10 ms·

My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary

64 points by luu 11y ago

gamechangr 11y ago
>"Did the knowledge hurt my relationships with my coworkers? Yes. Of course it did. I felt cheated. I felt undervalued. I frankly felt I was the victim of a double standard."
- hueving 11y ago
  She failed to negotiate when she was hired. Is that really a double standard?
  - Dylan16807 11y ago
    "Double standard" is a fuzzy term, because you it depends on how you describe a situation. If you only accept even numbers, is that a single standard to decide if numbers are even, or a double standard of treating even and odd numbers differently? (yes this is an overly simple example, flesh it out in your head if necessary) But in objective terms, she had less pay because of negotiation skill, and negotiation skill correlates with gender.
  - Falkon1313 11y ago
    Yes. It is a double standard. People do make more money by negotiating a new job than they ever could by excelling at the one they work at. Most of us are conditioned from the beginning not to negotiate, we can't do so until late in the game, and even then it can be difficult. Someone who enters a job straight from school (after having been conditioned to believe that parents, teachers, authority figures generally have your best interests in mind and don't negotiate) is less likely to negotiate. Someone who starts a minimum wage or entry-level job probably doesn't have a chance to negotiate because 800 other applicants are willing to take it for minimum wage. Later in their career, having worked their way up but discovering that others around them make more, they may realize that they're being cheated and negotiation could be a good idea. So they apply for a new midlevel job at a different company, negotiate, and do well. Meanwhile their new coworkers who worked their way up from a non-negotiable starting point make much less, even though they may have more company-specific or even industry-specific experience. Typical corporate policy limits raises by percentage, so they can never even reach equal pay no matter if they excel at their job. Therefore, having been cheated, they apply for a new midlevel job, negotiate, and do well. While their new coworkers who worked their way up make much less...
  - dmak 11y ago
    She was saying that she was offered 35,000 less than the previous person for the same role. If she was truly valued, why was she not offered just as much if not more?
    - gamechangr 11y ago
      There is quite a bit lacking from your logic. For example, maybe the previous boss had been on the job 10 years. Maybe his starting salary was also $35,000 less than when he ended, in which case they would be valued equally!! Maybe she was NOT AS GOOD. I know many people who think they are equally as good as their boss and are no where close. Maybe those with the skill to sell themselves should make more? Why is that so offensive? Maybe the whole newspaper industry has taken a major hit and the company does not have the available operational budget that they were once able to spend. It's disappointing that all of these legitimate ideas are passed over and we proceed to assume it was gender related. Really?
wavefunction 11y ago
Transparency can only lead to a freer market, which is something many capitalists truly fear.
roopeshv 11y ago
Read all that and I still have no clue what the author is making now.
- disillusioned 11y ago
  She chickened out. But it's hard.
  - yitchelle 11y ago
    Its probably a Wired policy to not disclose your salary.
    - sukilot 11y ago
      Which is a situation where getting fired for breaking policy is going to be more profitable than keeping your job.
  - bambax 11y ago
    Yes it's hard, but if she can't do it she should not say anything, and spare the reader the pain of going through all her hesitations and second thoughts and whatnot. This is cheating.
- jmkni 11y ago
  Yeah! The article kind of loses it's punch when you realize this
lotharbot 11y ago
One of the reasons I like sites like glassdoor is that it separates the judgment from the data. I don't need to know that Alice makes 22% less than Bob, and Bob makes 18% less than Claire, and therefore make personal judgments about each of my coworkers (like Alice is a pushover; Bob is mediocre; Claire is bossy.) I just need to know what the distribution is, in my company or in my industry, in order to negotiate for myself.
- kirsebaer 11y ago
  Wouldn't it be better if A, B, C, and you joined together and hired some professional lawyers and negotiators to work on your behalf (ie organized labor, union)?
  - paulbaumgart 11y ago
    That sounds expensive.
    - draugadrotten 11y ago
      In practice, it also leads to the lawyer and union representatives having 10x-50x the pay of the people they "work for". Study Swedish unions to see how it works.
      - sukilot 11y ago
        That's not a priori wrong. Different roles command different salaries.
  - mattlutze 11y ago
    From the employer side, if one or the other is a more valuable employee, I need to be able to compensate them more so that I can ensure they stay with our team and don't go to a competitor. From the employee side, if I go out and learn new skills and abilities, I want to be able to negotiate compensation that reflects the value I bring. Particularly in creative fields like tech / IT, unionization fails both of those needs, and promotes stagnation over innovation. So, no.
teekert 11y ago
>"Without that knowledge, I would never have known I was being suckered." Suckered by yourself you mean, and suckered by the people that never taught you the principles of a free market where the assumption is that when two parties agree, the situation is satisfactory for both. If not, there is no agreement, no deal. The other party was not suckering you, you were happy with the deal, you took it. Why do you put something as important as your salary entirely into someone else's responsibility and then complain later? Whoever raised or educated you forgot to mention some critical things to you. Like objects, people's skill have no intrinsic value. It is you and the other party that set the value to an agreeable level. Wow, you even got pissed at others that did receive the lesson in time. Well, just be happy someone taught you in the end. What helps me in negotiations is thinking not about coworkers but about how I could be working less (later in life perhaps), how my wife could be working less, how we could travel more... If only I can convince them I'm worth more. I know myself well enough to see that I need the reason to be "not just for me". I wish it was enough to just do it for me though. I do think the situation is a bit different in the Netherlands where very often there is a collective work agreement (with all wages defined) which puts people in levels. The requirements for the levels are clearly defined. At the healthcare company I work we have "key areas of responsibility tables" where you can see what to do exactly to go to the next scale. I check them before my yearly progress meeting and indicate to my boss if I should be at a higher level. Your salary within the scale is determined by the progress you make. It makes the gaps with coworkers less, still there is a lot of room for negotiation. Also we have http://www.loonwijzer.nl/home http://www.loonwijzer.nl/home where everyone can enter their salary and you can look up how you are doing. That said, I find it difficult to compare directly to others.
- pparkkin 11y ago
  I think what she's referring to is a situation of information asymmetry, which puts the employee in a position of less power in the negotiation. Of course it's up to you to negotiate for yourself. That's pretty obvious. But if the other party holds more power, you're negotiating at a disadvantage. And the way I understood the article, that is what she meant by being "suckered". Being put at a disadvantage when negotiating for something important to her.
dennish00a 11y ago
I find it interesting to read about this "taboo" because, as a scientist at a public university, the issue is...nonexistent! If you are a scientist writing grant applications with other people (the norm), then you need to know their exact salaries in order to fill out the application. This includes the salaries of people above and below you in the food chain. There is no mystery or taboo in it whatsoever. Working at a public university, the mystery factor is even lower, if possible, because all the higher salaries are published online. I remember dimly when I thought this complete transparency was strange and it made me uncomfortable. Now I don't usually give it a second thought.
- geon 11y ago
  Here in Sweden, taxable income for everyone is bublicly available. I always find it amusing/sad to read about this taboo in the US.
  - hebdo 11y ago
    What do you mean? Can every citizen learn how much taxes has anybody else paid, including the incomes of the people outside the public sector?
    - kirsebaer 11y ago
      Yes, you look it up on a website.
      - Cederfjard 11y ago
        And in the past you could just call Skatteverket.
      - christkv 11y ago
        It's the same for Norway, all information is public. It does lead to salaries reaching some sort of equilibrium for the the same role, as it is much harder to argue against an employee, when he points out all his peers are making more money for the same work.
mkagenius 11y ago
I have had three managers till now. I have asked all three what was their salary. Only one told me his salary, rest two didn't. I keep asking salaries when I become friends with my coworkers, mostly because its a taboo and hence makes it fun. It makes them laugh when I suddenly in the middle of a conversation ask their salary becuase nobody has in the 10-15 years of their careers. I am a fresher, though.
- yitchelle 11y ago
  That is interesting. Did you disclose your salary to your coworkers, and if you did, did that effect your relationship with your coworkers?
  - mkagenius 11y ago
    All three of my managers know my salary (of course). Apart from that, people with whom I am close with know my salary and I know theirs. Mine is the lowest even though one of my friend is IC1 and I am IC2, others are senior to me. Some of them tell me to talk to the manager for my salary. My priority is learning, so it doesn't bother me much. But I did talk to the manager (and her manager's manager too), because if you don't, they take you for granted. By knowing I had the lowest salary gives me lot of opportunities to crack jokes :-)
    - sukilot 11y ago
      Your confidence and shameless curiosity will take you far in life, with exponentially compounding returns.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - yitchelle 11y ago
      From an office scenario, having a coworker knowing your salary is very different to having a close friend knowing your salary. This is especially true if the average salary of your peers makes it difficult to have a comfortable lifestyle. Luckily for the most of the HN crowd, this is not the case. Salary is something I have an open discussion with my manager about, actually my manager encourage this type of discussion with him. This is a healthy practice.
daeken 11y ago
I've come to realize lately that I have absolutely no idea what I should be making. I know what I make and I know what I have made in the past, but I have no idea whether it's above or below average. The only way I can think of to determine my value is to go interview in a bunch of places and see what they offer. However, I have no interest in leaving my job right now, and I feel like it's dishonest to go through the process knowing that I wouldn't take anything but a ridiculously great offer. How do other folks deal with this? (Edit: Glassdoor has no decent information for my position, at any of the companies I've looked at.)
- bobbles 11y ago
  If you're in Australia or New Zealand (I think you're US?) there is the Hays salary guide http://www.hays.com.au/salary-guide/ http://www.hays.com.au/salary-guide/ It's an awesome document. Even though the numbers would be completely different I think that something like the breakdown between junior/senior etc level roles would probably be similar in the US? (in terms of the % salary jump you'd get from moving up or sideways)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- corobo 11y ago
  How I deal with it is - I'm definitely qualified to be in the role I am currently in. I make enough to cover my bills right now but I should be earning more. I'm going to ask for more, I'll move on if my current position can't pay more within 6 months and there's no sign of that changing (e.g. through promotion) If my bills were covered and a bit extra for savings, fun, rainy day fund, etc? That's how much I should be making. Anything more is a bonus Don't try comparing your salary to someone elses. Maybe they're a better negotiator than you, maybe they have a skillset you don't know about the boss is going to utilize in a year's time in a project being chalked up now. Maybe they have nudie pictures of the hiring manager? Not your concern, you look after you.
- sukilot 11y ago
  It's not dishonest at all! They have no intention of hiring people they interview, unless thy find an insanely great offer!
pearjuice 11y ago
Spoiler: at the end he still hasn't admitted what he makes at Wired. Link bait confirmed.
pixie_ 11y ago
If salaries were transparent wouldn't that create an incredible amount of animosity between co-workers? When HR has to negotiate and pay someone more to join the company everyone else is going to be extremely jealous. You think people are going to understand? They are not going to. People are not rational. It's more common sense than fear. Disclosing salaries is going to create way more social problems than it solves. Companies aren't forcing anyone to keep their salary secret. People themselves don't want their salaries disclosed, and for good reason. Kind of hard to work together when everyone is reduced to a number.
- pavlov 11y ago
  You can already see how 100% salary transparency works in Finland or Sweden. Anyone can look up a co-worker's salary from data made available by the tax office. (Of course the information is about a year out of date because it's based on tax returns.) Are employees "reduced to numbers" in Sweden and Finland? Certainly not. On the contrary, these societies are considered some of the most open and equal in the world. Maybe salary transparency has something to do with it too.
  - morgante 11y ago
    Actually, I believe employees are reduced to numbers in Sweden and Finland. You don't see star employees or developers making what they make in the US. Everyone is in something of an equilibrium—decent pay, but not much incentive to strive for more.
    - hliyan 11y ago
      decent pay, but not much incentive to strive for more Isn't that a good thing? I mean striving for more based on intrinsic motivation than financial. My observation in over the past 12 years working in the software industry is that bad motivation (both carrot and stick) tend to drive out the good (desire to build something or solve a problem).
    - spacemanmatt 11y ago
      I don't believe in rock stars.
pavlov 11y ago
In Finland wages are public information. The tax office makes the data available yearly, so you can easily look up how much your neighbor made last year.
godzilla82 11y ago
I feel this is a faulty exercise. Would you disclose your salary if you knew you made more than your peers? I guess the end effect would be, only those who feel they are making less would disclose.
- falcolas 11y ago
  Because you would like to see your peers get paid equitably? They can't use your salary as leverage in their own negotiations unless they know what it is.
somberi 11y ago
In California, the salary of its state employees are publicly available here: http://transparentcalifornia.com/ http://transparentcalifornia.com/
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > In California, the salary of its state employees are publicly available here: http://transparentcalifornia.com/ http://transparentcalifornia.com/ That's not just state employees (its public employees from different public entities within the state), and its also fairly poorly aggregated from disparate sources, such that if you add all the pay and benefit columns together, they often don't match the pay + benefits (and some people who I personally know have non-zero regular pay show with zero in all pay columns, an actual number in the benefit column, and a pay + benefit that is both higher than the benefit amount (remember, all the pay columns are zero) and lower than the person's actual pay before benefits. There's another similar source [0], which has slightly different coverage (but both cover state employees), which has substantially different numbers for the same years for people covered by both. Presumably, for state employees, both of those third-party aggregators have done public records requests for the same public information from the State, but they've both processed it using different (and opaque) methodologies, so that no one actually using it knows what they actually mean (the latter source, by using only one number for each person, doesn't make it as clear that they are doing something funky with the data; the former tries to do more, which makes it even more clear that they are doing something weird, because it makes inconsistencies visible.) They do a good job of creating the illusion of readily-accessible accurate data if you are only aware of one of them and don't have any independent knowledge to verify them against. [0] http://www.sacbee.com/site-services/databases/state-pay/article2642161.html#req=employee%2Ftop%2Fyear%3D2014 http://www.sacbee.com/site-services/databases/state-pay/arti...
valdiorn 11y ago
What about people with very large paychecks? I don't want to make my friends uncomfortable when they realize I make literally an extra zero at the end of what they make. Should I keep my mouth shut or disclose... for their sake?
- spacemanmatt 11y ago
  I think that's the point of the article. It's only fair to talk about it.
- sukilot 11y ago
  Maybe your heart is telling you that you shouldn't be spending an extra 0 on yourself than your peers. If you acknowledge your incredible luck, and that there is diminishing marginal return in lavishly rewarding yourself for our efforts, and you invest the excess in meaningful projects that improve the lot of the world....
  - valdiorn 11y ago
    Your comment doesn't make much sense. I put most of my money into a savings account as I'm saving up for a house. I don't live a very frivolous lifestyle, if that's what you mean. However, I emigrated from Iceland to the UK, and some of the people I left behind do not have the luxury of doing the same, as they have families or relationships back home. How would it be fair of me to disclose my salary, just to show them what they can't have? Most people know I make good money, but maybe not exactly how much, and I try not to boast as I feel that is rude. Constantly going around telling people about my salary would probably not be well received, even if it was "in the interest of transparency of fairness"... Edit: I do not acknowledge it as luck, I worked my ass off to get where I am today!
omahlama 11y ago
In my previous job at the Finnish software consulting company Futurice (http://futurice.com http://futurice.com), there was a long discussion about this that ended with a volunteer-based publication of peoples salaries - around half of the 200 people opted in. The result was a bit anti-climatic: peoples wages were consistent and fair, no big drama. After switching jobs to another software consulting company Reaktor (http://reaktor.com http://reaktor.com), I brought up this topic and the discussion was very similar. I decided to try a different route: I created a wiki-page called "Voluntary salary information" and added my name and salary to the top of the page. I then wrote a post to our discourse board explaining why I thought this was important. As of now there are 68 names on that list ( with only 1 obvious troll ) out of about 300 employees. Our head of HR replied to my discourse post with a detailed explanation of how peoples salaries are decided. Overall a great day for transparency.
wodenokoto 11y ago
I don't get why this is a taboo. I tell my salary to everyone who cares to listen, to the point where an employer threatened to fire me if I told my coworkers about my raise.

64 points by luu 11y ago

>"Did the knowledge hurt my relationships with my coworkers? Yes. Of course it did. I felt cheated. I felt undervalued. I frankly felt I was the victim of a double standard."

hueving 11y ago
She failed to negotiate when she was hired. Is that really a double standard?
- Dylan16807 11y ago
  "Double standard" is a fuzzy term, because you it depends on how you describe a situation. If you only accept even numbers, is that a single standard to decide if numbers are even, or a double standard of treating even and odd numbers differently? (yes this is an overly simple example, flesh it out in your head if necessary) But in objective terms, she had less pay because of negotiation skill, and negotiation skill correlates with gender.
- Falkon1313 11y ago
  Yes. It is a double standard. People do make more money by negotiating a new job than they ever could by excelling at the one they work at. Most of us are conditioned from the beginning not to negotiate, we can't do so until late in the game, and even then it can be difficult. Someone who enters a job straight from school (after having been conditioned to believe that parents, teachers, authority figures generally have your best interests in mind and don't negotiate) is less likely to negotiate. Someone who starts a minimum wage or entry-level job probably doesn't have a chance to negotiate because 800 other applicants are willing to take it for minimum wage. Later in their career, having worked their way up but discovering that others around them make more, they may realize that they're being cheated and negotiation could be a good idea. So they apply for a new midlevel job at a different company, negotiate, and do well. Meanwhile their new coworkers who worked their way up from a non-negotiable starting point make much less, even though they may have more company-specific or even industry-specific experience. Typical corporate policy limits raises by percentage, so they can never even reach equal pay no matter if they excel at their job. Therefore, having been cheated, they apply for a new midlevel job, negotiate, and do well. While their new coworkers who worked their way up make much less...
- dmak 11y ago
  She was saying that she was offered 35,000 less than the previous person for the same role. If she was truly valued, why was she not offered just as much if not more?
  - gamechangr 11y ago
    There is quite a bit lacking from your logic. For example, maybe the previous boss had been on the job 10 years. Maybe his starting salary was also $35,000 less than when he ended, in which case they would be valued equally!! Maybe she was NOT AS GOOD. I know many people who think they are equally as good as their boss and are no where close. Maybe those with the skill to sell themselves should make more? Why is that so offensive? Maybe the whole newspaper industry has taken a major hit and the company does not have the available operational budget that they were once able to spend. It's disappointing that all of these legitimate ideas are passed over and we proceed to assume it was gender related. Really?

wavefunction 11y ago

Transparency can only lead to a freer market, which is something many capitalists truly fear.

roopeshv 11y ago

Read all that and I still have no clue what the author is making now.

disillusioned 11y ago
She chickened out. But it's hard.
- yitchelle 11y ago
  Its probably a Wired policy to not disclose your salary.
  - sukilot 11y ago
    Which is a situation where getting fired for breaking policy is going to be more profitable than keeping your job.
- bambax 11y ago
  Yes it's hard, but if she can't do it she should not say anything, and spare the reader the pain of going through all her hesitations and second thoughts and whatnot. This is cheating.
jmkni 11y ago
Yeah! The article kind of loses it's punch when you realize this

lotharbot 11y ago

One of the reasons I like sites like glassdoor is that it separates the judgment from the data. I don't need to know that Alice makes 22% less than Bob, and Bob makes 18% less than Claire, and therefore make personal judgments about each of my coworkers (like Alice is a pushover; Bob is mediocre; Claire is bossy.) I just need to know what the distribution is, in my company or in my industry, in order to negotiate for myself.

kirsebaer 11y ago
Wouldn't it be better if A, B, C, and you joined together and hired some professional lawyers and negotiators to work on your behalf (ie organized labor, union)?
- paulbaumgart 11y ago
  That sounds expensive.
  - draugadrotten 11y ago
    In practice, it also leads to the lawyer and union representatives having 10x-50x the pay of the people they "work for". Study Swedish unions to see how it works.
    - sukilot 11y ago
      That's not a priori wrong. Different roles command different salaries.
- mattlutze 11y ago
  From the employer side, if one or the other is a more valuable employee, I need to be able to compensate them more so that I can ensure they stay with our team and don't go to a competitor. From the employee side, if I go out and learn new skills and abilities, I want to be able to negotiate compensation that reflects the value I bring. Particularly in creative fields like tech / IT, unionization fails both of those needs, and promotes stagnation over innovation. So, no.

teekert 11y ago

>"Without that knowledge, I would never have known I was being suckered." Suckered by yourself you mean, and suckered by the people that never taught you the principles of a free market where the assumption is that when two parties agree, the situation is satisfactory for both. If not, there is no agreement, no deal. The other party was not suckering you, you were happy with the deal, you took it. Why do you put something as important as your salary entirely into someone else's responsibility and then complain later? Whoever raised or educated you forgot to mention some critical things to you. Like objects, people's skill have no intrinsic value. It is you and the other party that set the value to an agreeable level. Wow, you even got pissed at others that did receive the lesson in time. Well, just be happy someone taught you in the end. What helps me in negotiations is thinking not about coworkers but about how I could be working less (later in life perhaps), how my wife could be working less, how we could travel more... If only I can convince them I'm worth more. I know myself well enough to see that I need the reason to be "not just for me". I wish it was enough to just do it for me though. I do think the situation is a bit different in the Netherlands where very often there is a collective work agreement (with all wages defined) which puts people in levels. The requirements for the levels are clearly defined. At the healthcare company I work we have "key areas of responsibility tables" where you can see what to do exactly to go to the next scale. I check them before my yearly progress meeting and indicate to my boss if I should be at a higher level. Your salary within the scale is determined by the progress you make. It makes the gaps with coworkers less, still there is a lot of room for negotiation. Also we have http://www.loonwijzer.nl/home http://www.loonwijzer.nl/home where everyone can enter their salary and you can look up how you are doing. That said, I find it difficult to compare directly to others.

pparkkin 11y ago
I think what she's referring to is a situation of information asymmetry, which puts the employee in a position of less power in the negotiation. Of course it's up to you to negotiate for yourself. That's pretty obvious. But if the other party holds more power, you're negotiating at a disadvantage. And the way I understood the article, that is what she meant by being "suckered". Being put at a disadvantage when negotiating for something important to her.

dennish00a 11y ago

I find it interesting to read about this "taboo" because, as a scientist at a public university, the issue is...nonexistent! If you are a scientist writing grant applications with other people (the norm), then you need to know their exact salaries in order to fill out the application. This includes the salaries of people above and below you in the food chain. There is no mystery or taboo in it whatsoever. Working at a public university, the mystery factor is even lower, if possible, because all the higher salaries are published online. I remember dimly when I thought this complete transparency was strange and it made me uncomfortable. Now I don't usually give it a second thought.

geon 11y ago
Here in Sweden, taxable income for everyone is bublicly available. I always find it amusing/sad to read about this taboo in the US.
- hebdo 11y ago
  What do you mean? Can every citizen learn how much taxes has anybody else paid, including the incomes of the people outside the public sector?
  - kirsebaer 11y ago
    Yes, you look it up on a website.
    - Cederfjard 11y ago
      And in the past you could just call Skatteverket.
    - christkv 11y ago
      It's the same for Norway, all information is public. It does lead to salaries reaching some sort of equilibrium for the the same role, as it is much harder to argue against an employee, when he points out all his peers are making more money for the same work.

mkagenius 11y ago

I have had three managers till now. I have asked all three what was their salary. Only one told me his salary, rest two didn't. I keep asking salaries when I become friends with my coworkers, mostly because its a taboo and hence makes it fun. It makes them laugh when I suddenly in the middle of a conversation ask their salary becuase nobody has in the 10-15 years of their careers. I am a fresher, though.

yitchelle 11y ago
That is interesting. Did you disclose your salary to your coworkers, and if you did, did that effect your relationship with your coworkers?
- mkagenius 11y ago
  All three of my managers know my salary (of course). Apart from that, people with whom I am close with know my salary and I know theirs. Mine is the lowest even though one of my friend is IC1 and I am IC2, others are senior to me. Some of them tell me to talk to the manager for my salary. My priority is learning, so it doesn't bother me much. But I did talk to the manager (and her manager's manager too), because if you don't, they take you for granted. By knowing I had the lowest salary gives me lot of opportunities to crack jokes :-)
  - sukilot 11y ago
    Your confidence and shameless curiosity will take you far in life, with exponentially compounding returns.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - yitchelle 11y ago
    From an office scenario, having a coworker knowing your salary is very different to having a close friend knowing your salary. This is especially true if the average salary of your peers makes it difficult to have a comfortable lifestyle. Luckily for the most of the HN crowd, this is not the case. Salary is something I have an open discussion with my manager about, actually my manager encourage this type of discussion with him. This is a healthy practice.

daeken 11y ago

I've come to realize lately that I have absolutely no idea what I should be making. I know what I make and I know what I have made in the past, but I have no idea whether it's above or below average. The only way I can think of to determine my value is to go interview in a bunch of places and see what they offer. However, I have no interest in leaving my job right now, and I feel like it's dishonest to go through the process knowing that I wouldn't take anything but a ridiculously great offer. How do other folks deal with this? (Edit: Glassdoor has no decent information for my position, at any of the companies I've looked at.)

bobbles 11y ago
If you're in Australia or New Zealand (I think you're US?) there is the Hays salary guide http://www.hays.com.au/salary-guide/ http://www.hays.com.au/salary-guide/ It's an awesome document. Even though the numbers would be completely different I think that something like the breakdown between junior/senior etc level roles would probably be similar in the US? (in terms of the % salary jump you'd get from moving up or sideways)
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
corobo 11y ago
How I deal with it is - I'm definitely qualified to be in the role I am currently in. I make enough to cover my bills right now but I should be earning more. I'm going to ask for more, I'll move on if my current position can't pay more within 6 months and there's no sign of that changing (e.g. through promotion) If my bills were covered and a bit extra for savings, fun, rainy day fund, etc? That's how much I should be making. Anything more is a bonus Don't try comparing your salary to someone elses. Maybe they're a better negotiator than you, maybe they have a skillset you don't know about the boss is going to utilize in a year's time in a project being chalked up now. Maybe they have nudie pictures of the hiring manager? Not your concern, you look after you.
sukilot 11y ago
It's not dishonest at all! They have no intention of hiring people they interview, unless thy find an insanely great offer!

pearjuice 11y ago

Spoiler: at the end he still hasn't admitted what he makes at Wired. Link bait confirmed.

pixie_ 11y ago

If salaries were transparent wouldn't that create an incredible amount of animosity between co-workers? When HR has to negotiate and pay someone more to join the company everyone else is going to be extremely jealous. You think people are going to understand? They are not going to. People are not rational. It's more common sense than fear. Disclosing salaries is going to create way more social problems than it solves. Companies aren't forcing anyone to keep their salary secret. People themselves don't want their salaries disclosed, and for good reason. Kind of hard to work together when everyone is reduced to a number.

pavlov 11y ago
You can already see how 100% salary transparency works in Finland or Sweden. Anyone can look up a co-worker's salary from data made available by the tax office. (Of course the information is about a year out of date because it's based on tax returns.) Are employees "reduced to numbers" in Sweden and Finland? Certainly not. On the contrary, these societies are considered some of the most open and equal in the world. Maybe salary transparency has something to do with it too.
- morgante 11y ago
  Actually, I believe employees are reduced to numbers in Sweden and Finland. You don't see star employees or developers making what they make in the US. Everyone is in something of an equilibrium—decent pay, but not much incentive to strive for more.
  - hliyan 11y ago
    decent pay, but not much incentive to strive for more Isn't that a good thing? I mean striving for more based on intrinsic motivation than financial. My observation in over the past 12 years working in the software industry is that bad motivation (both carrot and stick) tend to drive out the good (desire to build something or solve a problem).
  - spacemanmatt 11y ago
    I don't believe in rock stars.

pavlov 11y ago

In Finland wages are public information. The tax office makes the data available yearly, so you can easily look up how much your neighbor made last year.

godzilla82 11y ago

I feel this is a faulty exercise. Would you disclose your salary if you knew you made more than your peers? I guess the end effect would be, only those who feel they are making less would disclose.

falcolas 11y ago
Because you would like to see your peers get paid equitably? They can't use your salary as leverage in their own negotiations unless they know what it is.

somberi 11y ago

In California, the salary of its state employees are publicly available here: http://transparentcalifornia.com/ http://transparentcalifornia.com/

dragonwriter 11y ago
> In California, the salary of its state employees are publicly available here: http://transparentcalifornia.com/ http://transparentcalifornia.com/ That's not just state employees (its public employees from different public entities within the state), and its also fairly poorly aggregated from disparate sources, such that if you add all the pay and benefit columns together, they often don't match the pay + benefits (and some people who I personally know have non-zero regular pay show with zero in all pay columns, an actual number in the benefit column, and a pay + benefit that is both higher than the benefit amount (remember, all the pay columns are zero) and lower than the person's actual pay before benefits. There's another similar source [0], which has slightly different coverage (but both cover state employees), which has substantially different numbers for the same years for people covered by both. Presumably, for state employees, both of those third-party aggregators have done public records requests for the same public information from the State, but they've both processed it using different (and opaque) methodologies, so that no one actually using it knows what they actually mean (the latter source, by using only one number for each person, doesn't make it as clear that they are doing something funky with the data; the former tries to do more, which makes it even more clear that they are doing something weird, because it makes inconsistencies visible.) They do a good job of creating the illusion of readily-accessible accurate data if you are only aware of one of them and don't have any independent knowledge to verify them against. [0] http://www.sacbee.com/site-services/databases/state-pay/article2642161.html#req=employee%2Ftop%2Fyear%3D2014 http://www.sacbee.com/site-services/databases/state-pay/arti...

valdiorn 11y ago

What about people with very large paychecks? I don't want to make my friends uncomfortable when they realize I make literally an extra zero at the end of what they make. Should I keep my mouth shut or disclose... for their sake?

spacemanmatt 11y ago
I think that's the point of the article. It's only fair to talk about it.
sukilot 11y ago
Maybe your heart is telling you that you shouldn't be spending an extra 0 on yourself than your peers. If you acknowledge your incredible luck, and that there is diminishing marginal return in lavishly rewarding yourself for our efforts, and you invest the excess in meaningful projects that improve the lot of the world....
- valdiorn 11y ago
  Your comment doesn't make much sense. I put most of my money into a savings account as I'm saving up for a house. I don't live a very frivolous lifestyle, if that's what you mean. However, I emigrated from Iceland to the UK, and some of the people I left behind do not have the luxury of doing the same, as they have families or relationships back home. How would it be fair of me to disclose my salary, just to show them what they can't have? Most people know I make good money, but maybe not exactly how much, and I try not to boast as I feel that is rude. Constantly going around telling people about my salary would probably not be well received, even if it was "in the interest of transparency of fairness"... Edit: I do not acknowledge it as luck, I worked my ass off to get where I am today!

omahlama 11y ago

In my previous job at the Finnish software consulting company Futurice (http://futurice.com http://futurice.com), there was a long discussion about this that ended with a volunteer-based publication of peoples salaries - around half of the 200 people opted in. The result was a bit anti-climatic: peoples wages were consistent and fair, no big drama. After switching jobs to another software consulting company Reaktor (http://reaktor.com http://reaktor.com), I brought up this topic and the discussion was very similar. I decided to try a different route: I created a wiki-page called "Voluntary salary information" and added my name and salary to the top of the page. I then wrote a post to our discourse board explaining why I thought this was important. As of now there are 68 names on that list ( with only 1 obvious troll ) out of about 300 employees. Our head of HR replied to my discourse post with a detailed explanation of how peoples salaries are decided. Overall a great day for transparency.

wodenokoto 11y ago

I don't get why this is a taboo. I tell my salary to everyone who cares to listen, to the point where an employer threatened to fire me if I told my coworkers about my raise.