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endisneigh

This is a meme but it’s not really how it works, not entirely anyway.

Take meta. If you joined today vs a year ago and everything else was the same you’d be making over 30% as much.

Companies generally don’t pay tenured people as much as new hires across the board. It’s not about negotiating.

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> Companies generally don’t pay tenured people as much as new hires across the board. It’s not about negotiating.

But that IS negotiating. If you show you're willing to stick around in the same role for an extended period of time, for the same pay, you have implicitly negotiated that deal for yourself. Why TF would your employer be incentivised to pay you more if you show yourself to be happy with the status quo?

Have you ever offered to pay more for your morning coffee because Starbucks hasn't raised their prices in 2 years? No? So why would your employer offer you more money when you've not raised the issue of comp for 2 years?

If you're unhappy about that, you inform your current employer you've found a now role with better pay, and walk. If your employer deems you worth it (rightly or wrongly), they might offer a counter. You can choose to accept that... or not.

Just like if Starbucks raises the price of their coffee, you can accept the higher price and keep going there, because you think their coffee is worth it, or you find a different cafe with lower prices.

We are to our employers what a cup of coffee is to us.

Why are you comparing drinking coffee to switching jobs? It’s not the same at all.

In 25+ years changing jobs 8 times (6 since 2008), it’s never taken me more than a month to have multiple job offers.

I’ll be the first to admit that until 2015, they were just another enterprise CRUD job

Except it is, to your employer. Unless you are close friends or family with the people who run the business, you are just a brand of coffee beans to them. (and if you are friends or family, these decisions will still need to happen, but they'll hurt ten times worse when they do, which is why you never do business with family).

Accept it, and you will have much better success when negotiating your salary and planning your career path.

Negotiation works when some company specifically wants you.

If you're one of the other 99% of hires you're going to be placed at some salary which has been already budgeted and approved for your position. There's some leeway there but it's not more than a single digit percentage, although I agree with patio11 and others saying that an extra 5-10K/year just for asking politely is not a bad deal.

So, basically what you're saying is that the "Negotiate harder, bro" advice only really works for 1% of the world. So why is it always trotted out as the solution?

I know HN is full of these Captains of Industry who merely glance at their bosses with an upturned eyebrow, and get $100K of RSUs thrown at them, but for the rest of the workforce, here's what negotiation looks like:

[Me] Hi, I'd like a raise.

[Co] Nope.

[Me] OK, here are examples of the value I'm providing and how it's increased over time.

[Co] Your current salary accounts for this.

[Me] Other companies offer 20% more and I'm only asking for 10%.

[Co] ...

[Me] OK, I have an offer from the other company. Last chance.

[Co] Well... Bye?

HN, like people who browse Blind, has a massive selection bias towards the money-optimizing, Leetcode-grinding types.

I never said you couldn't go somewhere else, that's actually the advice to follow when you reached your ceiling wherever you are (and you have an offer ofc).

This is why job hopping is so popular. You can get a phat raise by jumping ship every 2 years. You negotiate by getting a new job.

“Salary Compression and Inversion”

It is all about negotiating.

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