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I feel like paying attention to salary signals is actually close to the optimal strategy, most of the time. Here's why. Your salary is how much it costs your em

I feel like paying attention to salary signals is actually close to the optimal strategy, most of the time. Here's why. Your salary is how much it costs your employer to waste your time. (You'll find out that a lot of managers like wasting their reports' time. It's a status thing.) Should you take a $105,000 offer at a company you hate over $100,000 at a great company? Of course not. However, if an offer comes in below market, you have to question whether that's for legitimate economic reasons (lower cost of living, cash-poor startup) or because it's a lower-level position than you deserve and, if it's the second, run. Unfortunately, it's still really hard (especially when you're young) to tell a good job/company/role vs. a bad one before starting, so salary gets overvalued as a signal, because of the opacity in the career variables that, in the long term, matter a lot more.

kevinchau 13y ago
Agreed. It's all about knowing how to ask the right questions.
lsc 13y ago
>I feel like paying attention to salary signals is actually close to the optimal strategy, most of the time. Yeah, when I was starting out? I was always shocked at how closely the salary correlated with how well you are treated in general. I mean, personally? If I feel like I'm overpaid, I am okay dealing with more bullshit, but that's not how it works. If anything, as I got paid more, less was expected of me. I mean, less of the hard stuff. Showing up on time, for example, became much less of a big deal as I got paid more. (For me, showing up on time is often the hardest part of the job.) - I mean, sure, I was expected to solve harder problems... and I was expected to actually come up with a working solution more often... but that was never the hard part for me.