How not to answer the salary question
adatosystems.com
adatosystems.com
If you're in a position where you can not answer, you're in a position there's no reason not to give them your desired salary up front and let them tell you why they can't do it. Pick a high number of course!
If you're in a position where you can't afford not to answer, you should pick a reasonable number, and take whatever they give you, because you completely lack agency. This is the case where you might screw yourself out of money, but if you need the job that badly, do you really care?
A better way to frame this, and this is always what I do if I have the agency to not answer, is to give them the number I'd like or remain mum, but either way when they make the final offer just ask them a simple question: "Is there any way you can come up a little bit from that?". If they say no, you decide based on that first number. But they'll almost always say yes, and you'll get a small effortless raise.
I've done this about 10 times across my career and about 70-80% of the time I've gotten a bump in the 5-10% range. Which means that, collectively, about 30-40% of my current salary level is a result of that one question, applied consistently over time.
You won't get a raise outside the salary band, but you might move from the median for that band up a notch or two within it, and that absolutely matters in the long run.
It is true, of course, that when they give you the number that they leave money on the table for negotiation, that is standard practice. It's even factored into the offer amount at bigcorps, and chances are they have an amount they cannot go over and it's set. So you should always ask for more after they lay the money out.
Hard to say from a blurb whether the situation is an outlier, just generalizing here based on on basically every salary discussion I see on the hiring side.
I use a similar phrase and it works really well on recruiter psychology.
"If you can get me to ${SLIGHTLY_HIGHER_NUMBER}, I will sign today."
They want the deal closed, and you've just given them a super easy path to do it in their minds.
My first “real job” offer I got when I did an interview just for the experience. They offered me a job and I did not expect it. I would have to move many hours away to a big city.
I told them I needed time to think about it. That was my honest answer because I hadn’t even thought about the possibility that I would get an offer outright.
I drove home and they called and upped the offer. I didn’t even know I was playing the game…
In my experience, not talking about salary early kind of sets everyone up to waste their time. One time it ended up with a full interview process that went very well for a job I thought would be perfect in an industry that _should_ have outstanding pay, and the resulting offer that was lower than my current role, paid hourly without benefits with a vague promise to later be an FTE; not only did we all waste our time, I was pretty upset about it. When I sent an email to the hiring manager they said "well you never told us your expectations" -- now the guy was dumb, he _knew_ I had a good job already, the comp he was offering was well below industry standard, and he knew my background, but nevertheless that is where a lot of hiring folks heads are at and it makes total sense: they want to get a good deal just like you do.
Asking for salary band is good, especially earlier in your career, but to me it's now kind of irrelevant -- for the same reason you will go high, they will try to go low. I have a price I will be happy at, I say a number higher in the beginning but say depending on how everything goes there may end up being flexibility, and that I look at the entire package holistically. This is just to assess: "is it worth us continuing to engage". Not doing this would have wasted a colossal amount of time.
I'm now in a position where I know where salaries generally are in different parts of the industry, and I can set a price based on what I expect and what my current role is, and I explain my reasoning. But yes: it depends so much on the situation. Benefits good? Growth potential at a startup good? Do I believe in the mission and that the founder won't abandon for an acquihire and tank my equity? Etc.
Once you're at the offer stage, you can bargain about specifics.
I am not going to spend time going to interviews, let alone preparing for them, many rounds over many days, just to discover at the end that their salary range is not a fit. I did that once, never again.
And of course if I'm interviewing, I'm not doing so with just one company, I'm talking to many. So now multiply that time waste by N companies? No thanks.
I confirm salary on the first intro call with the recruiter. If we're not on the same page, I just saved myself many days of what would've been wasted time.
So you exploit the flipside of the information symmetry. The company is obviously not telling me all their employee salaries, so I am not telling them mine. I just need enough of a sense of what the range is to figure out if a number I like is in there.
The company is not planning to blow you away with some big salary number, but I’ve gotten some pretty good offers. This happens sometimes because you’re stepping up to a higher role at the other company, or sometimes because you’re going to a company which just has higher compensation bands to begin with. Or maybe you just look really good to that company. I’ve gotten offers which were +50% above the number I had in my head, or well above that.
It feels like a waste of time and such a song and dance to some people, but the time spent is not wasted, it’s turned into salary dollars.
The irony is the information asymmetry exists solely because we, the employees, are taught to believe it's 'cultural inappropriate' to ask each other's salary. Sometimes even by our parents.
Back in Anglo-Saxon (UK and US) contexts, I've told this story and talked up this approach in every workplace I've been a part of, but it's like pushing on a rope.
And obviously the C-suite will do everything in their power to make sure we never take a step down that road
But would you share your salary here right now?
If not, is it purely cultural? Or are there other motivations?
imo giving a range before the offer stage, just gives them a potential reason not to waste their time on you. Thats what they are screening for. So its always a bad idea. Wait for them to want you, then you A. Have leverage and B. don't get cut out early. Even if you don't get the job, having an offer is data you can carry forward. If you are so blessed to have multiple at the same window, great, but even if there are months in-between, you can push the next company that much more with confidence.
Today my plan is simple: 1. If they ask early - I hit them with the market range, lets see if theres a strong fit and we can work something out. I'm not worried etc 2. Do your research, don't just pull cold numbers but factor in your situation as much as possible. Put $ to any benefits, how much is it worth to you? Put that in a spreadsheet 3. When the time comes. Ask them to make an offer. If they ask you to throw the number out first just be bold and say something like "id love to hear your offer first, and then we can chat about any details" 4. Always ask for more. Its a short conversation, quick no and its over. I've gotten 5-20% more constantly when I've asked. I've never had an offer rescinded. Just be polite, use a team/us attitude (i.e. What are your constraints? Hmm ok how can we figure this out?) and embrace the silence. Putting on them to make the solution and just let the silence hang. 5. The only rule is whatever you say you'll accept, you must accept. Never ask for more once they have budged on your request, this is why you must ask for more and if you have a range, and they offer low, maybe tell them the range from the data and say something like "I know you only hire the best and you want to raise the bar with each hire, so I was hoping to see a number at the higher end of that range"
Sure, but the company hires you even less often -- at most once every 2N years and probably even less than that.
If you are interchangable with all their other hires... well, that's not a good position to be in for many reasons.
Yes, but you can tilt this in your favor (if you find it valuable information) by getting X offers per year.
I've applied these guidelines in my own negotiations and it worked very well for me. I would've undersold myself by at least 15% if I went ahead and answered the salary question first. I declined politely to give a number first—even saying "it's not in my interest to answer that first, as you most likely understand".
Those guidelines work for all jobs that have high added value, I would say.
[1]: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/
Don’t antagonize your recruiter. You want them to advocate _for you_ when a prospective employer is drafting an offer. Work with them to give them the ammo they need to make that happen.
What's surprised me is that most of the younger coworkers I've had, having grown up largely through boom times, absolutely believe that this equity has tremendous value. I've had multiple younger coworkers talk about how excited they are to have so much equity in companies that have no visible path to a liquidity event.
Yes, it's a polite way to brush off the question. But the end result is the same. A job offer way lower than what you're making, and now they have $20K in a bucket to go a little higher when you try to negotiate.
The argument is “we have a competitive benefits package”. Yeah, so does everyone else.
Now, imagine that I don’t ask for a number nor share my expectations. With 3-4 rounds of interviews, even if we assume 1/10 is in my range, I’d have to SUCCESSFULLY do maybe 30-40 interviews on average to find a job that matches my expectations. Another thing is that benefits in Poland are pretty standard almost nearly everywhere: private medical care, gym card, 20 vacation days, 10 sick days… unless you’re willing to work in the big few companies that just have unlimited money.
(If someone in Poland has different experience, please share - would love to hear more.)
I’ve been recruiting people and had exposure to small sample of generalists as an interviewer, but also in a team. Not too long ago, I’ve been briefly exposed to „staff” level Go developers who, I kid you not, would not follow ANY known and widely accepted as best practice Go convention (that I could identify). Obviously these were Java, C#, Python developers bringing habits from their last language to that project and boy was it bad. I suppose that was an extreme end of the spectrum (they were also incredibly toxic), but not once before were I in a team where new code was that bad. Of course, best practices are there to serve you and not the other way around, but each time I’d ask, they couldn’t explain why in a coherent way.
I suppose once you know programming it’s kinda easy to change the syntax, but imo code is just significantly better if people know what they are doing.
"Talent Report™ Income and Employment Provides verification of employment plus verification of a candidate’s income." https://theworknumber.com/solutions/industries/pre-employmen...
Opt out: https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze
Do you know the data-source? Is it primarily from your self-declarations to your credit card company? Or do they have access to tax records?
"The Work Number receives data directly from employers, payroll providers, or third-party administrators that choose to use The Work Number for employment verifications. We report your data as we receive it from these sources."
https://employees.theworknumber.com/faq#:~:text=The%20Work%2...
But, I've also seen ranges that span hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like "Software engineer: $150k-$250" which is a ridiculous range that makes it almost meaningless. I mean, what are they thinking - any candidate worth their time is going to aim for the $250 end...
If you are not comfortable, then I'd be clear why, with data, upfront. "I saw the range on the website and it seems low based on X, Y, and Z. Is that range flexible?"
Whether the answer to that is yes or no, you'll be in a better spot whether to decide to move forward.
A weird thing I'm seeing is early AI startups lowballing both salary and equity for AI startup jobs, compared to a few years ago for generic Web/app developer jobs.
You're in a narrow opportunity window of a massive investment gold rush. You probably got funding with a weak/nonexistent business model, and some mostly vibe-coded demo and handwavey partnership.
Now you need to hire a few good founding engineer types who can help get the startup through a series of harder milestones, with skillsets less clear than for generic Web/app development. If you can hire people as smart and dedicated as yourself, they'll probably do things that make a big positive difference, relative to what bottom of the barrel hires will do.
So why would you lowball these key early hires, at less than a new-grad starting salary, plus a pittance of ISOs that will be near-worthless even if you have a good exit.
Is it so that the founders and investors can have the maximum percentage of... something probably less valuable than what they'd get by attracting and aligning the right early hires? (Unless it's completely an investment scam, in which genuine execution doesn't affect the exit value.)
Case in point, once when I was asked it I was "I read in an study that one gets happier with more salary up until 85K€, so my aim is to go towards that range". In the end I ended up halfway between that and my then salary. BTW, the study was then superseded by another that happiness keeps increasing, just not as fast.
Of course your situation might be different, and you could take inspiration for 6 digits, $500K or any other amount that would be perfect for you if accepted because it's higher than what you would have accepted, and you can get something below that that would be a stepping stone.
In Spain, at least, salary needs discussing early, too many divergences between some companies and some people expectations on that. So I disagree leaving it for later.
Edit: and if you’re unclear on my point, which I assume you are given you think that some rudimentary math invalidates my comment, the point was that a salary does not result in happiness, having money does, a high salary is the thing required to achieve it.
"A million an hour, obviously (haha). But in all seriousness, I'd expect to be compensated commensurate with the responsibilities of the role, keeping in mind that the salary number is just one aspect of a compensation package as health insurance and other benefits are important to me."
There are only two reasons HR asks this:
1. possible leverage later in the process.
2. attempting to not waste time if the candidate's expectations are way out of line with the amount the company is willing to pay.
Either way, there is no good reason to name numbers prior to the company making an offer with compensation package details.
I agree that a candidate shouldn't name numbers until after an offer.
But I think the company should give a range as early as possible. This is because of point #2 above. As an engineering manager I've had at least one heartbreaking experience where we took a candidate through the hiring cycle and then found out we and they were way out of line re: comp. Hiring sucks enough without that curveball.
That's why, for all the warts, I'm a fan of salary disclosure laws (like those in Colorado, USA). Yes, it's hard to have an accurate range, because jobs and skills are squishy. Yes, candidates anchor towards the top. Yes, it's weird for a buyer of a thing (labor) to state a price.
But companies have more power in the hiring process (there are, after all, many employees working for a company, but usually only one company an employee works for). Companies, or the hiring managers, also have a budget.
If you are a hiring manager, I'd encourage you to have your salary range shared with candidates as early as possible in the process.
Find out their range and standard benefits package as soon as possible in the process. If you still don't know after the first phone screen/chat and are not in dire need of employment, move on. It's a great filter.
Good reason for them to say what they're willing to pay before I bother reading their job advert
That said, what you say isn't as important as what you do. If you're interviewing, you should be interviewing at at least a few places to get comps. You will get lowballed if you don't have comps. Once you have a few offers, do one round of playing them off each other, decide which company you want to work for, and then say you'll sign today if they can beat the current best offer.
Site was hugged to death
I went through this a few years ago and wrote about it. https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/2565
I am also fortunate enough to live in a state where job postings are required by law to include a salary range of actual or target salaries for the position (meaning, it must include both the salary range the company is willing to pay and also capture the salaries of anyone at the company who has substantially the same title or job responsibilities). Most companies make a good faith effort to comply. Tech companies generally don't bother, even when they're located in California. They usually slap a "remote" somewhere in the description even as the text elsewhere indicates that the position is hybrid or full-time on-site.
You have to be careful to not be led into this, as if you can follow OP's self-help advice and skip the failures. You will, in fact, fail in a different way.
Is this cynical? Yes. But it's how self-help advice works.
The question is baked and mandatory in most forms, and there's no "cant say" - only about 20% do not ask it, all else.. have it. And it is the easiest filter for the above 100 candidates, so.
Negotiation phase? hah. You are lucky if you get a rejection e-mail. Most don't bother with even that, regardless the importance of the role. And you never know if the number was too high, or completely irrelevant.
In job listings, I’ve seen salaries for Senior or Staff remain about the same as they were (thought usually edging a little lower), but adjusted for inflation, they are way lower.
If I were to insist on my 2021 salary with inflation adjustment, I’m often blowing past the listed range by anything from 15k to 30k.
With the market the way it is, how are y’all handling that?
2. Realizing that the rate of inflation and my achievable hourly rate (or the equivalent in salary) have little to do with each other at the personal level so your framing of the question doesn't make much sense
Find out the range up front by reading the job posting, making the recruiter tell you, asking a friend who works there, or asking after applying if you have no other connections.
No company is going to refuse to share the information because they are secretly planning to blow a qualified applicant away with a top of market offer.
That "flexibility" will suddenly disappear if your expectations are higher than they are looking to pay for the role, even if your expectations are completely warranted.
"I like this job and would do it for free if I was rich. But I'm not: I'll need to live with this salary. The absolute minimum I require is food and shelter for my family (single dad of 3). Look at the rent of a comfortable 4 bedroom apartment within 10 minutes on foot to the lab, and multiply it by three. That number is the least that I'm able to take. But of course if you pay me more I'll be happier."
I played exactly this script during my first interviews, never giving the first number, etc. It worked well for me exactly one time: the very first job I had out of academia where I did actually have to negotiate a salary. All the other times it resulted in waste of time and loss of sanity.
I am now very upfront with my expectations, or at least my non-expectations: "My current salary is X and I have Y perks, and I am in a good team; I wouldn't even consider moving for less than this, regardless of how cool your team is, and if you don't beat these numbers substantially I already know that my current employer will make me a counteroffer, and then you lose time but I win regardless." (of course not literally, but the message is this).
Less interviews, less time wasted.
RIP, looks like the site got hugged.