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Comment by ShakataGaNai | Hacker News Reader

> I think it is much faster and easier to ask what you're looking for up front.

That assumes you know what you want and know what's reasonable/fair for the job and area.

Most people don't know. Even if they've worked a similar job in the area, doesn't mean they know what the current going rate is. Once when applying for a job I asked for what was basically my current salary plus $20,000. The hiring manager said something to the lines of "Oh, we can do better than that" and ended up hiring me at my ask plus ANOTHER $40,000. I had way undervalued myself and wasn't up to the moment on the latest in pay rates.

Needless to say I was lucky and that person was an excellent manager. But most people will not be so lucky and most managers are not that amazing.

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There is another side to this advice.

If you don't know what market is, you can do one of three things:

1. Check out levels.fyi (overindexed on FAANG; not reliable),

2. Ask for a number that "sounds" high to you, and let the recruiter negotiate down (risky; recruiters might laugh you out the room if you go too high), or

3. Ask a recruiter, and then add a premium on top of whatever they tell you!

Recruiters will be an excellent source of what a realistic market is for your skills in your area. However, as this article articulates, many people don't negotiate, so it's fair to assume that the market rate they give you is low.

You left out:

4. Don't give a number at all. If you are interested in Company X, and you've gone far enough in the process to know they are interested in you, tell the recruiter that you would be interested in seeing a competitive offer from Company X, or something along those lines. At the end of the day, the best negotiating leverage you have is that if Company X actually does want to hire you, at some point they have to commit to an offer. You don't. You can always walk away and go talk to someone else.

> Don't give a number at all

Can you give an example of how this plays out in real conversation? Answering “I’m not telling you” or similar to the recruiters question “what’s your expected compensation” seems like bogus advice

The article gives explicit examples of what to say in this exact situation.

If pressed, I'd just say: "I would immediately say yes to the job for $1 million/year."

Who cares if they laugh? Why negotiate against yourself and hand them your actual min value on a silver platter? They're not going to tell you their max value.

EDIT: Oops, looks like another commenter already spelled out this strategy[1]

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37241739

Saying "I don't have a specific figure in mind", worked for me in the past.

It's not as strange as you might think.

What I tend to do is just play a bit dumb. Basically,

"To be honest, it's been a while so I'm really not sure ... I'm applying at a number of companies so I'm really seeing what the market has to offer."

If it's a recruiter, you can then ask them for advice on what offers they've seen recently, or what bands they're working with.

You can just say, "I've been advised that it's in my interests to not share a number."

And it's true. You have been advised that way by threads and comments like these.

If you get any pushback, it'll be that they just want to ensure they're not wasting time, and you can always respond that if they'd share the compensation details of the position, you'll be happy to tell them if it's acceptable.

I left it out because I don't agree that this works in the general sense. I think not specifying a number is very likely to leave money on the table.

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