I frequently see comments like this on HN and I don't really buy it.
When every job opening has several qualified candidates, and it can take several applications to land a new job, I still think the employer has more power.
At the very least for the last half year, I think developers may have an "upper hand".
I had to get no less than 6 offers before I got one that was reasonable in my last search. 6. I had done about a dozen onsites and dozens of phone screens at that point. This was just a year ago. I expect the same this year - if not worse because of the market doing so poorly.
The candidates don't control the comp you offer. Claiming that those darned candidates have the upper hand because everyone else pays better is a bad faith argument. Not that you can tell your boss that, I'm sure.
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Then...up your pay? It doesn't take an Einstein-level IQ to figure that one out.
Developers might have an upper hand at salary negotiation, but actually landing an offer? Nah. Employers still have the power.
This is the mentality that gets you bullied. There are more openings than qualified people, and businesses can't make money without employees. No one is doing you a favour by giving you a job, they are literally making off your back.
The interviewee loses a day of PTO, or continues to be unemployed (and usually in a financially precarious situation).
Imbalanced outcomes means imbalanced power.
At the end of the day, the company wants to hire you and you probably want to be hired. I generally urge people to think of this as a cooperation exercise and not a power struggle.
Interviewers should treat interviewees with dignity and kindness, even when the interviewee is doing poorly. Interviewees should be gracious to the interviewer, even when they have decided to work elsewhere. The first side to stop being cooperative loses.
The above does not however apply to salary negotiation.
Any "adversarial interview" techniques are a big red flag, imo. They also make it easy to quickly recognise places with a toxic culture, so there's not need to beat yourself up if you fail. You dodged a bullet, plus now have an excuse to rant with your friends over a pint!
Hence, my favourite interviews (regardless of the side I was on) were the one when we had a chance to spend a day working with the candidate.
No, at the end of the day, the company wants to hire SOMEBODY. That somebody is not necessarily you, hence the interview. You're being compared to all the other candidates.
Maybe this is different late in your career when you've got 10+ years experience under your belt, but there are a LOT of candidates in that "3-5 year" experience point.
Yeah, and the company continues being understaffed for what they want to do, and often the interviewer is one of the people on that team who needs more people.
(no it's not exactly the same)
Usually I feel like interviews are staged in a way to put Interviewees in a tense, or underdog sort of way. From the moment you walk in you feel like you are in their hands. I am always somewhat nervous and tense in a interview, but that could be more my mentality than anything, but I can see where they are coming from.
In an ideal world we feel equal and have the opportunity to walk out but when you really need a job or have had troubles finding one it can feel pretty powerless.
Sorry to ramble a bit.
I don't believe this.
The only way this is true is if there are a lot of openings at companies that are going to pay significantly under market and can't figure out why nobody is accepting their offers, even when candidates tell them.
Based on another comment [0], maybe this is actually the case.
Layoffs and hiring freezes at big tech might change things in the next few months though
This answer could change your conclusion.
That's very easy to explain within a framework of there being lots of available workers and few available positions.
Employers post hiring ads, get responses, and conclude that posting ads works and they should keep doing it.
Job seekers post hire-me ads, get no responses, and conclude that posting ads doesn't work and there's no reason to do it.
N number of candidates enter that month's job market, companies are able to offer N number of positions.
At the end of the hiring cycle, they make the N-to-N matches and execute the cycle.
A candidate can (and must) have several offers from different companies, just as companies have several candidates for each position.
Depends on what role you're interviewing for. C# dev? Probably. What about full-stack Javascript dev? Totally lopsided in favor of the developers. I have, on average, a dozen emails from recruiters looking for full-stack JS devs. I barely do JS work any more, but the everything is so scarce, if companies can just find someone who's mildly fluent in JS, they'll hire and train you - its that bad in the Midwest where I live. The entry level roles are pretty competitive, but anything mid to senior level there aren't enough people to go around right now.
You just have to know your market and when you have leverage. When you have leverage, you can really take advantage. Don't like the people interviewing you? Wait a day or so. You like a company? Use your leverage to get more vacation, higher salary, play companies against each other to get more for yourself.
Knowledge is power, simple as that.
It's easy to name a bunch of names that everyone on HN has heard of, and you can bet anything that in job negotiations they are the ones who have the power. Companies have to come courting them, not the other way around.
Overall, people seeking work have less overall power and a generally poor position, unless they have saved or earned enough to not require the work.
They may be a gatekeeper for the job, but you are the gatekeeper for your time. Hiring a person is a mutual decision. Since job descriptions are usually quite vague on some important details about the team and company, applying for the job is simply expressing interest in the job, not a confirmation that you would take it if offered.
You just never know who you may find on the other side of the table!
Every applicant also has several qualified companies they can work for.
It's not totally equal, but if your mindset is not peers meeting to see if there's a good fit, your interviewing experience is going to be worse than it could be.
Not only does 6-figures of cash get burned, but you're back at square one needing to find a new hire, not to mention your project now being behind schedule because you expected work from someone, and now the existing team has to go through another interviewing spree.
The employee may have left a job where they were relatively secure - maybe they even relocated for the role. Now they're back on the job market and their employability has taken a major hit. Not to mention that being fired is often a very traumatic experience with all the health consequences that entails. Seems a lot more serious than a project being pushed back a couple months.
(btw, "bad" according to which criteria? a lot of the time when I hear this phrase thrown around it's a smokescreen for unrealistic expectations or an exclusionary team culture)
If that were true companies would give out huge raises to keep employees. They don't.. they prefer that people leave and new people get hired by them.
No one wants a bad hire because it taints their brand at the org. Having someone else recommend someone means someone else takes the blame. Referrals get hired quickly.