advice, but this is certainly one of them. Here is a summary of the article: > Hi HN! You really like if-else statements,

by a1371 3y ago

Sigh. Seldom on HN do I see terrible advice, but this is certainly one of them. Here is a summary of the article: > Hi HN! You really like if-else statements, right? Let me frame a humane conversation like salary negotiation as a bunch of conditionals so that it is within your comfort zone. If they say X, then repeat after me: "..." Then HN follows the advice and comes back and complains about being stuck in a soulless job that they just learned to "remove their feelings from it". Just look at these comments as a tiny example. About me: I have the final say in all of our hirings at a stable startup that many people have told me would be their dream job. I will not hire a person who follows this process. Sure, against a recruiter you may be able to negotiate to push the number up. That's because they are looking for their bonus and only care if you finish your probation. Against me, you are trading off your image, because I try to see your role 2 to 5 years down the road. That's when a position truly pays off for us. Basically, I am trying to understand if I can make you happy now, and keep you happy in the coming years. For that, you have to help me see you as a person WHO KNOWS WHAT YOU WANT. Now, let's follow this article's advice on salary negotiation, and see where that lands us: 1. I ask you for your salary expectation. 2. You return the question back to me. (“Yeah, I have some thoughts around it but I was actually wondering what the salary range for the position is?”) 3. I either answer you or re-return the question back to you. 4. You give me the answer to question #1 anyways. You are not negotiating. You are running a subroutine. You are also telling me that you are not an open nor a direct person. There is no "money on the table" that you can get from me by just asking the right order of questions. I want to know what satisfies you based on your lifestyle, what you heard from your friends, and what you saw online. I don't want to play mind tricks or be played. In the era of ChatGPT, I have seen it all. You hiding behind intricate words does no favor. Same goes with what the article suggesting about leverage. In our previous posting, we got 500+ applicants. If I give you an offer, it is not for bargaining. I think I am a fair person and I try my best to meet your need. If you come back to me and ask for more because Adobe is offering you something interesting, I realize you don't really care about us vs Adobe, you are going for the best bid. Again, I want you to think about that 2-5 year timeframe, would I be in the right mind to count on you? Probably not. So I suggest that you take Adobe's offer and we move on to a candidate that we feel sees something special in us. That being said, I get why people may try these tactics. people are worried that they are giving too low of a number and if they had said something higher, it would have been fine anyways. Well, you can ask me how do I ensure that people get their fair share and what policies we have to keep salaries competitive through promotion. Trust me, it will be clear.

dumpster_fire 3y ago
The ego here is palpable. Asking candidates to trust the first offer from a hiring manager is equally terrible advice. > I realize you don't really care about us vs Adobe, you are going for the best bid. Er yeah. It's a job. Unless you're OpenAI right now, you'd be hard pressed to find a candidate who means it when they say they love your company vision. It's all theatrics and gate keeping by ego massaging. It's a rite of passage for junior devs to believe words like yours until they find fresh grads earning double their pay, and getting dumped onto the streets during layoffs. To the junior devs: Passion and enthusiasm are positive attributes for a team's productivity, but they are equally fantastic traits for hiring managers to exploit. Never forget that. From: A very jaded senior engineer who has seen a lot from startups to tech shops to big tech.
- bionsystem 3y ago
  I agree and I would add : you wouldn't know in advance how great a job actually is, when you only know its description. You don't (really) know who you're going to work with, what pain points the company have internally or with their clients, because nobody in their right mind would tell you about it from a recruiting perspective. And obviously you wouldn't know much about the company's future, even funding isn't really a predictor for success. So yeah salary is the most important common denominator, simply because at the end of the day, it's a written number and you know you're going to get it.
deelly 3y ago
I agree with part of the statements but... > I realize you don't really care about us vs Adobe, you are going for the best bid. But do you (at least a bit) care about candidate? Why candidate should care about you and your company if on the first sign of any troubles (that completely unrelated to candidate) you will just fire him immediately? And tell me that you will not fire him and work with loss. Tell me please.
- a1371 3y ago
  We really do and we try to reflect that in the offer. Our vesting packages are orders of magnitude larger than what's typical, with long exercise times. Our finances are also pretty stable (no VC, cash flow positive, long term licenses) so we can invest in them upfront and go over asking.

by a1371 3y ago

dumpster_fire 3y ago

The ego here is palpable. Asking candidates to trust the first offer from a hiring manager is equally terrible advice. > I realize you don't really care about us vs Adobe, you are going for the best bid. Er yeah. It's a job. Unless you're OpenAI right now, you'd be hard pressed to find a candidate who means it when they say they love your company vision. It's all theatrics and gate keeping by ego massaging. It's a rite of passage for junior devs to believe words like yours until they find fresh grads earning double their pay, and getting dumped onto the streets during layoffs. To the junior devs: Passion and enthusiasm are positive attributes for a team's productivity, but they are equally fantastic traits for hiring managers to exploit. Never forget that. From: A very jaded senior engineer who has seen a lot from startups to tech shops to big tech.

bionsystem 3y ago
I agree and I would add : you wouldn't know in advance how great a job actually is, when you only know its description. You don't (really) know who you're going to work with, what pain points the company have internally or with their clients, because nobody in their right mind would tell you about it from a recruiting perspective. And obviously you wouldn't know much about the company's future, even funding isn't really a predictor for success. So yeah salary is the most important common denominator, simply because at the end of the day, it's a written number and you know you're going to get it.

deelly 3y ago

I agree with part of the statements but... > I realize you don't really care about us vs Adobe, you are going for the best bid. But do you (at least a bit) care about candidate? Why candidate should care about you and your company if on the first sign of any troubles (that completely unrelated to candidate) you will just fire him immediately? And tell me that you will not fire him and work with loss. Tell me please.

a1371 3y ago
We really do and we try to reflect that in the offer. Our vesting packages are orders of magnitude larger than what's typical, with long exercise times. Our finances are also pretty stable (no VC, cash flow positive, long term licenses) so we can invest in them upfront and go over asking.