5 ms·

Despite being a libertarian, I Disagree. The salary of her colleague is not intrinsic value, it is a market-determined value. And her skills are similar enough

by mgalka 11y ago

Despite being a libertarian, I Disagree. The salary of her colleague is not intrinsic value, it is a market-determined value. And her skills are similar enough that the comparison is relevant. If we were talking about a different market, I would probably agree with you, but labor markets are different. One side has all the information and all the bargaining power. The company starts off knowing pretty well the typical salary for the position. And if they lowball, there is not a lot of risk because if the person is offended and rejects the job, they can just go to the next person in the list. The person applying for the job faces much bigger consequences if they cannot reach an agreement. Finding another job may take a long time. If I was in her shoes and had very little idea of what other people with my skills are paid, I would be very hesitant to do any real negotiating, and risk losing the opportunity. I think she should acknowledge that some of it is her own fault, but it does sound like she was suckered.

teekert 11y ago
I agree with her that the taboo is not helping in this situation, still it is her own responsibility to go to a job application while being well educated on what to expect and to know what you want. To simply accept anything they throw at you is naive at best. A typical hard-learned life lesson that you can't expect others to have your best interests at heart. I also really don't believe that the taboo absolutely prevented her from getting any indication on what salary would be "reasonable", or average for her ability and age. Again, if people were more open it would have helped. I see this piece more like a lesson for others: There is a taboo but try to break it before you apply somewhere and feel suckered afterwards. The taboo also has some benefits, openness may create (absolutely unnecessary) feelings of inequality in groups of friend or among siblings. I have a friend that breaks this taboo constantly and he annoys me to no end (although there is a difference between informing upon asking and bragging of course). Moreover, I am sure any of my friends would give me honest replies if I would ask them their salaries. Did she even try?
notahacker 11y ago
The most transparently-advertised salaries are minimum wage and other low-income commodity jobs, precisely because there's no bargaining power. The least transparently advertised salaries are senior management. That's because salary opacity works in favour of those who do have market power and bargaining skills, and can negotiate high percentage wage increases each time because the cost of hiring somebody else is much higher to the firm, and their prospects of finding alternative employment are good. But not everybody in the company can be the highest paid member of the firm, and not everybody can have a 25% pay rise. Firms don't give vague indications of salary because they have strong bargaining power, they give vague indications because the ideal candidate has strong bargaining power, and they don't want that to influence people's perceptions of their own market rate.

by mgalka 11y ago

teekert 11y ago

I agree with her that the taboo is not helping in this situation, still it is her own responsibility to go to a job application while being well educated on what to expect and to know what you want. To simply accept anything they throw at you is naive at best. A typical hard-learned life lesson that you can't expect others to have your best interests at heart. I also really don't believe that the taboo absolutely prevented her from getting any indication on what salary would be "reasonable", or average for her ability and age. Again, if people were more open it would have helped. I see this piece more like a lesson for others: There is a taboo but try to break it before you apply somewhere and feel suckered afterwards. The taboo also has some benefits, openness may create (absolutely unnecessary) feelings of inequality in groups of friend or among siblings. I have a friend that breaks this taboo constantly and he annoys me to no end (although there is a difference between informing upon asking and bragging of course). Moreover, I am sure any of my friends would give me honest replies if I would ask them their salaries. Did she even try?

notahacker 11y ago

The most transparently-advertised salaries are minimum wage and other low-income commodity jobs, precisely because there's no bargaining power. The least transparently advertised salaries are senior management. That's because salary opacity works in favour of those who do have market power and bargaining skills, and can negotiate high percentage wage increases each time because the cost of hiring somebody else is much higher to the firm, and their prospects of finding alternative employment are good. But not everybody in the company can be the highest paid member of the firm, and not everybody can have a 25% pay rise. Firms don't give vague indications of salary because they have strong bargaining power, they give vague indications because the ideal candidate has strong bargaining power, and they don't want that to influence people's perceptions of their own market rate.