Comment by mijustin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mijustin | Hacker News Reader

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Patio11's podcast episode on this is quite good. Transcript here: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2016/06/03/kalzumeus-podcast-episod...

Patrick's comment is poignant:

"If you give a number in response to this question, that’s going to immediately cap your negotiator range. If you say “My current salary is 90,” then they know that anything above 90 is an improvement to you. Even if they would have been willing to pay, let’s say 110 to the right candidate for this position, they’re probably going to offer you 95 and then walk it up to 98, 100."

The employer is incentivized to pay you as little as they can. We know that many employers pay different people doing the same job different salaries. If you can get them to give their number first, it seems (to me) you're in a much stronger position.

Yes, but this also works in reverse. Wouldn't you much rather the anchor be in your hands? You always say a crazy high number, but you can couch it in terms where its not necessarily the number you are asking for. Anchors work like that.

To make this concrete, if I was a level 5 engineer and I knew total comp was around $300k in the Bay Area, I may say something like, "Well, I have been considering getting back into consulting where I know I can get at least $50k / month, but let's see where we can get here at [tech company]."

Note I wasn't asking for $600k / year, and didn't even say I made that now, I just floated it out there. Boom. Anchor.

Yes, you will get either a chuckle or a "Weeeeeeell" hem-haw. Doesn't matter. Anchor has been set.

Most engineers have internal blocks. They don't believe they are worth $600k / year. Better bet your ass MBAs and sales guys do. And we wonder why they make so much more than us?

You beat me to this one with a great answer.

I would only add that a big reason not to name a number is that you're guessing at what they might be willing to pay. So even if your plan is to anchor high, you're guessing and you might miss. You might THINK you're anchoring high when you're actually guessing a number that's relatively low in the range of salaries they're willing to pay.

You gain a lot of information by waiting for them to make an offer.

When I say anchor high I don't mean X + $25k. I mean 2X or 3X.

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