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Comment by dotdi | Hacker News Reader

I have recently spent a long time (i.e. months) and an unholy amount of energy in an interview process that ended up offering a firm number (because of a ladder similar to the one at Google) that was significantly lower than what I was making at that time.

In the same time I talked to that company, I had had enough time to talk to 5 others and get 5 more offers that were all offering at least as much as I was making or significantly more.

Since I was really interested in company #1, I declined really good offers along the way, hoping I'd get an offer from that company.

You can imagine my elation and subsequent horrors when they told me that they had picked me for the job and showed me their salary ranges. I would never ever in my life want to go through such an experience again and I actively avoid companies that are hiding or avoiding that topic somewhat early in the process.

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It's often a negotiation tactic. They force you to invest time into it, so that you wouldn't want to let go of the investment.

I usually walk away from anyone not announcing salary ranges, because they're also the most likely to negotiate hard.

Seconding your point. And I have the anecdotal evidence to prove it -- many former colleagues (20+) called me months or years later and told me "you were right to walk away from those guys early".

It's a solid and necessary skill to be able to negotiate hard. But when taken to such extremes as to keep people oblivious about their salary until the end, it's a red flag from the get go.

I had a similar experience recently with an employer essentially making an offer, but asking me to jump through all kinds of subsequent pre-employment screening hoops before they would disclose salary (which was, of course, below market when I pushed back and made them give me a number).

I don’t knew if this is some new tactic, but the whole think struck me as trying to leverage a sunk cost fallacy to underpay employees.

Just curious, did company #1 lead you to believe that they'd offer you a competitive salary, or did you assume that they would? Did they know you were turning down other offers? Either way, it's a lesson learned. Thanks for sharing.

There were several factors:

- This took place in Germany, where salaries don't vary to a very large extent. There are some outliers, but most people know they need to offer a certain amount of $$$ for talent.

- I did my research and assessed the current market. It was on par with my salary at that time.

- They made sure to communicate that there is no equity offered, which made me believe their salaries are adjusted accordingly.

- No, I didn't tell them I was turning down offers. But I did tell them that if they don't move faster, I'm going to accept another offer.

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