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Comment by ceras | Hacker News Reader

To those who advocate avoiding all salary discussions till post-interview, how do you filter out companies that will never match your current pay? Just GlassDoor? What about smaller companies that aren't listed?

I don't want to waste my personal time and 1 vacation day to interview for a company that didn't have a hope of matching my current compensation.

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I recently started asking in response to first contact from a recruiter. "I can't afford the time to look at positions without compensation expectations stated" seems to work pretty well. So far that's gotten hard numbers out of everyone but google, who basically says "as much as it takes".

> So far that's gotten hard numbers out of everyone but google, who basically says "as much as it takes".

Can you elaborate on this conversation a little please? Only if you don't mind.

I haven't gone through the interview process yet, but when I asked about salary last time a recruiter called, they said if I made it through the interview process they're sure they can do what it takes to come up with an offer that works. Which is basically a non-answer, but given Google's resources is fairly believable.

You can always ask what is the salary range for the position. If they refuse to tell you, you can stop the process early :-) but usually they will. Then if you fit in their range continue, otherwise walk away.

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> the candidate is at a disadvantage... there are companies that collect salary info from companies, and employers use these databases to look up salary ranges.

Collectively we have the power to stop at least one of those sources of information cold and the other is limited to the amount that the employers are willing to part with (and employers are typically not all that happy to supply external recruiters with such information because it may backfire).

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That's collusion and price fixing. Possibly even illegal in some places. Feel free to spell out the names of the companies involved, we may have a second hiring scandal on our hands if this is really true.

I make them tell me up-front what their salary band is. "Look, I really don't care to waste my time going through your technical interviews only to have you low-ball me on salary, so why don't you just tell me what your budget is and we can see where we go from there?"

But in general, I skip the places that list "competitive salary commensurate with experience." That usually means, "20% below mean, but we use this story to make you feel bad about yourself for asking for more."

Try hired.com, formerly developerauction.com

With Hired, companies need to show you a salary before they can request to interview you.

Full disclosure: I work @ Hired as an engineer. Yes, I was hired through their own site.

I had multiple companies bait and switch me on your site and you did nothing. Hired is a waste of time until you clean up bad actor companies.

Yep this seems pretty standard in general. Specifically companies will state a expected salary, and then when giving a lower offer explain it as a lack of experience or qualifications. I had one company lowball me, and try to make up for it by insulting my qualifications. Unsurprisingly this is only a waste of my time and theirs.

Yeah hired was a complete joke. All the companies I got offers from required you to live and work in either SF or NY. That's at least how is was a year and a half ago.

My biggest requirement from a company is remote work allowed. Coming is second would be compensation. Half of the offers I got from companies requiring you to live in the Valley were barely over 6 figures. That's the hilarious part.

I've also had a bad experience with hired. Seems like they do not run a tight ship at all.

Glassdoor is probably the best resource on salary, so yes. You can also ask anonymously on forums. Mostly top tier companies going to pay higher than others (Google,FB,Amazon). I have heard Netflix pays well too. But salary should not be the only criteria, some companies pay well but they also take their money's worth from you by making you work late nights and weekends e.g Amazon , Netflix are known to crush you with work load.

I recently had experience with Hired.com. It was pretty good. All companies that were interested in me were posting their salary offers upfront so I can decide where I want to interview.

> Glassdoor is probably the best resource on salary, so yes.

I disagree. For nearly every company I have personal knowledge of, Glassdoor is 30-50% lower.

Did you filter for geographic location?

I agree that salary shouldn't be the only criteria. Companies can help you save money in other ways as well like with better health coverage.

This is just a single case but I was surprised that Microsoft was willing to pay less than a start up I got an offer at, but I suspect that has something to do with the fact they have a set amount for junior developers. On the other hand, I realized later that even though they paid less it might have actually ended up being better for me compensation wise because of all the perks they have.

Well you have to also consider the Seattle location. State Taxes are %10 less than California and the cost of living is lower, so the compensation is lower than the SF Bay Area as a result.

While true, the start up was also in Seattle. I haven't found the compensation to be lower to be honest. It's part of the reason I've been staying here even though I like California more. It's way easier to save here

Not to mention you can actually afford a mortgage there.

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