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Thank you for the insightful comment. One small nit though > I always ask what their salary expectations are I thought we were supposed to never answer this

by mcny 2y ago

Thank you for the insightful comment. One small nit though > I always ask what their salary expectations are I thought we were supposed to never answer this question. Why do you even bother asking this question? You have a budget for any role, right? Why not share this information instead of asking people how much they want? Does it matter if I want a million dollars a year?

cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
What? Have you ever hired before? This sounds exactly like the unrealistically simple view of someone that’s never been in this position before. You thought people were never supposed to answer that question? Well, they do. Especially developers, who are more introverted than average, on average, and are easy to catch off guard. I have a budget, sure. Unless your corporate setup is one that especially takes all power away from hiring managers, it’s almost always more complex than that. Maybe I could move some money around to free more budget up. Maybe someone on my team is a retention risk and I need to weigh up priorities. Maybe a billion billion other things. Your personal budget, no matter how implicit or explicit it is, almost certainly isn’t this simple so I have no idea why anyone thinks it works this way at work. Any organisation that is that simple and rigid isn’t capable of rolling with the punches, and isn’t somewhere anyone should want to work.
cj 2y ago
> Why do you even bother asking this question? If someone is asking for $250k and we're budgeting $150k, I don't want to waste their (and my) time.
- throwaway6977 2y ago
  If that's the case perhaps you could, I don't know, state that up front and save everyone some time...
  - cj 2y ago
    (Last reply I’ll post here): I guess just to be ultra clear so there’s no ambiguity. At our company no candidate talks to anyone at our company before talking to our 3rd party recruiter who screens all candidates before they make it to us. The recruiter has short 15-20 min pre-screening calls with candidates and she’s responsible for weeding out candidates who are likely to not be a fit. A major category to evaluate is mutual compensation expectations (what are they expecting to be paid, what are we expecting to pay). I don’t have full visibility into how our recruiter articulates this part of the screening call. She says some candidates don’t have a salary in mind, in which case she shares the lower bound of our range to feel them out. All roles have a salary range, e.g. could be $130-160k. We don’t just come out and say that, otherwise everyone will want the top end of the range, even if (in our opinion) their experience matches closer to the bottom or middle of the range. It’s an art, not a science. My goal is to not overpay for a role if we don’t have to. (Important: overpay doesn’t mean underpay!) more importantly, I want the person we’re hiring to be happy with the compensation. I don’t want to hire someone who’s going to quit in 6 months for a higher paying role. It’s a negotiation and both sides are trying to find the “market rate” through the process. You can be bitter about this fact, but it’s a simple reality in business. That’s just how things work.
    - rsanek 2y ago
      You must not be a US-based company -- many states / cities now require posting salary ranges on job ads. Based on population, it covers ~25% of all US workers https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/03/where-us-companies-have-to-share-salary-ranges-with-workers-by-law.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/03/where-us-companies-have-to-s...
      - eric-hu 2y ago
        I’m currently job seeking. Some companies apply to the letter of this but still share almost no information. I’ve seen salary ranges like 140-280k. In essence that tells me the company still wants to not overpay like the parent comment said.
        BurningFrog 2y ago
  - BurningFrog 2y ago
    This is not how price negotiations work.
    - c0mbonat0r 2y ago
      how should a candidate respond if they arent sure what range this role should pay?
      - vkou 2y ago
        Answer honestly. That their pay expectations depend on the details of the job.
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  So, you just push the interviewed to guess a random number without any context, and discard the ones that guess wrong. That's great! There's also that method of throwing paper curriculums up on a stair, and discarding the ones that land on the wrong steps.
  - cj 2y ago
    No. More like: Recruiter: “what are your compensation requirements? Candidate: “$250k” Recruiter: “Ah, that’s too bad. We were thinking this role would pay closer to $150k. Are you still interested in moving forward?” Candidate: (negotiate…)
    - icedchai 2y ago
      I had some recruiter contact me, immediately asks for my salary expectations. I give him a range, between 10% to 20% higher than I'm currently making. They come back with 50K less than I'm making now. "Thanks, but I don't think I am the right fit, this is significantly less than I am making now for what sounds like more responsibilities." A few hours later, the come back... offering 30K less than I'm making now. "I just talked to the manager and we are willing to come up!" I told him thanks again, but under no circumstances would I take less I was making now. Did he think I was kidding about the initial range? I never heard from him again.
    - looshch 2y ago
      if you think 3rd party recruiters usually do this, you are out of touch with reality
- vkou 2y ago
  If you've gotten to the point of an in-person interview, before bringing it up, you're absolutely wasting everyone's time.
Terretta 2y ago
> I thought we were supposed to never answer this question. It is legal to ask what they're looking for or "expect". It is not legal in many US jurisdictions (California, New York as notable ones) to ask what they made at their prior job. The first question is necessary since the numbers have to start somewhere. The second question tends to perpetuate any comp bias the interviewee may have been subject to previously. That said, as the interviewee, it's fair to turn the order of setting expectations on its head: “I hear your question, but first, what are you expecting to spend to fill this?” If they object you can try again: “You are a differentiated business with differentiated priorities, meaning your roles provide different returns on investment relative to other companies. What value do you put on this role?” If they object again, and you are confident in your value creation, try: “One of us has to start with expectations, so I'll start with this — based on my prior roles, I expect to have fully paid for myself within the first X days/weeks/months. My expectation is that will be true here as well.” Reality is a candidate's dollar "value" to a firm does in fact depend on the utility the firm can make of that skill. This is largely out of the candidate's control. As such, the firm should reveal the range they have in mind first.
- mathgeek 2y ago
  > The first question is necessary since the numbers have to start somewhere. It’s not, though. The only thing asking the candidate for a number specifically generates is leverage for the company performing the interview. The company can just as easily provide a range to start “the numbers” and display good will to boot.
  - mrmetanoia 2y ago
    It's like they've started applying that 'value based' pricing bullshit to salaries.
    - mathgeek 2y ago
      I’m sure they do that somewhere. Most places it’s a simple “this chart shows industry salaries favor the employer by some percentage when the following question is asked” during training.
makeitdouble 2y ago
> I thought we were supposed to never answer this question. As a candidate that's the first question I get, and as an interviewer it also helps a lot. I understand the risk to abuse the info to low ball a candidate, but setting an expectation level as early as possible helps to better target the interview process and be more efficient when it won't work out. If someone is asking for a CTO level salary but but we're seeing they'd fit an entry level position, it needs to be discussed at the second round, not at the last round after both sides spent 6h of overall process. Having the info earlier also helps better target the interview, in particular to justify the person fits in the role. If you're only doing 2~3 interview, they better be well targeted.

by mcny 2y ago

cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago

What? Have you ever hired before? This sounds exactly like the unrealistically simple view of someone that’s never been in this position before. You thought people were never supposed to answer that question? Well, they do. Especially developers, who are more introverted than average, on average, and are easy to catch off guard. I have a budget, sure. Unless your corporate setup is one that especially takes all power away from hiring managers, it’s almost always more complex than that. Maybe I could move some money around to free more budget up. Maybe someone on my team is a retention risk and I need to weigh up priorities. Maybe a billion billion other things. Your personal budget, no matter how implicit or explicit it is, almost certainly isn’t this simple so I have no idea why anyone thinks it works this way at work. Any organisation that is that simple and rigid isn’t capable of rolling with the punches, and isn’t somewhere anyone should want to work.

cj 2y ago

> Why do you even bother asking this question? If someone is asking for $250k and we're budgeting $150k, I don't want to waste their (and my) time.

throwaway6977 2y ago
If that's the case perhaps you could, I don't know, state that up front and save everyone some time...
- cj 2y ago
  (Last reply I’ll post here): I guess just to be ultra clear so there’s no ambiguity. At our company no candidate talks to anyone at our company before talking to our 3rd party recruiter who screens all candidates before they make it to us. The recruiter has short 15-20 min pre-screening calls with candidates and she’s responsible for weeding out candidates who are likely to not be a fit. A major category to evaluate is mutual compensation expectations (what are they expecting to be paid, what are we expecting to pay). I don’t have full visibility into how our recruiter articulates this part of the screening call. She says some candidates don’t have a salary in mind, in which case she shares the lower bound of our range to feel them out. All roles have a salary range, e.g. could be $130-160k. We don’t just come out and say that, otherwise everyone will want the top end of the range, even if (in our opinion) their experience matches closer to the bottom or middle of the range. It’s an art, not a science. My goal is to not overpay for a role if we don’t have to. (Important: overpay doesn’t mean underpay!) more importantly, I want the person we’re hiring to be happy with the compensation. I don’t want to hire someone who’s going to quit in 6 months for a higher paying role. It’s a negotiation and both sides are trying to find the “market rate” through the process. You can be bitter about this fact, but it’s a simple reality in business. That’s just how things work.
  - rsanek 2y ago
    You must not be a US-based company -- many states / cities now require posting salary ranges on job ads. Based on population, it covers ~25% of all US workers https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/03/where-us-companies-have-to-share-salary-ranges-with-workers-by-law.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/03/where-us-companies-have-to-s...
    - eric-hu 2y ago
      I’m currently job seeking. Some companies apply to the letter of this but still share almost no information. I’ve seen salary ranges like 140-280k. In essence that tells me the company still wants to not overpay like the parent comment said.
      - BurningFrog 2y ago
- BurningFrog 2y ago
  This is not how price negotiations work.
  - c0mbonat0r 2y ago
    how should a candidate respond if they arent sure what range this role should pay?
    - vkou 2y ago
      Answer honestly. That their pay expectations depend on the details of the job.
marcosdumay 2y ago
So, you just push the interviewed to guess a random number without any context, and discard the ones that guess wrong. That's great! There's also that method of throwing paper curriculums up on a stair, and discarding the ones that land on the wrong steps.
- cj 2y ago
  No. More like: Recruiter: “what are your compensation requirements? Candidate: “$250k” Recruiter: “Ah, that’s too bad. We were thinking this role would pay closer to $150k. Are you still interested in moving forward?” Candidate: (negotiate…)
  - icedchai 2y ago
    I had some recruiter contact me, immediately asks for my salary expectations. I give him a range, between 10% to 20% higher than I'm currently making. They come back with 50K less than I'm making now. "Thanks, but I don't think I am the right fit, this is significantly less than I am making now for what sounds like more responsibilities." A few hours later, the come back... offering 30K less than I'm making now. "I just talked to the manager and we are willing to come up!" I told him thanks again, but under no circumstances would I take less I was making now. Did he think I was kidding about the initial range? I never heard from him again.
  - looshch 2y ago
    if you think 3rd party recruiters usually do this, you are out of touch with reality
vkou 2y ago
If you've gotten to the point of an in-person interview, before bringing it up, you're absolutely wasting everyone's time.

Terretta 2y ago

> I thought we were supposed to never answer this question. It is legal to ask what they're looking for or "expect". It is not legal in many US jurisdictions (California, New York as notable ones) to ask what they made at their prior job. The first question is necessary since the numbers have to start somewhere. The second question tends to perpetuate any comp bias the interviewee may have been subject to previously. That said, as the interviewee, it's fair to turn the order of setting expectations on its head: “I hear your question, but first, what are you expecting to spend to fill this?” If they object you can try again: “You are a differentiated business with differentiated priorities, meaning your roles provide different returns on investment relative to other companies. What value do you put on this role?” If they object again, and you are confident in your value creation, try: “One of us has to start with expectations, so I'll start with this — based on my prior roles, I expect to have fully paid for myself within the first X days/weeks/months. My expectation is that will be true here as well.” Reality is a candidate's dollar "value" to a firm does in fact depend on the utility the firm can make of that skill. This is largely out of the candidate's control. As such, the firm should reveal the range they have in mind first.

mathgeek 2y ago
> The first question is necessary since the numbers have to start somewhere. It’s not, though. The only thing asking the candidate for a number specifically generates is leverage for the company performing the interview. The company can just as easily provide a range to start “the numbers” and display good will to boot.
- mrmetanoia 2y ago
  It's like they've started applying that 'value based' pricing bullshit to salaries.
  - mathgeek 2y ago
    I’m sure they do that somewhere. Most places it’s a simple “this chart shows industry salaries favor the employer by some percentage when the following question is asked” during training.

makeitdouble 2y ago

> I thought we were supposed to never answer this question. As a candidate that's the first question I get, and as an interviewer it also helps a lot. I understand the risk to abuse the info to low ball a candidate, but setting an expectation level as early as possible helps to better target the interview process and be more efficient when it won't work out. If someone is asking for a CTO level salary but but we're seeing they'd fit an entry level position, it needs to be discussed at the second round, not at the last round after both sides spent 6h of overall process. Having the info earlier also helps better target the interview, in particular to justify the person fits in the role. If you're only doing 2~3 interview, they better be well targeted.