Hacker News Reader

Comment by deeteecee | Hacker News Reader

Here's my only question with the negotiation technique of not disclosing a desired salary. So is it expected that the other side should state the salary offer? That was my only problem with all these negotiation techniques saying "never mention your salary." Eventually, one side or the other needs to mention and at the end of it all, most articles online never closed it off with saying either side would state the expected salary.

View on HN

The candidate could put their minimum acceptable salary in an envelope. The employer could put their maximum acceptable salary in an envelope. The two parties could agree with a third party arbiter that if the maximum from the employer is larger than the minimum from the candidate, the salary will be set to the midpoint between the two numbers, and otherwise, no deal can be reached so both walk away.

That's one way, at least, where neither party has to concede the information advantage.

In fact, I'm surprised there aren't already 37 start-ups that offer this as a service. You could have a cute little envelope logo like the MS Outlook logo and give a TED talk about how you're totally disrupting information asymmetry in recruiting, and eventually be pressured by techtopus to provide data about what candidates are asking for to perpetuate information asymmetry.

You don't need the trusted third party. You could share the hash of the numbers so they couldn't be changed during the process, then do the millionaires problem [1] to find out which number was bigger, and finally and only if the right one is bigger, share the figures (setting the salary at the midpoint is the same as sharing the figures in terms of information transfer) and calculate it that way. The only way to not reveal the offers after a successful round would be to introduce some randomness, maybe choose a number at random from some agreed portion of the range between the numbers. I don't know if there is a zero knowledge protocol for selecting a number at random from a range where the extremes are set by two different people.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yao%27s_Millionaires%27_Proble...

That sounds an awful lot like a cryptographic protocol to me. And CNN told me that cryptography helps terrorists. ... You're a witch!

Very small rocks

TInder for salaries.

Most companies want to ask the candidate, as most will give a number, and give the company the advantage.

Why pay for a service when you can just ask? Basically they do it on purpose because they have the upper hand.

Yes. Wait for them to make you an offer. It can be difficult, but the reward for your persistence will be more money in the form of a higher base salary (the gift that keeps on giving).

You have very little unique information when you enter the negotiation (you know your current salary, your desired salary, and how badly you need the job—that's about it). They have tons of information that you don't have (what they're willing to pay, what they're already paying others to do the job, how badly they need to fill the position, how badly they want you in particular).

By waiting for them to make an offer, you retain the unique information you have AND you wait for them to reveal some of the information you didn't have. When they make you an offer, you now know approximately what they're willing to pay you to do the job. This is a very big gain for you and allows you to negotiate much more effectively and increase your salary.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com