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Comment by MattGaiser | Hacker News Reader

Please explain why for the rest of the class. A few sentences for those of us who know we are naive would be helpful.

> You can’t win if you guess at their salaries.

> If you underestimate what they’re willing to pay, you’re leaving money on the table. If the real answer is that they would compensate someone like you up to $75,000 dollars, and you guess they would pay a salary of only $65,000, you very literally may have just cost yourself $10,000. [0]

[0] https://fearlesssalarynegotiation.com/salary-expectations-in...

And a video from the creator of that site (Josh Doody) on this specific issue (disclosing current salary):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N7mOR9yv2U

Can recommend. I followed Josh Doody's advice last time I switched jobs and I did really well in negotiations. Even though in the beginning of my job search I had given a recruiter my preferred salary range (my mistake) and of course the company's offer was at the bottom of that range, I was still able to negotiate and recover quite nicely in the end. Though, having multiple offers on hand helped a lot.

I avoided saying much because, like I said, I'm not expert and don't want to mislead people. But I'm pretty sure laying your cards on the table is the wrong answer.

The goal of every negotiation isn’t to extract the theoretical maximum from the counterparty.

The goal can be to reach a mutually agreeable solution as quickly as possible. In this case, saying “this is what I’ll agree to” up front works towards that goal even if it does leave some meat on the bone.

some hint on naivety. Salary negociation remains an unspoken art and is often taboo. It takes experience and good understanding of the many dynamics in place to stop being misguided/fooled by what's going on and what we are told. The message most companies spread is that it's a meritocracy, that the wellbeing of all employees and fairness are taken very seriously. and the claims are that we roughly work in a meritocracy. Being naive is believing it is true to some extent. Reality, and people who have lengthy experience and no reason to censor themselves in my circle all agree with this: It is an adversarial exchange of information, each party pushing as far as they can get away with in order to serve their own interest.

with that in mind, and the following rule is a basic negociation principle: Information gives an edge.

So if you put down your expectation, or worse provide your current compensation, you are giving away critical information to let the other side know pretty much all you know, which one can roughly derive what you would accept or reject. and the other side will either not give an offer at all (if your expectations are way off higher than budget) or will offer the minimum to get away with.

tldr: trusting potential opponents by telling them what they kindly ask is naive.

Do you feel that salary negotiations are adversarial?

For context: I realize that one-off negotiations (buying a car at a dealership) are strictly adversarial, but negotiations in ongoing relationships (employment) benefit more from sharing information on what you want and why.

For example, you tell the other side that you need 10K extra for planned babysitting expenses and they offer you less, but add paid time off to care for your own child.

I think basing what should you get basing on your needs, rather than on your worth is a basic mistake.

I think employment benefits negociations are less adversarial than at the car dealers. Because as you said one off vs to establish a long term relationship obviously leads to different optimal outcome from both sides. It is adversarial non the less and has the same patterns: information disymetry, personal gains and complex dynamics involving other stakeholders with constraints on both sides.

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