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I think developers should make the first offer. Here is a professor who has studied negotiation who talks about how it's advantageous to make the first offer b

I think developers should make the first offer. Here is a professor who has studied negotiation who talks about how it's advantageous to make the first offer because of the anchoring effect. [0] My belief is the way to win a negotiation is to convince the other party that what they're looking to buy(top end development talent) is expensive, and you are just looking for a fair price. So use the salary guide to price a top end developer. Most recruiters say they are looking for top end developer talent.(If they say they are looking for mediocre seat warmers run for the hills :) ) Explain why you fit that description and explain that you're looking for a salary commensurate with your abilities ( around 218k for a Java Dev in San Fran[1] pre-benefits). Cite the salary guide, then see what they come back with.* * - If however you're trying to push your salary above this top end I think your previous salary starts to become your ally. Disclosing you're salary when earning 218k will help remove a lot of offers immediately and convince other people that you are such a great dev you are earning 218k. [0]http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/news_articles/2014/04022014-negotiate_first_offer.aspx http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/news_articles/2014/04022... [1]http://s3.amazonaws.com/DBM/M3/2011/Downloads/RHT_2015_salary-guide.pdf http://s3.amazonaws.com/DBM/M3/2011/Downloads/RHT_2015_salar...

moron4hire 12y ago
I agree that experienced people should make the first offer, in the sense that I already know what I should expect for a salary given my experience and location, and at the same time I don't need any particular job. If they decline me because I'm too expensive, it's no skin off my nose. I can tell them up-front "agree your offer will be no less than $X now or I don't even go through your interviewing process." And it works. But I have a great resume and a comfortable position right now. It sucks to be a junior dev, though. You have no idea what the market is like yet, you don't have any bargaining capacity, you're basically stuck taking what you can get. And that's where "tell us your previous salary" becomes a major liability. If you're trying to find your 2nd job, your current salary could have no bearing on your actual value as an employee. If you have still not learned the lesson that recruiters are not your advocates, you could end up in yet another low-paying job, punting the issue further down the road.
- meric 12y ago
  It sucks to be a junior dev, though. You have no idea what the market is like yet, you don't have any bargaining capacity, you're basically stuck taking what you can get. And that's where "tell us your previous salary" becomes a major liability. I started freelancing part time during university and got up to a $100 per hour rate. When I was negotiating for this current full-time job, after interning for half a year, my employer lowballed me with a very low offer $X. I told they could give me $2X or I'll go back to freelancing where I will make $2X+Y. $Y is a imaginary number I hand-waved. A recruiter contacted him, and I didn't read this thread, I told him my current salary, and he told me of a position that offered $3X. So I don't know, I don't think he's my advocate, but he gave me some information too. I plan to finish launching this project I've been working on for almost 2 years, that I'm responsible for, in several months time, and then, see what happens. You might ask why I'd work in an place where employers would lowball a salary in negotiation...They let me make all the decisions regarding development, and pick the developers I'll hire to work for me, so... I currently make maybe $10k more than the average developer of my age in this country, so I'm content for now even if it's less than the average for my level. My employer forbids us to work more than 8 hours a day, and I can come in at 11am, and there's the cafeteria coffee machine, and I love the stack I built...It's the first thing every developer who comes to interview mentions being interested in, so I'm kind of proud of that.
  - cheapsteak 12y ago
    >I love the stack I built Please do elaborate. Also, what kind of work did you do when you were freelancing? And were you subcontracting or working directly with the end client?
    - meric 12y ago
      When I was freelancing I built entire django websites according to exact specifications of the client. I worked directly with the client, and each time made the client very happy, collected a reference, then bumped my rate by for the next client. I made sure to really focus while working to give my client the best value for money. Our stack: Jenkins & Gerrit for code review and automated unit-testing Nginx, Django REST framework * Set of classes I wrote that it makes it easy declare field-level (and view-level, of course) permissions, e.g.: fields = { ("majors", "minors"): [ IsUpdateOnly, IsOwner('user'), ], ("id", "user", "url", "relation", "branch", "organization"): [ Or(IsCreateOnly, IsReadOnly, IsOwner('user')), ], ("interval",): [ IsCreateOnly, ], # Stuff that should be viewable if its public, # or able to be created by the user: ("location", "position",): [ Or( Is('user.is_public', True), And(IsCreateOnly, IsOwner('user')), ), ], } Gulp Node.js server-rendered React.js / Angular.js (depending on product) * A standard pattern to retrieve data from the server, like a poor cousin of Facebook's graph API - child data elements don't depend on their parent data elements.

moron4hire 12y ago

I agree that experienced people should make the first offer, in the sense that I already know what I should expect for a salary given my experience and location, and at the same time I don't need any particular job. If they decline me because I'm too expensive, it's no skin off my nose. I can tell them up-front "agree your offer will be no less than $X now or I don't even go through your interviewing process." And it works. But I have a great resume and a comfortable position right now. It sucks to be a junior dev, though. You have no idea what the market is like yet, you don't have any bargaining capacity, you're basically stuck taking what you can get. And that's where "tell us your previous salary" becomes a major liability. If you're trying to find your 2nd job, your current salary could have no bearing on your actual value as an employee. If you have still not learned the lesson that recruiters are not your advocates, you could end up in yet another low-paying job, punting the issue further down the road.

meric 12y ago
It sucks to be a junior dev, though. You have no idea what the market is like yet, you don't have any bargaining capacity, you're basically stuck taking what you can get. And that's where "tell us your previous salary" becomes a major liability. I started freelancing part time during university and got up to a $100 per hour rate. When I was negotiating for this current full-time job, after interning for half a year, my employer lowballed me with a very low offer $X. I told they could give me $2X or I'll go back to freelancing where I will make $2X+Y. $Y is a imaginary number I hand-waved. A recruiter contacted him, and I didn't read this thread, I told him my current salary, and he told me of a position that offered $3X. So I don't know, I don't think he's my advocate, but he gave me some information too. I plan to finish launching this project I've been working on for almost 2 years, that I'm responsible for, in several months time, and then, see what happens. You might ask why I'd work in an place where employers would lowball a salary in negotiation...They let me make all the decisions regarding development, and pick the developers I'll hire to work for me, so... I currently make maybe $10k more than the average developer of my age in this country, so I'm content for now even if it's less than the average for my level. My employer forbids us to work more than 8 hours a day, and I can come in at 11am, and there's the cafeteria coffee machine, and I love the stack I built...It's the first thing every developer who comes to interview mentions being interested in, so I'm kind of proud of that.
- cheapsteak 12y ago
  >I love the stack I built Please do elaborate. Also, what kind of work did you do when you were freelancing? And were you subcontracting or working directly with the end client?
  - meric 12y ago
    When I was freelancing I built entire django websites according to exact specifications of the client. I worked directly with the client, and each time made the client very happy, collected a reference, then bumped my rate by for the next client. I made sure to really focus while working to give my client the best value for money. Our stack: Jenkins & Gerrit for code review and automated unit-testing Nginx, Django REST framework * Set of classes I wrote that it makes it easy declare field-level (and view-level, of course) permissions, e.g.: fields = { ("majors", "minors"): [ IsUpdateOnly, IsOwner('user'), ], ("id", "user", "url", "relation", "branch", "organization"): [ Or(IsCreateOnly, IsReadOnly, IsOwner('user')), ], ("interval",): [ IsCreateOnly, ], # Stuff that should be viewable if its public, # or able to be created by the user: ("location", "position",): [ Or( Is('user.is_public', True), And(IsCreateOnly, IsOwner('user')), ), ], } Gulp Node.js server-rendered React.js / Angular.js (depending on product) * A standard pattern to retrieve data from the server, like a poor cousin of Facebook's graph API - child data elements don't depend on their parent data elements.