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Comment by developer1 | Hacker News Reader

> the main restriction ended up being the maximum salary we were allowed to offer (which had us have to give up on half a dozen candidates)

Ugh. I've been in a similar position, assisting with pouring over candidates. The worst part about salary being the limiting factor is you've quite literally wasted your time weeding through the poor candidates to find the honest-to-goodness best to hire - only to not be allowed to have the cream of the crop. It's ridiculous how much time some companies are willing to invest in finding the best talent, only to turn them down because of an extra $10-30k/year. If you're not willing to hire the talent, don't spend the time searching for them. Just post your job ads with your salary expectations, and accept the first people through the door if that's how you're going to operate.

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Well, in theory, you could just put the actual maximum salary on the ad, but there's rarely a fixed budget in practice.

If someone is very junior or has some other discount factor (in practice that's the only real one), you'll probably go lower than expected for a 30 year old with a PhD, freeing budget to bump up someone else.

And sometimes, you get a stellar CV with enough brand on it to make the staunchest McKinsey reconsider his limit policy, so whilst you can't put the number on the ad, you can warn the candidate, get his number, and take a punt on management in case it might work.

The strongest factor for flexibility is when you have a chance to affect the outcomes for the company, but need to prove it before you can claim the pay raises. Then, it makes sense to take somebody at under their market rate, and 3 months later have a chat with management and bump up.

Hiring is a really sensitive topic because HR is often the biggest budget. I once seriously weakened my political position by attempting to automate away "Excel blue collar workers" in another department, which would have lowered the budget and therefore relative power of their boss internally. Those with the most flexibility in hiring (startups, which have no established internal territory to worry about) also have the least resources...

> it makes sense to take somebody at under their market rate, and 3 months later have a chat with management and bump up

Another strategy too commonly used by poorly run companies. If you feel someone will be worth $X more in only 3 months, they are worth paying that from the start. Kick the employee to the curb before their probation ends if they don't meet your expectations for the full salary. These games some companies will play ("we'll hire you at $x and then in 3 months we promise you'll get another $x") is despicable manipulation of employees' trust.

I worked for one company that did this to any new hire that was a pushover (they tried with me, I only accepted after constant back and forth for "HR approval" of my expected salary which was average market rate at the time). The gimmick is that nobody automatically got the promised raise at 3 months, and nearly everyone who went to fight for it never received it. An employee had to have already embedded themselves deeply enough into a product and be considered a "hero" in order to receive anything. The result was that the great developers would leave after being stabbed in the back, leaving the least talented people in play.

Suffice it to say, I don't even negotiate for salary or vacation time anymore. I request $x and X vacation days, and if the first offer comes back with anything less, I give them one chance to fix it. If the second offer is still shortchanged, I drop them. Unless you are desperate to find a position for financial reasons or you need your first job in the industry, these games being played during the hiring process are a strong indication as to the quality of the employer in general.

"poorly run companies" "strong indication as to the quality of the employer"

You might very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment ;)

I think your strategy makes sense and once one has enough experience and market value to make it work (after all, better be underpaid than unemployed), should be the default to adopt. It also shows strength and signals value to the prospective employer.

FWIW, most of those who came in got a raise later. I put my career on the line every time (and one too many, in the end). Didn't ingratiate me with management but it was my word (not HR's) and I stood by it. If I had one criticism to make to your otherwise accurate comment it is that it is not a company but a person you are going to work for, and one should align with people who share one's values.

I been reading your comments. You write well, normally now is when I'd be looking up your twitter.

Thank you, and I don't really have one. I'm a fan of long form, I think many ideas are complex and high dimensional and suffer from too much summarising. Plus, HN is relatively anonymous. I think I'm relatively easy to doxx, but the people I don't want reading my comments are people who don't read HN, although I think they know to do a Google search by now. Plausible deniability FTW.

Maybe another year or two and I'll have the balls to sign what I write.

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