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Comment by pmoriarty | Hacker News Reader

I never answer questions about my past or expected salary, not to employers and not to recruiters.

Most employers don't ask, and the few that have (perhaps by having a part of an employment form ask for previous salary) have never made my leaving that information out an issue.

Most recruiters, if they even ask, respect my decision not to talk about it, but I've been pressed hard on this by a handful of recruiters, and have had this be a deal breaker for a couple of them. One recruiting firm admitted that they were paid by the employers to get this information. I wasn't getting paid to give this information out, however, and it's worth more to me to keep it private as I'm placed at a disadvantage in negotiations if I name a number first.

It's still a seller's market for IT talent, and there are plenty of other fish in the sea, so if some recruiters can't accept that I won't name a number, it's their loss.

It's great that NYC is taking the lead on this, and I really hope the rest of the US follows suit.

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Agree with you in principle (your previous deal with company A is absolutely none of company B's business) but I would like to challenge you on one point:

> I'm placed at a disadvantage in negotiations if I name a number first.

... This is unlikely to be true. Generally, in price negotiations it is advantageous to name a number first. This is known as anchoring and basically the theory is that the end result is better for you if the company has to wheedle you down from 170k than if they anchor the price at 100k and you have to argue them up from there.

Plus, it saves a lot of wasted negotiation time on both sides if your price is just way too high for the company and this is clear from the beginning.

(edit: I'm talking about expected salary in general, not disclosing your current salary level)

Anchoring only works if the potential employer is ready to buy. Many, many organizations will simply use the number as yet another filter, and you won't even begin discussions.

By giving a number first, you're either too high and you won't have an opportunity to sell yourself, you're too low and you've literally already negotiated against yourself, or you're lucky and right at their expectation, which you could have gotten to by simply not giving the first number.

I do agree with the wasted negotiating time thing.

Pricing yourself out of a job with an organization that uses salary as an first-line filter is maybe not the worst thing in the world.

There are a lot of bad jobs in the world, you should be happy to turn down or be turned down by many jobs that you apply to. It's kind of a sad cultural trope that the employee is desperate for a 'yes' at every job they apply for, when that is often not true at all.

Unconventional opinion on this Valley bubble circuit, I'm sure, but I think you need to be mindful of what kind of business you're applying to.

Yes, salary is a filter, because money isn't infinite and the hiring budget is only so much. Yes, a certain category of hyped-up, massively funded startup may (temporarily) exist in an alternate universe where the laws of economics don't apply and all budgets are imaginary ("for the right people..."), but the rest of the universe doesn't work like that.

For example, a small company bootstrapped by the founder's limited personal funds simply isn't going to offer $250k pay packages to Full Stack JavaScript Rock Star Ninjas. In some cases, that's close to the entire gross revenue of the company. Yet there may be advantages to working for a company like that.

Likewise, large orgs and state agencies function in normal-law economics, not RockStar VC economics. There's only so much they can afford to pay, and that's that.

Negotiations aren't just a staring contest where, if you do the right things, you get paid like a banker, otherwise you toil in the lowly ranks of the unwashed proletariat. In theory, negotiation leads to compromise. Yes, employers have more leverage in these conversations often, but it doesn't change the fact that negotiation requires credible and bona fide compromise intentions from both sides.

Take the time to understand the nature of the business to which you are applying. Yeah, you might just be getting squeezed by MBA frat boys sitting on top of tens of millions in VC who are going to get rich off the sweat of your toil for peanuts, but in 90% of the country, that probably shouldn't be your first thought.

> Pricing yourself out of a job with an organization that uses salary as an first-line filter is maybe not the worst thing in the world.

"They try to filter people by salary" is not at the top of my list of reasons for why I wouldn't want to work somewhere. It's a reason, but it is dwarfed by many other ones.

I don't mean to imply that it's a primary filter of mine either, or even something I would attempt to find out to base my decision on. However, if a company makes a decision that we aren't compatible early on, they're probably right, for both of our benefit. That holds even more true the dumber the reason is.

It's an absurd example, but let's say you don't get hired because the hiring manager thinks your shirt is super ugly. That's insane and obviously completely improper and irrelevant -- but you're probably better off not getting that job!

There's an awful lot that's hiding under that word "often" in your last sentence. How often? How do we know?

Anecdotally, even as a software & full-stack web developer that's worked in half a dozen languages and has a math degree, I've been in both positions -- I've had the freedom to complain about people annoying me with unsolicited offers to interview while banking a third of my paycheck and treating another third as disposable... and I've been pavement-pounding in desperation.

The former has been more often the case than the latter for me, but I think it's probable that like a large portion of the audience here, I've been insulated by circumstance.

Yes, sometimes, many times, maybe even 'often', the job applicant is more desperate for a job than the hiring party is.

But it's not a rule that applicants are desperate, and hiring parties aren't. It's absolutely a stereotype of the hiring process though.

Hiring parties are desperate. Ever been at any startup or any hiring committee?

> By giving a number first, you're either too high and you won't have an opportunity to sell yourself, you're too low and you've literally already negotiated against yourself, or you're lucky and right at their expectation, which you could have gotten to by simply not giving the first number.

And that's why salary is a binary search!

https://thehftguy.com/2017/01/23/career-advice-and-salary-ne...

"Basically, you need to perform a binary search. When you get an offer, you know that you can get at least that. Then you repeat the process a bit higher." https://thehftguy.com/2017/01/23/career-advice-and-salary-ne...

Except that isn't a binary search.

But it sounds cool when you call it a binary search. Poetic licence.

It's not a perfect binary search. Not all companies have the same top number and you're not equally valuable everywhere.

It doesn't seem to be a binary search in any sense of the computer science term. There is no half interval mechanics nor would that be appropriate. It seems like traditional bargaining.

In an otherwise excellent article, the missing negotiation calibration and example is glaring. The rest of the article would seem to suggest just as you will get your next big promotion from another company, if you find yourself considering coming down walk away. The heart of the approach is getting away from you becoming invested in being hired by a specific company.

Companies have a range they are willing to pay. Surprisingly, most companies in an area (and domain) usually have very similar ranges. Finding the top has a lot in common with binary searches.

I am not sure I understand your second paragraph.

Could your provide a specific example of how to use a binary search to find a salary? A binary search is dependent on boundaries. I don't see how it could be used effectively to find the boundary for a specific employer. Also, the flow chart shown in the article has no similarities to a binary search. The article describes the more reasonable approach: using networking to find out what a domain in an area pays.

You can't do it for a single employer because you only get one test per employer. You do the search across employers, in an area/domain. That gives you a rough idea of the prospect.

Yes, networking and insider information is much better than any of this.

right, it's the wife search algorithm (fun fact, it's really useful to find a refueling station while on the go)

A couple thoughts on that..

First, do you really want to work for the lowest bidder? I have before, and it was a complete waste of my time.

Second, Name a number that you can be happy with. If they meet it, then you should be happy.

Third, many companies use banding for salary range, and if you're below the median, then you're raises will be bigger than if you're at the top of the range. In effect, naming too small of a number is often nullified within 2-3 years.

I do agree that it's a psychological game, but don't play it. Name a number you want. If they are reasonable and they like you, they'll negotiate.

In one case, I was too high for the position, and they created a new position (title, really) to put me in. I thought that was good faith.

This is why we publish salary ranges with our job ads but also require a desired salary within that range from candidates.

Every time I ever tried this, the candidates hover around the top of the range regardless of qualification and experience.

Maybe try posting a minimum salary only? "Roles for this position start at $x for qualified candidates, negotiable based on experience" or something like that.

I don't think thats a viable strategy. I get lots of semi-spam offers. I usually just skim through them in 5 seconds and if I see salary figure way below what I would expect then it's 100 % I will not be replying.

Interesting idea

Which is fine; if you can argue that their experience may not merit top of the range, you just negotiate down a bit...

This might just be me and my own immaturity, but in my experience, employees often count their eggs before they hatch, and once I start negotiating them down, I create a scenario where I can't get them fully aligned with my goals. They become a simple exchange of cash for labor and not someone who grows loyal or feels a sense of fairness, ownership and excitement about the role.

Maybe I am naive, but I feel like this creates a dynamic that hurts otherwise promising prospects.

They become a simple exchange of cash for labor and not someone who grows loyal or feels a sense of fairness, ownership and excitement about the role.

You've hit upon a fundamental tenet of Marxism: alienation [0]. You haven't said whether or not you offer equity as part of your compensation. If not, then it is somewhat unreasonable to expect that sort of loyalty from your employees. If so, then you have a challenging task of convincing people to buy in to your vision at a potentially high personal risk.

Today's economy is rife with alienation. So many people are constantly changing jobs or dropping out of the workforce [1]. Meanwhile, they're struggling inside a system that produces rampant cost disease [2] and staggering inequality, as illustrated by the dreaded "elephant graph" [3]. Overall, I think there's a growing sense of discontent with capitalism and this can manifest in suspicion towards employers.

Now I'll grant you that it's entirely unfair to lay all this at the feet of just a single employer such as yourself. I don't intend for this to come across as some kind of blame game. I merely hope to provide a larger context for ideas that many people may not even be consciously aware of but contribute to their feelings and instincts nonetheless.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienatio...

[1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2017/02...

[2] http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost-...

[3] http://voxeu.org/article/greatest-reshuffle-individual-incom...

at-will employment basically guarantees a lack of loyalty. You have no loyalty to me, so why should I have any to you? Everyone is a mercenary out to maximize their personal gain at the expense of everyone else. Not a world I particularly want to live in, but it wasn't my choice and it's a hard thing to change.

Luckily, most people out there aren't purely capitalistic, do-whatever-it-takes-to-make-a-buck sociopaths, but they're definitely out there, will play you like a pawn, and it might be a while after (or never) until you realize what happened and what role you played in their twisted little game.

To me, it's sad that we have humans literally dying because they can't afford better health insurance in this country while others play pricing games having ships full of oil sail around to manipulate the market into paying them more, or toiling to shave off a tenth of a millisecond for their high-speed quote stuffing system. The idea of money has become so remote and intangible in some cases that I hate how it's also used for things people actually need.

or you don't hire them

Wonder how it would work out if you listed the top of the range at actually midway through the range. Maybe that would be the desired result - this is kinda similar sounding to my employer, where our "bring them on at" range is lower than the "expected pay at this role" range, because we want people to have room for nice raises even if they're not promotion-ready.

Problem is even with that I would wait for an offer from your company before saying a number, and then I would ask for more, because over the course of my career this has enabled me to consistently be paid more than average. So your "maximum" would be my minimum, and if I were to work there, I'd want more. Maybe that means I don't work there, that's fine, but it'll work somewhere else, eventually!

> So your "maximum" would be my minimum, and if I were to work there, I'd want more.

Oh, the "I better be the most well-compensated person on the team or I'm going to get upset" mentality. If our strategy weeds those folks out, all the better.

I don't care at all what other people at the company make. I just know for a fact that on average, across all the companies I apply to (don't forget, you see a lot of candidates, but at the same time we are seeing lots of companies), I will get more money if I push back on an offer.

Thank you for doing that.

I try to only ever apply to jobs with salary range posted. Although as a developer is becoming increasingly hard to find those posts

you can find plenty in italy, all sounding like 'in most expensive city x, lead architect, full time, 6yr experience, 30k$ RAL'

rip market.

That's how us government jobs work too :)

Unfortunately the negatives around government jobs far outweigh the benefits of having the salary a known quantity when you are applying.

If only the rest of the industry was so mature.

I think you're confusing two sales concepts - first to talk, and anchoring.

Anchoring is a more general marketing concept that works well in advertisements (crossing out a black $280 and putting a red $100 underneath it). Anchoring doesn't work so well for something much more fluid (and with much more at stake) such as a salary negotiation.

In-person sales meetings (which is what an interview is, for both sides) are where "first to talk" come into play. It's a concept as old as war meetings between opposing roman generals. First to talk loses, period. Why? I don't know, but years of sales and recruitment has taught me that whoever slips is going to give the advantage to the other side of the table.

You can only hurt yourself by giving a number. The company has set a budget, either you fit or you don't. Maybe the budget is higher than you expected and you take the job for way more than you would have asked for. Maybe it's less and you don't take the job. The key point is that company is not the only company you are dealing with - you can move on to another. And another and another, and as long as you don't give your number, you will win out.

I can't share this data but when I worked at a bootcamp our analysis showed this as well. Students that gave their number got paid less. There's a big push for bootcamp transparency so hopefully that sort of info will get published soon.

From my experience, naming your price works in your favor if you are aggressive. People having similar positions are paid at 20% difference all dependent on their negotiation skills. Also, companies usually don't have set budgets for positions. It's quite fluid depending on the person being recruited and their other offers and expectations. You need to make it work in your favor. If you send up leaving money on the table, it just shows you did not come prepared. Besides, there's nothing wrong in getting what you asked for even if in another set of circumstances, with some amount of luck, you could have gotten more.

I would disagree with what you're saying about companies not having set budgets. They may have a range but it's certainly a set range. The larger the organization the more hard the range likely is due to the fact that the hiring manager doesn't even set the range, HR does based on salary comps.

Completely agree that giving previous comp information or comp expectations can only hurt you as an employee. The only thing giving this information will do is provide a company the information they need to pay you less than they might have otherwise.

I think it is difficult for employees to judge what they're truly worth. Therefore, when most people give a number, that number will be lower than what an employer may be willing to pay (and perhaps lower than the company's initial offer would be). I would guess this holds doubly true for graduates of a bootcamp, or recent college graduates, who have less industry experience on which to base their judgment of business value.

The problem is that most companies won't provide an offer until you've gone through interviews which are expensive for both parties.

So this reasoning holds if you have an abundance of time, but you can generally figure out what their likely range is going to be. Do research, ask colleagues, etc. Anchor at the high end of that - you can also leave it vague by talking about 'total comp' which can includes subjective things like equity, location, vacation, etc. You may loose some value by doing this but it'll also mean you won't waste time and so you'll only be interviewing in places that are in your ballpark.

We always (sort of) go first by sharing our comp ranges to candidates. If either of us are way off why waste each other's time? We do ask for comp history. We try to be very fair and we rarely end up needing to negotiate at all.

I almost always reject companies out of hand that ask for comp history. It signals a desire to lowball the candidate and/or a company's lack of faith in their own ability to ascertain talent. Neither bode well for working there even if the request is later rescinded.

Asking for the candidate's expected compensation, OTOH, is fine, although a little tacky.

I'm not confusing two sales concepts - you are. I don't know much about 'first to talk', but my limited understanding is that it means just that (the person who engages first in a negotiation comes out worse). Anchoring is about setting the parameters of the negotiation - you don't need to speak first.

>>In negotiations, anchoring refers to the concept of setting a boundary that outlines the basic constraints for a negotiation; subsequently, the anchoring effect is the phenomenon in which we set our estimation for the true value of the item at hand.[5] In addition to the initial research conducted by Tversky and Kahneman, multiple other studies have shown that anchoring can greatly influence the estimated value of an object. [0]

Do you or your Roman generals (who probably wouldn't be fighting each other anyway, but that's besides the point) have any hard data/sources you can show that demonstrate a link between anchoring and coming off worse in a negotiation?

You can hurt yourself by giving a number, but you're more likely to help yourself if you choose a realistic but slightly high number and indicate that you are willing to negotiate based on non-monetary factors.

[0] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring#In_negotiations

Anchoring might work if there wasn't an information asymmetry dynamic at play. But companies have way more data on salaries than applicants do. If you anchor too high, they'll just pass since they know what others are paying and know you won't get that elsewhere. If you anchor too low, the negotiations will be win-win for them. When I was hiring and someone came in too low, I'd often offer well above their anchor since I didn't want them leaving as soon as they found out how much more they were worth. But most employers don't do that.

What you're saying would be true if companies were navigating the process as blindly as candidates are. Then a high anchor could lead the employer to negotiating from a position of weakness. But, armed with data, companies don't do that.

Anchoring requires information asymmetry¹, but it requires the field to be tiled the other way around. A company can easily anchor the salary target in a negotiation. You can't.

1 - With no asymmetry both peers would have a value anchored before negotiations start.

Are you sure companies know how much other similar companies are paying?

Yes. I managed a team and had to hire many people. My company provided me with a mountain of data that was broken down by location, job title and years of experience. The data was pretty accurate, at least for San Francisco, but I have no way of knowing if the other locations were correct.

Two stupid things on their part...I got headcount, not a budget. So when negotiating salary, it wasn't in my best interest to haggle. I'd rather have happy relationships with my direct reports than know that I screwed them out of a few dollars on behalf of the company. Had they made it my duty to make the numbers add up, I might have been a bit more frugal. Oh, and they didn't filter the data to only show me positions below my title. So I went into my reviews armed with the exact market salary data that the company used to negotiate with me.

Maybe your company also wanted their staff to be happy, like you did - is it only stupid for them to do it, but not you?

> You can only hurt yourself by giving a number.

That's far too big of a generalization and I think it's easier to talk about specific scenarios. The parent comment alluded to a quite common counterexample:

1. salary range for position is 100k-150k

2. candidate is first to talk and names anywhere from $130k to $170k

3. candidate gets talked down a bit, e.g. 10%

It seems to me the candidate will still end up higher than if the company is first to talk and names $100k!

I never consider interviewing and negotiations a waste of time. It's very valuable practice, no matter what the outcome. Practice is how I get better at both. The more interviews I go on and the more times I negotiate salary, the better I get.

Also, even if a company can't hire me at the moment due to real budget constraints, they might be able to do so in the future, or perhaps one of the people I interviewed and impressed enough to get to the salary negotiation phase will remember me when they move to another company and want to hire me then.

If I name a number way out of their range first, though, they could reject me right off the bat, and I'd never get an interview in the first place, never get the practice, and never get a chance to impress anyone. All of these are worth more to me than the chance of a salary negotiation going sour because I wind up being too expensive. Besides, I'll always have the chance to decide whether I want to work for the company despite them being below my ideal salary. Salary isn't everything.

As for anchoring, that might work if you're negotiating with novices, but many employers have professional salary negotiators (either HR or recruiters themselves) who know about anchoring, and they're not going to get fooled by such psychological tricks. If I don't reveal a number first, however, they are forced to name one, and then the ball is in my court, and I can negotiate up from there as I see fit. There's really no downside.

> I never consider interviewing and negotiations a waste of time. It's very valuable practice, no matter what the outcome. Practice is how I get better at both. The more interviews I go on and the more times I negotiate salary, the better I get.

This. I get the impression that most software devs don't make an effort to learn this incredibly valuable skill. It doesn't even have to be haggling, per se. Just asking for a higher salary is often going to increase it by thousands of dollars. It just boggles my mind at how so many people will leave so much money at the table...

> Just asking for a higher salary is often going to increase it by thousands of dollars.

General life rule that so many people seem to have zero clue about - you only get what you ask for. Instead, so many people turn into passive aggressive assholes or sit in silence and stew. If you want more money, ask for it (in a polite professional way obviously). If the company says no, you now have a clear next step.

Whenever I have done that its been a "we can't right now" for such and such reason, have some extra responsibilities instead and make it feel like a promotion. It been easier to get another job with more pay.

Well, to be clear, I wasn't talking about promotions, but negotiating a new job offer. That is the time when you as an employee have the most leverage.

Ditto. The only way I've ever meaningfully increased my income was by leaving, even though it wouldn't have taken much for me to stay.

>I never consider interviewing and negotiations a waste of time.

As an employer, I do.

I once made the mistake of spending a lot of time interviewing a candidate assuming that their salary expectations would be around market rates...they weren't. This was years ago and it chaps me a bit to this day that I made such a rookie blunder. I won't make that mistake again. I ask for a range right off and give one in return. This saves a lot of time if expectations are way off.

Given that candidates are justifiably wary of naming a number first, if you don't want to waste your time, it behooves you to name your range first.

I fully agree. At the time my assumption was that candidates had a pretty good idea what a 'normal' salary range is for a position. I was wrong.

And my experience is that never, ever, has a potential employer expressed a "pretty good idea" about what a "normal" salary for a position is.

That's a bit strange.

It's like buying milk. I couldn't tell you exactly how much I could buy a gallon of milk for right now (without looking it up). But I could tell you that it is for around five or six dollars. I could also tell you that organic milk is a bit more and the store brand is a bit less. I could also tell you it is likely to be a bit more in a small, boutique store than a large chain store and cost a bit more in the middle of NYC or SF than it would cost in the outskirts of St. Louis.

In short, I know enough about the cost of milk that if it is priced at $16 a gallon or $1.50 a gallon that it is unusual and, despite not knowing the exact 'normal' cost of a gallon of milk, that I can assume I can walk away and get some somewhere else in the market for a 'normal' price.

I think most people are in my shoes when it comes to milk and I think most employers in tech have a pretty good idea what a normal salary for a position is, especially those who have written checks for those positions for a while.

If you are finding that is not the case, I would wonder why.

Alas, software developers are not an agricultural commodity with a highly transparent and uniform underlying cost structure. :-)

The "10X developer" may be a bit of overhyped mythology, but underneath it is the very real idea that developers vary enormously in their abilities and the amount of value they can add. While the variance in their salaries doesn't capture the variance in their productivity, perhaps, there are many situations where there is profound business sense in paying one developer 2-3x more than another.

The problems are: (1) Everyone thinks they're that 2-3x guy; (2) office politics would sooner or later lead to the news getting out and a profound sense of injustice spreading like a wildfire.

You'd be amazed by how vast the range for developer salaries is.

I've had employers think that $80k was a reasonable offer for me (when I was making $200k).

It definitely depends on the sector and situation. If someone told me that a dev that some would offer $80K was making $200K I'd say 'Oh. In the financial sector?'

Otherwise, what I'm talking about is the fat part of the salary curve...there are always going to be interesting situations at the edge.

I've never worked in the financial sector. The truth is that there's just vast differentiation in how companies treat and pay developers. Some companies basically don't recognize the need for quality and pay all their technical folks <$120k across the board.

I think it is less about recognizing the need for quality and more about not needing nor being able to afford those skills.

It's like mechanics: F1 mechanics make a hell of a lot more than your average wrench turner (for good reason). If you need someone to look at your Corolla you don't need that extra skill and you couldn't afford it even if you wanted it.

You're assuming management competence (ie. that they know what they need).

I've seen way too many companies where they have 3 or 4 developers doing work which 1 competent developer could do, but they're unable to hire or retain competent developers due to poor pay. They'd actually save a lot of money by paying better.

...where are you buying milk? $2.59/gallon here in the Boston metro.

Organic brand from a small milk boutique in Manhattan, apparently.

The difference is most people are in the market for hood and I see myself as the local brand organic fair trade vanilla soy milk. No one wants to be hood.

I am also often similarly loathe to apply to positions without posted salary ranges. Unfortunately, in my experience, it's often "taboo" to bring up pay early-on in the discussions. But on the flip side, I've found that people who don't like to talk about pay usually don't want to pay much either, so it almost is a self-selection criterion that has worked really well in the past.

But I really like that you approach it this way - practical, sensible, and acknowledges that both parties' time has value.

Companies should name their range first mate, or just interview and accept the fact that the job hunt sucks for everyone. Why do you think external recruiters exist? They work as middleman that have intimate knowledge of a company's range, as well as their candidates' range, without either party knowing. That allows them to find helpful matches without wasting either party's time... at a 20% markup of course ;)

> They work as middleman that have intimate knowledge of a company's range, as well as their candidates' range, without either party knowing.

That's comically naive. External recruiters routinely share candidate ranges with employers.

They also routinely share the employers range with candidates.

Believe me, if I told an external recruiter I was looking to make X and they sent me on an interview and I got a job offer at 0.5X, not only would that be the last time we ever spoke but wherever I eventually landed would not be using that recruiter or their firm ever again.

I can't think of a job I've been contacted about in the last 15+ years where I didn't know what the salary range was before I even agreed to have my resume submitted.

If it's such a big deal to employers, and they don't want to waste their time, why don't they name a number first?

I won't object.

I didn't at the time. I do now.

Problem is, is every potential employee worth the same to you?

Of course not. But every role has a range, more or less, which is a balance of the value that role creates vs the alternatives in the market. The range is due to factors such as the risk an individual embodies based on previous experience, demonstrable skill, references along with likely ramp up time based on those factors.

To take a silly but illustrative example: if I'm looking for a javascript developer, I don't care if the person I'm interviewing also has a law degree from a top tier school and can craft airtight patent applications even if I may have some use for that skill. I am hiring for a javascript developer. That is the role I need filled. I will offer a salary range based on that need.

It is a silly example but I see the issue so often: someone will apply for a role and then expect to be compensated for their other skills. While, sometimes, it may be worth it to do a bit of management gymnastics and get someone brilliant through the door and find out how to fully leverage their talents later, most of the time that's just wishful thinking on everyone's part.

Hit thread limit, but I'm asking about @clavalle's ranges here:

How often does your eventual accepted offer land at the high end of your offered range? How often at the low end?

I ask, because it often seems unproductive to negotiate within-range on merits. If you're willing to pay up to X, I as a candidate am going to expect that amount. Anything less is letting you, the employer, capture the surplus...

Replying to @clavalle... Thanks for the thoughtful reply - I appreciate the chance to engage on this!

I understand the concept of probabilistic valuation of risks/opportunities of a given candidate, and if that were practically quantifiable in the real world, I agree that it would represent a sound way to price an offer (provided you also factored in the cost of losing a candidate and having to put more resources towards finding an equivalent or better candidate)... [1]

Unfortunately, in practice, a candidate has to be evaluated more coarsely as "good enough to hire" or "not good enough to hire". There's no way you could in good conscience employ someone who couldn't do the work - even if they came at a discount. That means that there definitely is budget surplus any time you hire someone at less than your maximum budget. There is a fixed amount you're able to pay to get the work done, and that is at the max of your budget range.

Strategically, then, the max of the range offered represents the minimum a qualified candidate should target in a negotiation... Your mileage may vary, of course, with the skill of the negotiator.

[1] By the way, I highly recommend Algorithms to Live By for an interesting discussion around the use of such methods in practice.

> There's no way you could in good conscience employ someone who couldn't do the work

Oh, if it was only so simple as 'can do the work' | 'cannot do the work'!

It is, of course, a very course and rough estimate but it is more like 'This person is likely to be great! They will not only do the work but surprise and delight me and pull our organization forward more solidly and quickly then we even hoped. We are lucky they happened to be looking just at the time we need their skills!' or 'This person looks like a good candidate but they tend to jump jobs on a yearly basis and has experience in C# rather than Java much less Scala but we've been looking for a while and we really need to get started and they seem smart enough to get up to speed.'

Point is, it's a complicated process with complicated factors.

Also, there is the wider market to consider. If I don't think a candidate can go out and get another job for the same price or more, I am unlikely to offer a premium on top of that market price.

So I have to disagree; skilled jobs are not binary in nature -- the max of the range offered represents how much a top tier candidate that fits well with the position should target. For those others without the same risk/reward profile or market power, they will have to keep from overselling themselves and take those factors into account.

If you like Algorithms to Live By, I think you'd enjoy 'How to Measure Anything' which really gets into the nitty gritty of how to reduce uncertainty and how even modest reductions can lead to much more solid decisions with these kinds of inherently fuzzy and complex problems.

You assume there is a surplus.

If I tell you at the beginning of our conversation 'The salary for this position is between $80K and $120K depending on your experience, education, and demonstrable skill etc'...

Throughout the course of our interview it is revealed that your education is a good fit for the position and your experience, while decent and potentially transferrable, is not a great fit for the position. Also, the technical part of the interview was good in some areas and poor in others (though I suspect through mere ignorance and not raw ability) and you have no public code under your belt that I can examine. But, you seem to communicate well and get along with the team.

Well, you are a good candidate but represent a significant risk relative to some other candidates. I could hire you and it turn out that those skills are not as transferrable as I'd hoped. You could take significantly more training than I was expecting for the role which is a cost to me.

The 'surplus' goes toward the expected cost of the risk. It is possible that you could find a better fit employment wise and that I could find a better fit employee wise but that carries its own risk. We both weigh all of that call it good and are happy how it turns out. Or we don't and the search continues.

When you tell employees your number so as not to waste time, do you name the number at the top of the range or at the bottom?

Both. And I try to give them a rough idea of the things that factor into pushing one into the higher end of the range or lower end.

> I ask for a range right off and give one in return.

I wish more employers were willing to do that. Many that I've talked to want the candidate to state their salary expectation, but aren't willing to say what range they are looking to pay.

Well, it wasn't a waste of time if you gained some experience, which I think was the point. As a manager I've made tons of mistakes. Much of my management style today is based on "Well, I won't do that again." Every mistake I've made has made me a better manager.

I agree with you regarding interview and negotiation practice being valuable (albeit to a certain extent - sometimes negotiating with certain tech companies/recruiters is like wrestling a pig in a muddy field... after a while, you realise the pig is enjoying itself).

I also don't think salary is everything - far from it! Yet I've never had a problem saying "I believe my market value is $XYZk, however if the culture, team and product is a good fit for me then I'm sure we'll be able to find a salary level that works for both of us."

Normally I say this right off the bat and have not yet had bad feedback about it. I don't see anchoring as a psychological trick, rather an opportunity to save both you and your potential employer a lot of time.

One thing that's super important in this is to know your market value. Regardless of whether you like your job or not, it's absolutely worth dipping a couple toes into the water every year or so, just to get a feel for what your skillset is worth. Doing this when not actively seeking a change takes off a lot of the pressure for a move when you are looking for a change.

> Plus, it saves a lot of wasted negotiation time on both sides if your price is just way too high for the company and this is clear from the beginning.

This. I'm very upfront that if a company can't meet at least a particular dollar amount expected, it's not worth wasting both of our time. This saves a ton of time, and also serves as a nice red flag when a company agrees and then later tries to negotiate down at the last minute (if they're going to penny-pinch at the last minute, things like bonuses and vacation approval are basically never happening).

I disagree that it's to your advantage to try to anchor to a high number early on. The reason IMO is that, at the beginning of a negotiation, neither party knows much about the other. They don't know enough about you to know whether it would be worth paying you that much, and you don't know enough about them to know if you'd be willing to work for them for that much. Start naming numbers at the beginning, and both sides will name extreme numbers to play it safe, they'll be far apart, and no deal gets made if they both stick to those numbers.

Let them see what you can do for them, and let them show you what it's like to work for them, then you should find it easier to come to an agreement on a number.

In places that don't use salary bands, many companies will hit you with previous salary + 10%.

In one place that I worked at, salary for a common technical job title (n=100) varied by 50%. The mechanics were pretty obvious. People who worked their way up got screwed with the 10% raise bullshit, and people who came in through some other means were able to extract higher salaries.

Where I find this stuff annoying is where there is no signal about the salary level. One placed I spoke to many years ago was advertising for a position that was probably worth $100-105k in the market, but they were hiring at $50k.

The parent is discussing prior salaries. You are discussing requested salaries.

If specifically asked "What is your current salary?" you would typically respond with the actual current salary, not your ideal new salary.

I would rather talk what my salary expectations are rather than my current salary. Not because I'm underpaid but because salary is a very specific term and doesn't take into account many other factors.

For instance, I think the worst bonus I've ever received with my current employer is 15%. Best was 30% or so.

That's not salary. But it's fairly reliable. With the new employer the bonus might not be reliable even if it's comparable percentage-wise. Every company has different criteria they use to fund the bonus pool and it's unheard of for a potential employer to ever disclose that. Everyone at my current employer gets paid out of the same bonus pool as the CEO so I know we're getting paid :-)

Also, equity (at least in my case) plays a huge role. The last few years I've made as much or more in selling vested stock options as I did in salary.

So if someone were to ask me what my current salary is in a employment negotiation I would tell them that I don't think it's relevant and give them a few examples why. I would however, tell them what I thought I was worth and justify it by explaining what value I could bring AND-OR I would tell them what salary range I've already been offered elsewhere recently and ask if they were prepared to make an offer in that range. If they insisted my current salary, I pretty much know that's not the right place for me.

I qualified my comment by stating that I agree with the parent as far as current salaries go, yet that in the general case of salary expectation discussions it is nevertheless a better strategy to state a number first. IMO it isn't clear from the parent that they believe it is a good idea to disclose any number first (whether expected or current salary).

BTW, if specifically asked 'what is your current salary?' I would typically respond with 'my ideal new salary is $X'

In this case the prior salary is used for anchoring purposes, by the expectation that the new salary should not be too much higher than the old salary.

They're basically using it as a means to sanity check and calibrate their own assessment.

My first job paid me $25,000 CAD a year.

My next job paid me $90,000 CAD a year. (Investment bank)

My next job paid me $160,000 USD a year. (Google)

All numbers are all-in comp. All junior dev roles.

Should the bank, and Google have offered me $33,000 and $40,000, so that the new salary isn't too much higher then the old one? Would that satisfy your notion of fairness? When new grads hired by the latter are getting paid $150,000/year?

You are hired to do your new job, not the old one. What the old one paid has no relevance.

I did not defend the practice. I explained why they are asking. It has nothing to do with fairness, and everything to do with employers using it as a negotiating tactic.

In other words: If you don't know what you're worth, of course they won't give you what you're worth.

What if you are current job pays you $400k? In that doesn't it advantage you to talk about your current salary to set an anchor? Also, it helps you avoid jobs/positions who are way below that number.

If your current job pays $400K they are either grossly overpaying or you are in a very narrow band of people in your field and you probably should not be taking too many interviews with people who do not already know what they should be prepared to pay.

People at $400K a year don't apply for a job, they're recruited. Any of the problems mentioned in this thread would likely not apply.

Or you have the right pedigree, and are working like a horse for a NYC financial firm. Or you are a staff engineer at a SV megacorp.

It does, and there is no law against telling your employer your salary expectations.

The thing you might leave a job because you really, really disagree with that assesment!

by the expectation that the new salary should not be too much higher than the old salary

From where does this expectation derive, and what makes it a good barometer of sanity? On the face it just sounds like the same rationale used for basing raises on percentage of an employee's initial salary. "3% over your last job" is not fair.

The expectation derives from peoples lack of knowledge of what they're worth. It has nothing to do with fairness - it's about what they think they can get away with offering.

Based on experience, almost nobody negotiates their offers, and if you see people talking about their job moves, people are often excited about, say, a 10% increase.

That's why employers expect to be able to get away with anchoring it to your current salary.

Anchoring only works in this way if there's no definitive market value for what you're selling. I know what a software architect commands in my geographic area. If you come in asking for 1.8x that, you're off the table as a candidate immediately (which you mention in the next point). No amount of anchoring will change that.

Agreed. More likely, however, a software architect commands a range of salaries in your area (eg 80-130k with a few outliers either side). As an 'average' performer in this scenario, you would do well to anchor your 'value' at 120k and let them make excuses why 105k is more reasonable. The alternative (let them anchor you at 90k and then you have to explain to the recruiter why you are worth 15k more) will be trickier in most cases.

Your points are valid if we're talking about a neutral salary negotiation, i.e., prospective employer asks, "What salary range are you seeking?"

In this case, however, the disadvantage comes from a fixed number - your previous salary - not what you'd like.

In a situation where you were underpaid, declaring your previous salary will definitely put you at a negotiating disadvantage.

You're absolutely wrong.

You're negotiating from a position of weaker information. You have no idea what the other engineers are being paid, all you know is how much you're being paid, and what you would like to be paid. Meanwhile the recruiter/hiring manager knows exactly how much they are paying all the other engineers.

You are now tasked with trying to get as fair/high a salary as possible, without knowing what their threshold is for simply no longer continuing the negotiations, because as you said "the price is just way too high".

By hearing the other side first, you can then gauge whether or not your desired salary is acceptable, or you can try to negotiate up.

The problem I have with this approach is that with many companies, particularly larger established ones like AmaGoogSoft, base salary is just one portion of a compensation package that might have contributions of up to 50% from stock, bonus, incentive pay, benefits/matching, and perks. If you start anchoring on one piece of that puzzle, it limits your ability to move on others. If the goal of negotiation is to maximize your total offer (which it should be), then the only reasonable answer to the question is "depends on total compensation factors".

Anchoring fails because let's say the position is wanting to hire someone at $70k and you state an expected salary of $75 - 80k, negotiable. That employer may decide it's not worth their time because you'll want too much, so why bother with even calling you in for an interview. Asking for a salary number from applicants up front is not just a way to undercut them, but it's a way to quickly weed out and only interview those who are willing to take bottom dollar.

They get the talent and experience they are willing to pay for, and deal with the recidivism rate that paying under market gets you.

Note that this assumes your information about your market value is at least roughly in line with their information about your market value. If there's a big discrepancy in what you believe you're worth, then the benefit can easily flip the other way.

That isn't banned by this law, though.

>Generally, in price negotiations it is advantageous to name a number first.

This is absolutely 100% wrong. In price negotiations you will almost always fair better if you force the other party to bring up a number first.

Source?

There is a large body of research which disagrees with you...

Oechssler, Jörg; Roider, Andreas; Schmitz, Patrick W. (2009). "Cognitive abilities and behavioral biases". Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. 72 (1): 147–152. doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2009.04.018. Jump up ^ Orr, D. & Guthrie, C. (2005). "Anchoring, information, expertise, and negotiation: New insights from meta-analysis". Ohio St. J. Disp. Resol., 597, 21. SSRN 900152 Jump up ^ Kristensen, Henrik; Gärling, Tommy (1997). "The Effects of Anchor Points and Reference Points on Negotiation Process and Outcome". Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 71 (1): 85–94. doi:10.1006/obhd.1997.2713.

(edit as I can't reply to the child comment: Yes, you're right of course. Put it down to a mix of multitasking, iphone browser and university-instilled fear of using Wikipedia as a source)

Source right here: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/ (and it isn't a wikipedia article)

Citation soup doesn't really add anything to a discussion.

Why not link to the Wiki article you copied the sources from? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring

Exactly. Whoever names a number first puts themselves at a significant disadvantage.

Why do people, yourself included, insist on taking simple sides on complex issues?

There is no one size fits all to negotiations, there are simply too many. I would be hesitant to even apply some kind of 80/20 rule here. There are many kinds of negotiations and not all follow the same pattern, even if all of them in one person's experience have.

I have succeeded when demanding they present a number and when presenting a number. I think there are other important things in negotiations like how numbers are presented and what else is being exchanged, but I do not have good sources for this last bit outside my own experience.

>>I have succeeded when demanding they present a number and when presenting a number.

You can do this if you have a lot of leverage. But if you don't -- and most job seekers don't -- then giving a number first will put you at a disadvantage because it reveals how much you think you are worth and simply gives the other side a starting point from which to bring down the price.

So if you make the other party go first they will come up with a very low number forcing you to put effort into talking it up. And that is better because??

I remember with Ticketmaster I got into an actual eight minute long back and forth during a recruitment call about my "number." Eight minutes is a long time on the phone. It went something like

her: "Just so we have an idea of your range..."

me: "I understand why that information would be helpful to you, but I can assure you that if everything else is a good fit, salary is the last place we'll find ourselves disagreeing."

Back and forth. Eventually I had to just cut her off and let her know it wasn't a good fit.

I've never had a problem winning the "give us your number" battle before, I honestly have to admire the tenacity of that recruiter. Seems like Ticketmaster genuinely cannot hire without getting that information.

I've had a handful of potential employers ask straight up for my current salary, and they ALL got squirrely when I refused to disclose it. Currently batting zero with companies that ask for (and I politely decline to give) that info.

EDIT: Also I kind of disagree with your assessment that it's a "seller's market" for IT talent. A lot of companies appear to be fishing for good deals, but is there really that much actual hiring going on? A lot of companies saying they're looking for talent does not a hot job market make.

I'd recommend reading Patrick McKenzie's (patio11's) article on salary negotiation for engineers: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/

Yes, they may all get squirrelly when you refuse to give that information, but this is often simply a tactic to pressure you into giving the information up. Stick to your guns.

One tactic I would recommend is to say, "I'd prefer not to discuss previous comp or comp expectations at this stage. I'd first like to get to know the company and learn about the opportunities for me there. If we decide that we're a mutual fit, then we can figure out the comp. I can be flexible on the comp, and it's only one factor I'll consider alongside others like how passionate I am for the project, my team, and the company mission, and the opportunities I see for further personal growth."

Your objective at this phase is to get past recruiting and into the interview process with potential fellow employees and hiring managers. Once there, if you do well and are a good fit, then they will start pulling for you. The force that a hiring manager brings to bear on that outcome is much greater than recruiting, and if the HM thinks you're awesome and wants to hire you, then the fact that you haven't given previous comp or expected comp to recruiting probably won't matter.

Recruiting may respond to this tactic by asking, "OK, let's say we match you with a completely ideal job, project, team, etc. What would your expected compensation be in that best-case scenario?" This question is a trick designed to get you to reveal your lowest comp number, i.e., the lowest compensation you'd accept if all the other aspects of the job were awesome and made up for it.

Then you avoid the question by saying stuff like "oh, my salary range is this" or "I've received offers for this amount".

Or just make up a number. Companies bluff all the time in negotiations. You should do it to.

Both Google and Oracle made it a condition of getting hired. Meaning they were ready to walk away if previous pay wasn't disclosed. Oracle even wanted scans of W2s ...

How long ago was that? I have interviewed onsite last year with every company in the Big 4 and some smaller others, and none of them made an issue out of me not disclosing my previous salary even during offer negotiations.

Google didn't do this to me, and I've never heard of them demanding past salary from anyone I knew.

Two big fish in a colossally big ocean.

Million of employers out there, many willing to pay at or near the same range without those onerous requirements.

> Oracle even wanted scans of W2s

I can't find anything corroborating this. I looked because it sounds so wrong that it should be illegal. My w2s are private and personal tax data. A future employer has not business knowing anything about them.

The only thing I can think of is they were trying to use the w2s to verify residency...

Is that after or before you have a finalized offer in your hands?

It was after a written offer, during the background check.

Everything is negotiable.

> Oracle even wanted scans of W2s

That's pretty easy to forge isn't it?

>Oracle even wanted scans of W2s ...

Yet another bullet-point in why not to ever work at Oracle.

I've found it easier to just lie in these situations by giving a number that's significantly higher than what I'm currently making, and more in line with the top end of what I think they're willing to pay me/what I would be willing to work for. It has worked quite well for me. Obviously this only works if you are comfortable lying in this scenario.

I don't normally like to lie, but I see no moral issue with it in a situation like this where the system is intentionally rigged against you. They are systematically depriving people of pay; I'm not going to lose sleep over a small lie that rights that wrong.

I have seen places as a final step of an offer ask for proof of previous wage.

Not super common in software, I know people in law and a few other fields that always have to do it...

Answered more in depth in response to sibling comment, but fuck those places! Politely decline their request (they have no right to that info), or if you're comfortable doing so, continue the lie by forging your paystub or whatever ridiculous form of proof they ask for. This is a ridiculous request and should be treated as such.

There is no need to lie. Also, it can set you up for failure if that info comes back during a background check. Just say how much you want up front.

Saying how much you want is different from saying how much you currently make. It may be numerically the same, but there are big differences in how that information is treated. One of several examples: A recruiter who has been told to offer you up to 100k will probably not go back to the hiring manager if you just say "I want 120k"; they will tell you that's outside of the range for that position. But if you say "I make 120k and would need to earn at least that to consider leaving", that is much easier for them to escalate. This is something I've seen happen at two different companies, on the hiree and hiring manager side.

The background check thing feels mostly like a boogie man to me. It's convenient for recruiters that engineers believe that, but I've never seen it happen in practice. And if it did (how does this even manifest? they require you to send them a paystub? they can't compel your previous employer to divulge this info), you should be outraged! It's none of their business what your paycheck at your previous employer looked like or contained. I would respectfully decline to provide this information, and if they insisted I would edit or photoshop it, and give serious thought about whether this is the type of employer you want to work for. You should be indignant about the fact that an entity you are planning to devote the majority of your waking life to for the next few years is comfortable with systematically fucking you over like this.

I've never gotten a lot of grief about disclosing past salary. I generally try to set the anchor and conversation around what I want to be making to join their company. I have (very fortunately) never been in the position where I _had_ to leave or accept an offer on anything but my own terms, I feel that when you're negotiating from that position, the complete lack of pressure to accept a lower number becomes pretty apparent to the people on the other side of the conversation from you. Or I'm dense enough to not realize they were trying to wheedle me down and just flat didn't entertain the notion.

I've got a business partner (came from high on up in the land of the big four) that during a salary negotiation of our own he floated the idea of asking for our candidate's current salary, AND PROOF. Apparently over 'there', especially as you get higher up, it's completely commonplace. Having spent his whole career over there, it didn't occur to him that maybe people would rather just walk away from your company simply for asking than to answer the question.

Luckily, he's a great guy and after my half hour soap box tirade he came around to realizing that in an environment where people are _actually_ practicing a craft and have what would resemble real skills[0], they don't put up with it.

- [0] Not to say people working for the big megacorp accounting firms don't have real skills, but no, yeah, that's actually what I meant. I kid, I kid.

To me asking for the previous salary - especially asking for proof - shows a lack of respect for the candidate. It's on the employer to quantify the value a skilled employee brings to the organization. I've walked away from offers because I didn't like the way they negotiated.

> To me asking for the previous salary - especially asking for proof - shows a lack of respect for the candidate.

Totally agree. It really sets up a us vs. them before the employee even starts work.

As a freelancer, I'm fairly up-front about my hourly rate. If they want to pay it, I'm happy. If they don't, that's fine too. If there are other interesting aspects about the project that make up for the lower pay, we can negotiate. But it saves me time not having to talk to clients who can't afford me.

But freelancing is a different market than salaried employment. I think for salaried positions it's up to the employer to be open about their pay range.

As a freelancer, I'm fairly up-front about my hourly rate.

The law doesn't address your expected or preferred rate (for your next gig); but rather, about disclosing your past rates. Which is a huge difference.

(Actually, the rule applies to employment negotiations only, and has no effect on freelance discussions, per se. However, it seems it may give significant moral support to those on the freelance side who are, frankly, pretty tired of this pesky sales tactic).

Hijacking this for visibility.

If the recruiter asks repeatedly, a trick that I learned is to answer that it's in your employee confidentiality agreement not to discuss the terms of your employment. It's arguably a true statement as well (in case you were concerned about telling a white lie)--your employer could be considering your salary as confidential because they obviously haven't disclosed it publicly, so you are taking a very conservative approach on the confidentiality terms in most contracts.

edit: the statement doesn't need to be legally defensible, it gives you an opportunity to redirect and ask what they are willing to pay for the position or to learn about their benefits package.

> a trick that I learned is to answer that it's in your employee confidentiality agreement not to discuss the terms of your employment.

Except that this is a lie. In the US, it is ILLEGAL to have an employee agreement that states this (at least if you are an employee potentially capable of unionizing).

If I wanted to make up an untrue reason for keeping the data confidential, I would make up something more interesting than this. But instead, I'd prefer to simply keep mum. Or not... if I've been particularly well-compensated in my previous position I might be quite willing to share that salary information, accompanied with an assurance that I would be willing to negotiate a lower salary (if I am actually willing) in exchange for other things like flexible working conditions, autonomy, or greater responsibility.

> Except that this is a lie. In the US, it is ILLEGAL to have an employee agreement that states this (at least if you are an employee potentially capable of unionizing).

Then I signed an illegal agreement when I was working for one of the biggest investment banks in the United States.

I should really thank them for that - in future negotiations, once I said that my current employment agreement is confidential, prospective employers stopped asking me stupid questions about current salary.

Just because you signed it doesn't mean it is enforceable.

You sign a waiver at trampoline parks that says you won't sue if you hurt yourself or if they cause you to be hurt. The first part covers them, the second part doesn't. If they were negligent or failed to maintain the park and you were injured as a result you can sue them, that waiver is meaningless. [0]

[0] IANAL but I've heard of many cases around these sorts of waivers at parks, rock climbing walls, bounce houses, etc where the waiver is meaningless. They only have you sign it so you think you can't sue them because you signed a piece of paper - and that tactic works.

Obviously it is not enforcable. But why risk it?

What, is the employer that you are talking to going to say "actually, that contract is illegal, therefore tell me your salary"?

The second part of their message wasn't there when I responded or I somehow had missed it - which changes the context of my reply. I thought they were making a sarcastic quip.

I totally agree with using the fact you signed away your right to share your salary as a negotiation tool, regardless if it is even legally binding. Hell - I'd argue to say that even if you never actually signed a paper at all.

>In exchange for...greater responsibility.

So you would be willing to be paid less to do more?

Except it's illegal to prevent employees from discussing salary.

Not quite, at least nationally in the US. The National Labor Relations Act only bans prohibiting employees from discussing salary with other employees of the same company. Prohibitions on discussing salary with people outside the company are fine.

Also, it does not cover contractors or supervisors.

Some states may have more extensive prohibitions.

A) A recruiter isn't necessarily going to know that. B) Even if they did, companies do illegal things all the time and get away with it. Maybe it's technically illegal, but also maybe your company would come after you for something trivial and just ruin your life with litigation. I totally understand actually wanting to abide by an NDA even if it's unenforceable.

Why lie? Don't lie, there's no need.

Hop on linkedin and search "software engineering, bay area, posted last 24 hours." Typically I see 800-1000 jobs. My experience is that those are mostly unique. 1000 nearly unique jobs a day.

Just send your resumes, state politely that you don't give your number, and the companies that can't deal with that don't hire you. Everyone is spending eachother's time but that's the nature of the job search / recruiting beast.

If it was true you couldn't disclose salary it would make lots of things really difficult like getting a loan.

It sort of doesn't matter if it's legally true, it's an easy out of the question which is the goal. If the other side pushes harder you can simply assert that's your reading of the terms of the contract and you aren't about to risk breaching your contract.

Even better, after stating the above use it as a segue-way into them disclosing the range, e.g. since I'm not a liberty to share, perhaps you can tell me (the salary range | benefits package ).

I'd highly recommend not lying a hiring manager.

I'd highly recommend not hiring a lying manager.

I'd highly recommend not managing a hiring liar.

Are you a hiring manager?

Has anyone run into issues for sharing a current salary that anchors the discussion too high? I could see how an employer might pass on a candidate who's actually interested in the job, just because they know they can't match what the candidate is currently making and it's likely a waste of time to spend hours evaluating someone who's making 50k more than what you could ever offer.

Or is this purely theoretical and not seen in practice?

Yes, lots of times. Pay varies widely in our industry, and it isn't uncommon for a lot of companies to never pay above $X, where X is substantially less than your current salary.

Earlier in my career, I was less willing to share salary information. But now that my compensation is above average, I always have the "I am paid toward the top of the range in this area, here is what I make now/would be looking for, so that we don't waste our time" conversation very early in the recruiting process and it ends up being a pretty good filter.

They are usually pretty open about saying "yeah, that's more than we can offer, thanks for your time", so if it were one of the few types of jobs I'd be willing to take a paycut for, it seems like there'd be an opportunity to let them know you are open to making less and go from there.

That last bit is the tricky part, though! You don't, unfortunately, know the actual range of salaries the company is willing to pay. But if you get ahead of yourself and say that you're willing to work for less for this particularly interesting job but they're actually willing to pay more, that's potentially leaving a substantial bit of money on the table.

Well, you're only disclosing that AFTER they've decided to filter you out because your salary requirements are too high, so you aren't leaving much, if any, money on the table.

Of course, it is possible they are bluffing, but given how much the market currently favors developers right now, such bluffs would rarely pay off and I'd expect them to be rare. And, it is really no different than if they'd bluffed before you went through the rest of the interview process, is it?

Yes, though that generally falls into the category of "problems you want to have."

It happens all the time, but I consider that a good thing. It's a waste of my time to interview with a company when the highest they'd ever pay is well short of my expectations.

For me, all the time. I've negotiated well throughout my career, so I'm above a lot of pay bands.

My concern is I hope to be doing this for another 25 years...

If you're at the top of employees, it might be time to become the boss...

To fulfill the Peter's Principle?

Nah, I mean OP should start their own venture if they've run out of salary headroom and want more.

In the interviews I've been to, it is not unusual to have them ask you how much you are expecting for a salary. I've thought about this before and I don't see a way to refuse to answer that question without breaking the flow and tone of the interview.

Do you recall any specific responses you've made to that question which allowed you to avoid answering it but still yielded positive results?

I simply say that I don't discuss that until I have an offer in hand.

> I never answer questions about my past or expected salary, not to employers and not to recruiters.

That's great for you, but a prospective employer refused to put an official offer package together for me until they had proof of my recent salary.

And no, there weren't other contemporaneous offers on the table at the time, nor were there other employers in my industry whose practices greatly differed from above.

In short, I think this a great consumer protection rule. Not really consumer, but little guy/girl protection rule.

I was like that a few years back, when I felt I was underpaid. I am now on an above average salary for the location I am in (though I still feel underpaid - Spain!)

If I disclose my salary early it saves a lot of time wasting though it probably limits what I can ask for or will be offered.

If you don't mind me asking, what's your reservation with revealing it?

Is it more of a privacy/principle? Or do you actually lose an edge in salary negotiations by revealing it?

The idea is that the first person to give a number loses, since that anchors the conversation. As an employee, it's an counter to the asymmetry of information. Employers know their own salary structure, and even have access to anonymized salary survey information. Employees don't have this information.

Conversely, encouraging employees to not talk about your salary to other employees is another tactic to keep the information asymmetry. If you're underpaid, you'll never know it, and that's how they like it.

> I never answer questions about my past salary, not to employers and not to recruiters.

You answer it by accepting an offer or giving a ballpark number for negotiations.

> Most employers don't ask

In the UK, they don't need to.

> It's great that NYC is taking the lead on this, and I really hope the rest of the US follows suit.

There's a lot of positive remarks in this thread, that I don't really understand. I see the advantage if your current salary is unusually low, but it cuts both ways: without knowledge of the company, (and within an industry) salary contains more information than job title.

I think part of the idea is that you still have the option to use your current salary as part of negotiation. If they make you a low offer just come back with "I make X right now, you need to at least match that".

> In the UK, they don't need to.

Yeah they just phone your reference and ask. Sigh.

and the reference will tell them to get stuffed. Leaking salary details of employees to a competitor will get you fired.

Some organizations use a month to month standard salary table for position which are not negotiable. Leaving the question as more for surveying the industry than a negotiating piece. However this is not often revealed until after the answer is given.

I very much doubt that many organizations do this, though I have experienced it myself.

    > Most employers don't ask, and the few that 
    > have have never made my leaving that information 
    > out an issue.

That is some serious English gore.

> It's great that NYC is taking the lead on this

How do you rectify this with constitutionally protected free speech?

Is freedom of speech meant only for the little guy?

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