
Salary Negotiation - gk1
http://www.kalzumeus.com/2016/06/03/kalzumeus-podcast-episode-12-salary-negotiation-with-josh-doody/
======
whack
I've heard this "don't name a number first" advice so many times, but
personally, it never seems to work. My current comp is significantly higher
compared to others with my level of experience. So when I refuse to give a
number, the recruiter ends up guessing a number that is significantly lower,
and making a lowball offer. I've also had many other experiences where after
many hours of interviews, I find out that the company is unable to make me a
competitive offer, because my current comp is too high. I'm seriously
considering abandoning this advice in future, and simply just naming my comp
expectations right at the start.

~~~
jkempe11
I am a recruiter and I will tell you this: you should abandon this advice, for
certain.

It's funny - probably the best advice anyone ever gives on negotiation is
exactly the opposite of "don't name a number first." It's "anchor high." You
should be anchoring to a number that is high but realistic, and negotiating
from a position of strength. This is especially true for senior- and late-
career individuals who have some experience under their belt.

~~~
mehrdada
> You should be anchoring to a number that is high but realistic, and
> negotiating from a position of strength.

I very much agree with you and my other comments in this thread are very much
advocating for this position. I'd just like to add an important caveat by
saying anecdotally in multiple occasions I've seen friends (notably people who
are just moving in to the Valley from elsewhere and/or right out of college)
tend to widely underestimate the "realistic" estimation in your advice (they
know in abstract that salaries are "high" but don't necessarily concretely
know _how high_ ), and therefore following it can be dangerous and would mean
lowballing themselves. Hence, not saying anything might result in a better net
result end of the day.

~~~
sillysaurus3
Want to name some numbers? Ideally with context.

I'd like to know how high is high in SV. Especially for junior positions.

~~~
dlubarov
I'd say if you're in SV, have a pretty good background, interview at top-
paying public firms like Google/Facebook, get good scores, and negotiate very
well, you can expect around

    
    
      - new grad: ~175k
      - 4 years: ~300k
      - 6 years: ~350k
    

Note that I'm including equity, expected cash bonuses, 401k matching, and
sign-on bonuses (which I normally divide by 4, since 4 years seems like a
typical period to stay at these companies).

~~~
teen
the 4/6 year ones are way too high unless you're going for some sort of
specific role they need. like if you specialize in robotics or machine
learning

~~~
dlubarov
The 4 year number is mostly from my own experience. I interviewed recently,
and my highest offers (after significant negotiation) were

    
    
      ~316k from a public company
      290k~350k from a private company, depending on which valuation you use (409a vs preferred)
    

Again, this is including equity, expected cash bonuses, etc. I have 4~5 years
experience and no unique skills.

The key is to get at least 2-3 offers around the same time, do a lot of
research, and be mindful about what info you share when negotiating. When a
recruiter asks about salary expectations, I think it's good to share a number,
but it could be your current salary, a competing offer, or just a
(substantially high) target number. And it could be base salary, or blended
compensation. Share the bits of info which are most advantageous to you, and
keep the rest private.

The new grad and 8 year numbers are from some info friends have shared with
me, and some public info (like the spreadsheet that appeared on HN a while
ago, and some info individuals have shared on Quora).

~~~
home_boi
Are these numbers before or after pitting competing companies against each
other?

~~~
dlubarov
After; my first offer was substantially lower.

------
swombat
We're really trying to nail a good way to deal with salary negotiations when
onboarding people, at GrantTree - one that gets out of this "gotcha" approach
to salary.

So far the best we've figured out is to be the first ones to name a number,
and be super-transparent about how we arrived at that number.

The reasoning is that "in a salary negotiation the first person to quote a
number loses", so since we (as the employer) are in a naturally stronger
position, we deliberately "lose" upfront to avoid forcing the other person
into a negotiation dynamic where they're going to try and push it as high as
they can, and we end up trying to push it as low as we can. I think everyone
loses out from this, and it starts the working relationship with distrust.

Instead, we run a pay evaluation process internally, including feedback about
the value of the role and the person from all the people who interviewed the
candidate. We publish all that feedback, as well as the suggestion/reasoning
of our pay trustees (a group of people who use that feedback to try to place
the candidate on our pay scale), along with the number this maps to, and the
full pay scale, and the list of how much everyone is being paid in the company
so they know where they stand (anonymised, because not everyone is comfortable
yet with someone who is not yet a team member knowing their salary).

So far we've successfully used this process once and it led to a great
onboarding experience. It's a recent development. I hope it continues to work,
and allows us to avoid the games described in this very helpful podcast. I
thought I'd share it in case other employers here are struggling with the same
question.

This won't work in every company. Have a read through
[http://danieltenner.com/open-cultures/](http://danieltenner.com/open-
cultures/) if you want to understand more about how we run the company -
hugely important in making this work.

~~~
sillysaurus3
_Instead, we run a pay evaluation process internally, including feedback about
the value of the role and the person from all the people who interviewed the
candidate. We publish all that feedback, as well as the suggestion /reasoning
of our pay trustees (a group of people who use that feedback to try to place
the candidate on our pay scale)_

None of those factors are why someone is worth $X salary.

You say I'm worth $X. I go get a job offer for $Y. If $Y > $X, you were
mistaken.

It's both as easy and as hard as that, for candidates. If you want to get
anywhere close to your earning potential, you'll have to have more than one
option when job seeking.

It doesn't matter what you're paying other employees or whether that
information is known to employees.

EDIT: To clarify, this is about market value, not intrinsic value.

~~~
swombat
No one is worth any intrinsic amount. The amount is relative to the work they
do, the industry they're in, the state of the economy, how many other people
can do that job, how many have actually applied, etc.

Any salary formula is entirely arbitrary. We have a pay scale simply because
it is a useful tool for conversation, not because it represents any sort of
intrinsic property of the person being placed on the pay scale.

If your main concern is getting paid as much as possible then we're probably
not the right place for you to work anyway. We try to pay well but we
certainly can't afford to pay as much as, for example, banking, or Facebook.
Importantly, we have no interest in trying to sucker someone into working with
us if money is their primary motivation. They won't like it here.

To answer a likely reflex-response to this: that doesn't mean we think people
should be working for free, or that we judge people who want to earn more
money. It's totally fine to want to make more money. Different people have
different expectations and requirements at different stages of their life
though.

~~~
brianwawok
> Importantly, we have no interest in trying to sucker someone into working
> with us if money is their primary motivation.

Are you a charity doing good work with orphans? Or are you a business trying
to make as much money for the investors as possible? If the latter is true,
why wouldn't someone work for you with "money as the primary motivator" ?

(This is not Rhetorical, I actually know nothing about your business. But I do
see this argument a lot from companies that are 100% for profit and do nothing
to better the world)

~~~
swombat
Neither. We're a purposeful, for-profit, founder-owned[1] company. Just
because we are for-profit doesn't mean profit is our only motivation. It's a
false dichotomy to suggest that because you want to make money that must be
your only driver.

Our view of business is that, much like humans, it can achieve and balance
multiple objectives. You want to make money: does that mean you want only that
to the exclusion of or above other objectives like finding love, raising
children, being a good person, etc? I assume not. We want to make money: does
that mean we want only that to the exclusion of or above other objectives like
having fulfilling work, working in an open organisation, being respectful of
others, etc? No.

[1] Though opening up the shares to employees within the next couple of
months... it's taken a while to put the right system in place. Options
wouldn't work because we have no intention of ever selling the business.

Edit: Given your clarified question, I will also add that what we do is to
help other tech businesses to raise government funding so they can develop
cool tech. Many of them have raised money from investors - I don't think that
necessarily means that their only purpose is money (though it's certainly true
of some). See argument above.

~~~
brianwawok
So why would I accept less money from you than my market rate, so that you,
the founder, can make more money? At the end of the day there is 1 pie, why
should I donate part of my pie to you?

~~~
RussianCow
Because the job is more interesting than the alternatives? Because there is
room for major career growth? Because the work/life balance is better? There
are tons of reasons it would be preferable to take a lower-paying job. Salary
is by far not the only consideration (and for some, not even the most
important one).

------
Mendenhall
It was always pretty simple for me personally, If you don't want to pay me
what I want, you are free to hire someone else.

I find the most important part is being able to walk away, If you negotiate
from a position of weakness or need you are behind already.

If I am hiring I know what I can afford to pay, what I think the position is
"worth" and what I want out of it and make an offer according.

I like ideally to pay for work not for hours etc, if you give me what I want I
don't care if I am paying you $3000 dollars and you worked a half hour and
slept for a week out of town, I would consider that smart and efficient.

I find its the person who is applying that has the power not the company and I
think that's an important lesson for people who are applying to learn. If
"they" are not willing to pay me what I want, that puts us on a bad start
already.

~~~
JoblessWonder
> I find its the person who is applying that has the power not the company

I think you are assuming the person applying has some sort of safety net (a
current job, savings, alternate income.) That is where the BATNA comes into
play. Sure, if you are already making an acceptable amount of money to meet
your needs, aren't overworked/over-stressed, and relatively satisfied then you
are indeed in a position of power. If you need to get hired some place within
2 months and have been having trouble getting a job then you very well might
not be in a position of power. Not all people have the ability to walk away.

~~~
Mendenhall
Then the person applying will be in a position of weakness. That to me is
letting "worry" even if real drag you down. I think when you really need
something it is even more important to negotiate from a position of strength,
if not they will sense it and pick it apart.

In some ways its much like dating, does anyone really want the desperate type
?

~~~
vertex-four
"Always be able to walk away" is not very good advice to people who don't have
the option to walk away, whether people should always have that option or not
in a perfect world. "Pretend you're able to walk away" possibly is, but not
everyone's good at playing games like that.

The alternative to not working is, eventually, losing almost everything you
have. The alternative to not having a romantic partner is, well, not having a
romantic partner. You're not going to die from lack of love.

~~~
Mendenhall
"always be able to walk away" to me includes never allowing yourself to be in
a position where you cant walk away. I think of that as an actual survival
trait not just a business skill.

I would also say never pretend, actually be willing to walk away. Someone good
at psychology or picking up subtle clues will see right through pretending.

Anyway you slice it being desperate is never good, don't be desperate.

~~~
vertex-four
What a wonderful piece of advice. "Never get in a bad situation!" \- people
don't intentionally get into bad situations, really, believe it or not.

~~~
softawre
Just pick yourself up from your boot straps! Or cash in some of that 2m trust
your Dad left you. Come on this isn't hard.

------
TrickzOnU
Let me share my horror story -- I fell for a company that offered me the same
salary (no raise despite big promotion.) Then, he (Division CTO of Fortune 500
medical company) started subtracting salary from this baseline for all my
"benefits" like free shuttles, 401k matching, etc. I was supposed to take the
lower wage in exchange for amazing work, 3 fully paid conferences a year, yada
yadda.

Two months into joining, the shuttle went from free to paid. Ouch. Then, the
manager expected me to stay late 3x a week, which meant i could not even take
the shuttle 3x a week, and instead have to take a taxi. Still not enough
salary to buy a car + insurance + parking. Then policy changed and 401k match
disappeared. Finally, policy changed and all conference reimbursements ended.
Final blow -- my PDP is tied to 3 conference posters a year, so i pay out of
pocket for travel/registration/hotel.

By the way, the work is great, but i'm paying so much out of pocket that i'm
getting the hell out of there. Sucks for me. Sucks for the manager too -- I
spend half the day now doing eLance projects.

~~~
erikb
You are probably trying to show us how bad your employer is. What I'm reading
though, is how you should have walked away at least 5 times in the process.

What part of the work is actually "great" btw. I would guess you don't have
any other job yet. Because everything sounds very horrible.

~~~
TrickzOnU
It has been a year now. I moved to a high-cost-of-living area where even
owning a car is expensive. There is a cost to moving back as well. A lot of it
is psychological - I cannot believe i allowed myself to be fooled so badly, it
has really shaken my confidence in HR and hiring managers.

------
paulsutter
Two ways to answer the "current salary" question

\- say that your salary expectations depend on the work, the people, the work
hours, vacation policy, etc, so it's too early to discuss salary, or

\- ask what the company pays people in the same position. They won't tell you,
but that establishes concretely that it's private information.

If they do share the information with you, you can respond with "my
expectations are higher", or "that's within my expectations". And then if they
persist in asking yours, you can choose to answer or to stonewall. You got the
data, so now the mystery is over and you have control of the conversation.

This comes across weak, phony, and panderish:

> I think the best way to answer the current salary part is to say something,
> like that you’re not comfortable sharing that information, and you prefer to
> focus on the value that you can add to the company, and not what you’re paid
> at your current job

This sounds clownish, like playing a game:

> “Well, if you’re trying to qualify me for a range, why don’t you tell me the
> range, and I’ll tell you if I’m in the ballpark?”

This sounds wonky and comes across as an insincere:

> “I’ve been entrusted with a variety of information by my current firm. I
> intend to keep their confidences on that sort of thing. They consider their
> salary compensation private.

~~~
shostack
Agree with most of this. However I'd say that asking "can you share your
range" when appended to your first recommended response can be very powerful.

By making clear that you don't have enough info about the opportunity to
properly value it, but recognizing that they need to qualify you based on
their range, you're putting the ball firmly in their court to bring more data
to the table.

Companies who remain firm about not giving out any info but demanding a salary
from you are probably not places you want to work.

------
OhHeyItsE
I've had multiple situations where I did answer (honestly, too - before I knew
any better) the "dreaded" question up front and had the recruiter tell me:
"Wow. You must work for a really great company! We can't even come close to
matching that." Process ended right there, countless time saved. So, as with
all things, YMMV.

~~~
ThomaszKrueger
Same here. As soon as I say what I make recruiters usually congratulate me on
making what I make and won't call me back. So recruiters are only good for run
of the mill, entry level folks, not really for highly skilled or specialized
developers.

~~~
bitwize
If they're just looking for butts in seats, why do crooters stop talking to
you unless you have at least n years experience (n often quite large) in the
client's exact tech stack? "They're looking for a candidate who's ready to hit
the ground running..."

~~~
etjossem
Because they don't want to waste their time on someone their client won't
agree to hire. It's a numbers game, and from a time perspective, meeting you
for coffee and shopping your resume around isn't completely free.

Years of experience in the client's stack are a pretty good proxy for whether
the employer will want to talk to you.

------
codegeek
Whenever I am negotiating a salary, even if I have to reveal what I make now,
I will end that statement with "But based on my experience and value that I
bring to the table, I am expecting at least xyz for my new role otherwise it
is not worth it for me to quit my current job".

This way, you make the whole "current salary" irrelevant. The point is that
any good employer will NEVER let go of a candidate who is an excellent fit for
their role but they had a huge gap in current vs desired. They only let go of
candidates who either are not a good fit OR are asking for a very very high
number that is literally out of the budget assigned (more applicable to larger
corps.). But then again, it has nothing to do with current salary crap.

~~~
rm999
Completely agreed on negotiating without the "current salary" perspective.

I've always requested to keep my current salary secret, but I've never met a
hiring manager/HR recruiter that's ok with this. I suppose knowing what I make
comforts them that their offer isn't completely crazy, but I think it's also
evidence of a disturbing bias against the unemployed/underemployed.

~~~
15155
> I've never met a hiring manager/HR recruiter that's ok with this

There's a very simple position to take here: "My compensation is a function of
the value I will be providing to your company, not the value I provide to my
current employer."

Be assertive. At least in the United States, short of a backchannel reference
check, a prospective employer has absolutely no way of confirming anything you
say - a fact that can be brought to light if this kind of question ever comes
up.

At the moment, for good talent, it's a seller's market.

> evidence of a disturbing bias against the unemployed/underemployed

There is a definite bias against un(der)employed. This has been well studied.
Furthermore: your BATNA while employed is infinitely better (for most people).

------
JoshDoody
Hi everyone! That's me you hear talking to Patrick ;) If you have any
questions about the episode or salary negotiation in general, ask away! As you
can probably tell, I love talking about this stuff!

~~~
ohjeez
Most discussions about salary negotiation are about postponing the money
discussion until we know there's a fit. But what do you do when you-as-
applicant need to be sure you're not wasting your time (or theirs)?

That is: I'm really senior in my field, with 25 years of experience, and for
several years I've been commanding top dollar. (I'm worth it, too!) But often
I start discussions with would-be employers (or clients), wherein the work
sounds enjoyable, and they clearly are falling in love with me... and then a
half hour later (or three days later) we come around to money ranges, only to
discover their budget is half what I'd consider accepting.

I can end off with, "I hope you do really well, so that you can afford me
sometime soon!" but I'm always saddened and frustrated by the process. Because
by that point I'm imagining how cool it would be to do that job.

How do I signal to a client, "I'm expensive -- and worth it!" without saying,
"Hey, can you afford me? Because otherwise let's not even talk."

~~~
abledon
Have you thought about lowering the hours worked per week? For instance, if
they aren't willing to pay you a 40hr/week salary, would they be alright
paying you less but you only work 25hr/week (putting in enough productivity in
those hours to warrant paying such a high price for your services)

~~~
ohjeez
I've done that. In fact, the last client I got responded to my rate by saying,
"We can't afford that." So I said, "I can't lower my rate, but we can see what
I can accomplish with 50% of the hours." And I got the gig. We're now towards
the end of that contract, and now both of us are in a better position to know
what/whether I can deliver what I promise.

Still you have to know what you're going into. If I'm looking for a 40/hr week
gig (consulting or staff), I'm going to be less thrilled with 20 hours a week.

------
pm215
So something I'd like to get advice on is: what do you do negotiation-wise if
actually salary is not the thing you care most about? Suppose you (for health
reasons or just because you don't need the extra money and like the reduced
stress) want or need to work less than the usual five-day week -- at what
point do you bring up the "hey, how about a four-day week" question, when the
typical employer is looking for a five-day-a-week full time employee? If you
raise it early then it seems like they're just going to file your application
in the bin, but bringing it up only at the end seems kind of awkwardly
blindsiding them...

(I can see how it would work negotiating this as an already-established
employee where you're a known quantity to the employer and they'd rather not
lose you altogether, but not how to get that kind of setup from the start with
a new employer.)

~~~
eastbayjake
It seems like the same principle is in play: demonstrate your value first,
then talk about terms after they're sold on you and want to make an offer. I
can't imagine any company that would flat-out refuse a talented candidate over
a 4-day week request, but I think most would sideline you if it was brought up
before you'd demonstrated the value you can add to their business. In fact,
I'll bet many companies would view a 10% paycut for a 10% reduction in hours
(4 days @ 9 hrs/day) as a no-brainer win to get a talented hire.

~~~
zenlikethat
I don't think so. 4 day work week would be a deal breaker for most companies.
If Joe gets hired in and never works Fridays pretty soon everyone else will
want Fridays off too. Salary is irrelevant, it's human nature.

~~~
eastbayjake
I previously had a colleague reduce days in exchange for a pay cut, it was
clearly messaged to us (a small startup) that there was a tradeoff happening,
and the rest of us were happy to make more money working 5 days/week. I think
the human nature part is wanting to be treated fairly -- it's unfair if you
get paid the same and work less, but it feels fair if you make more money for
working more.

------
jboggan
The main thing that I liked about using Hired.com during a previous job search
was that they made the salary offers very transparent during the bidding phase
and it completely avoided sticking me, the candidate, with the salary
question. By the time I started interviewing at companies their initial salary
offer was more than what I would have been able to negotiate myself, mostly
because I didn't even know to ask for that much.

------
tyre
Two things we have done to fix the waste of time, human energy, and
shenanigans around salaries:

1) Post salaries with job descriptions. (e.g.
seneca.systems/careers/growth/go-to-market-strategist-product-marketer)

2) Pin salaries to job position[1]. We do not allow individuals to negotiate
their salary separately from their position. If you have the same position,
you make the same salary.

[1]:
[https://github.com/SenecaSystems/employee_handbook/blob/mast...](https://github.com/SenecaSystems/employee_handbook/blob/master/compensation/salary.markdown)

~~~
green_lunch
"We do not allow individuals to negotiate their salary separately from their
position. If you have the same position, you make the same salary."

This is great from a company perspective, but it essentially allows a company
to get an employee at a much cheaper rate. Employees with more experience will
get the same pay rate for the same job as someone with potentially much less.

Since all companies don't do this, I probably wouldn't ever work for your
company knowing this is your policy. I bring much more value to a company with
all of the experience and knowledge that I've gained.

At my last 9-5 job, I was able to get paid almost 20% more than many of my co-
workers because of my negotiating skills and experience.

I just have to shake my head when I see so many people fighting for less
power, rights, and inevitably less money and calling it a 'win'.

But, this doesn't really matter to me anymore. I've owned my own company for
the last 5 years and don't need to negotiate my own salary.

~~~
hyperpape
Don't companies that try that sort of thing usually have well defined bands?
Software Engineer I, II, III, etc?

------
arielweisberg
My observation is that salary negotiation has little to do with negotiation.
The management side of the table is never thinking in terms of economics and
has no idea what their BATNA is.

I think this comes from HR and leadership which can't quantify what the right
balance is for comp vs their BATNA.

For engineers this is especially challenging because metrics are hard to come
by and correlate with the $$$ going out the door.

~~~
TrickzOnU
I've been working for over a decade. There is ONE and ONLY ONE rule i've seen
universally followed by HR -- your pay rises with the # of people reporting to
you. Regardless of whatever managers say about running a lean shop or budget
or whatever -- the more people you hire and manager, the more money you make.
If you can do the work in six months, tell them 18 and hire two others. If you
can do the work with 4 FTEs, tell them 12 FTEs and get a nice promotion.
Increase employment, get great documentation and unit tests, and play to the
foolish HR policies HR has cooked up. When people get paid for productivity,
then switch to lean. Until then, play to the metric they set.

~~~
15155
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law)

------
vladimirralev
This just seems like a walkthrough how to educate a shitty manager who got
their "business-degree" from dilbert comic strips. The last thing a manager
wants to do is to lowball a guy who's performance depends on his own good
faith. If I have to explain to the manager why this is a bad idea and why he
is putting me at disadvantage while keeping key information from me and using
sleazy tactics he saw in the "boiler room" against me then how can I trust
this guy to have my back in the future?

I got to say this almost never happens in the big5 companies nowadays. There
are countless internal trainings for recruiters specifically not to do stuff
like that and especially anything remotely similar to what you see in pop-
culture. I mean what are the chances none of your candidates would have seen
"Suits" or "The Wolf from Wall Str." after all? Even if you manage to hire
somebody below their market rate it will be just a few months hanging out with
peers and he will find out and be resentful.

~~~
jonknee
It turns out there are a lot more than 5 companies out there in the
marketplace... And if you think you got a fair initial offer you almost
certainly did not.

~~~
vladimirralev
I referred to top5 just as an example of professionalism, possibly backed by
tons of data and analytics internally too. Which to me means it's the best
methodology currently known.

Well if I didn't get a fair initial offer then the manager must think the risk
of me finding out will not affect his goals. I accept that, as long as they
accept it too. But I don't want to find out I was lied to and then expect me
to be loyal.

------
kelukelugames
The original blog post is one of the best reads on the topic. Especially for
people who never tried to negotiate before or always failed.

[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-
negotiation/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/)

------
mathgenius
My fantasy negotiation scenario:

ME: "Ok so you are willing to pay me 200k to work 8-9 hours a day, how about
paying me 100k to work 4-5 hours a day?"

THEM: "sounds awesome"

~~~
jeremysalwen
What would be a realistic path to negotiating part time when full time work is
expected?

~~~
mathgenius
Yeah, I don't know, hence the "fantasy" adjective. But, somewhat
realistically, the cream of my day lasts on average about 4 hours (longer when
i'm hot, shorter when i'm not). So this really would be a bargain for an
employer.

------
dshep
Love these, but patio11 needs a better microphone setup, its so echo-y and
robotic! Please take this as helpful feedback rather than hurtful criticism.

~~~
patio11
It's actually less the microphone and more that I recorded this at my
coworking space, whose only room for recording is literally a glass box. I'm
going to try to find another room to do podcasts in -- the audio engineer
flagged it, too, but shipped beats perfect.

~~~
SyneRyder
If you're stuck with recording in that room, perhaps you could try getting
something like an SE Electronics Reflexion Filter? It's like a tiny vocal
booth just for your microphone, to block reflected sounds.

[http://www.seelectronics.com/reflexion-
filter-x/](http://www.seelectronics.com/reflexion-filter-x/)
[http://www.seelectronics.com/reflexion-filter-
pro/](http://www.seelectronics.com/reflexion-filter-pro/)

Not sure of RRP in Japan, but someone is selling the RF-x on eBay US for $80.
(I don't have one myself but I've been meaning to get one for years, didn't
even know they had a home-studio model until just now.)

------
daxfohl
Has anyone tried to beat the interviewer to the punch on the salary question?
Put them on the spot by asking their range before they hit you with it?

~~~
basseq
Yes, but it's typically a factor of a bad HR department.

Don't let the recruiter hang up on that first phone screen without satisfying
yourself that they could make a competitive offer. Otherwise, you're just
wasting time. They should have the same desire, hence this is only an issue
with bad HR departments.

It's not worth it to jump to salary immediately. You come off as either
selfish or naive.

So yes, I've done it. You get to the end of that call, and you realize you
haven't talked compensation. So you tie in with interest and next steps:
"Sounds like I could be a great fit for this position, and I look forward to
talking further with the team to confirm that. I do want to make sure we're on
the same page in terms of compensation..." Then you go from there.

~~~
15155
> You come off as either selfish or naive.

Or, if framed appropriately, expensive and valuable.

Your time is money. You do not want to waste it on a role that has
compensatory packages beneath what you'd be willing to take. You are a
professional doing another professional a favor.

Framing this correctly is a bit more nuanced, however.

If you're talking to an external recruiting or staffing agency, however:
immediately jump to salary. They will not hesitate and have no opinion on you
as a candidate. You're saving their time and they're not emotionally staked in
the possible negotiations to come.

------
jknz
What follows is an honest salary determination process, where no party has
incentive to lie. It is also very fast. The rules are as follows. (Can't
remember where I read about this.)

The company and the candidate write on a piece of paper a salary. The company
should write the number above which it is not willing to pay the candidate.
The candidate writes the number under which she/he is not willing to work for
that company.

The numbers are disclosed. If there is an overlap, they sign a contract and
the salary is the average of the two numbers. Otherwise, there is no hiring.

Edit: the parties can play this game only once

~~~
pillowkusis
you still have a strong incentive to lie, do you not? Since the final salary
is the average of the two numbers, employers want to go as low as they can and
prospects want to go as high as they can.

in fact, this system punishes honesty even more than the current one -- if I
am honest and the other person is dishonest, the dishonest person wins because
they will pull the average in the direction they want and I get a worse deal
than if we were both honest.

~~~
jknz
Say the candidate is honest, wants 120k and writes down 120k.

Say the company honestly wants candidate ufo 130k or less. Company plays is
dishonest card and writes down 110k. Then the candidate leaves and there is no
hire. If company had been honest she would have hired a fitting candidate for
125k, less than the most that company was willing to offer (130k).

~~~
pillowkusis
say the candidate wants 150 but would take as low as 120. so she writes down
120. she's actually worth 150.

the company is willing to hire her at up to 150. But instead, they say 130.

She gets hired at 125 as a result. If they had negotiated, they certainly
would have settled closer to 150. Her honesty cost her 12k/yr. The company
profits immensely from its dishonesty as long as they say a number just above
the candidate's lowest.

------
jldugger
> How to avoid the “What is your desired salary?” question

Already off to a bad start. Just like we assume that advertisements without a
salary range will be shitty salaries, employers assume applicants who dodge
this question have a shitty BATNA. A good answer to this question is "x% more
than I'm making now, and high enough to outbid competing offers from companies
A, B and C." But if you want to avoid answering the question, a good response
is "you advertised at 80k-100k, and that is admissable, but you will need to
beat offers from companies A, B and C."

------
jboydyhacker
I disagree with the advice on avoiding the "what is your target comp" in
current market conditions. Unless the market gets a lot worse- give the number
that would make you happy and expect to get it.

Generally, in a startup the last thing I want to spend time on is replacing
good engineers because their salary was below market.

In short- If I want to hire the person - I just give them the number they ask
for. Recruiting is the worst time sink and better to spend time on retaining
the folks you have and improving your business.

------
vox_mollis
One thing Patrick seems to be wholly ignorant of is that engineers, by
default, maintain a very high correlation with nonassertiveness and dearth of
social skills. Those stereotypes exist for a reason. For most of us, these
factors are baked into our essence from childhood, and are virtually
impossible to break. In the absence of concrete interaction examples or a
corpus of negotiation scripts to analyze, none of his vague advice is useful
for many of us.

~~~
jerf
"One thing Patrick seems to be wholly ignorant of is that engineers..."

It seems far more likely to me that Patrick has made it such a focus for him
to share this advice is that he is _intensely aware_ of it, rather than what
you said.

~~~
vox_mollis
Don't get me wrong, I understand and appreciate his motivation, but I doubt he
fully comprehends the psychology he's up against. Apologies if I come across
as too un-appreciatively negative toward his efforts.

~~~
gk1
Are you aware that he was (is) a developer himself, long before he became an
evangelist of charging more?

~~~
vox_mollis
Yes, I'm quite aware of this fact. But he's a socially competent developer,
and my point still stands about those of us who are not.

~~~
gk1
"No true scotsman."

Would you prefer advice from a socially _in_ competent developer?

If I'm at point A and want to reach point B, I'd value advice from someone who
went A->B (and now comfortably sitting at B) more than from someone who is
still stuck in A with me.

~~~
T-hawk
Perhaps. If one is a socially incompetent developer, it's quite possible that
one might find advice from another socially incompetent developer to be more
relevant and actionable than advice from a socially competent developer.

------
matrix
Having been on both sides of the hiring process many times, there's some
useful tactical ideas in this podcast, but in my experience tactics should
only play a small role.

As a candidate for a job, before you go to any interview (even a phone screen)
you need to know what the local market salary range is for the type of job in
you are applying for. If you don't know that, you're in a position of weakness
and any amount of verbal judo isn't going to be useful.

A good hiring manager will not try to cheat you - they will make you a fair
and reasonable offer. It might be at the low end of reasonable, but
nevertheless it will be reasonable. If they give you a ridiculous lowball,
they're not a good hiring manager, and at that point you should just walk
away. Even if they come back with a reasonable offer. You don't want to work
for a company or a boss that thinks that's ok to do to people.

A good hiring manager will not ask you your current salary. They might ask you
early in the process: "what are your salary expectations?". It is acceptable
to not name a number and just say something to the effect of "competitive
market salary" which should signal to the hiring manager that you know what
that range is, as does he, and you're good with that. If you need to give a
number, just state range near the top of the local market salary range and
move on. Yes, there's a theoretical risk that you've anchored yourself lower
than they might pay, but you've anchored yourself at the top of the market
range - not exactly a terrible outcome.

Caveat: this advice might not apply when dealing with a recruiter.

------
analognoise
Go on 2 interviews a year no matter what.

Always ask for more than you think you'll be able to get.

Ignore talk about culture if they think that makes up for salary - it doesn't.

------
calcsam
Re: stock options: I built [http://optionvalue.io](http://optionvalue.io) as a
tool to help engineers at startups understand what their options are worth.

Even if you don't know anything about stock options, it will walk you step-by-
step through the numbers you need, give you a value, and show you the math
behind that number.

------
dvcrn
I hate salary negotiations. I'm just not good at them. Especially when I'm
forced to do it on the phone.

Right now I'm earning a good chunk less than my coworkers with same or lower
working experience and it's slightly annoying. On the other side I know of a
really good coworker that earns even less than me.

I'm a strong supporter of open salaries. Don't give people who can negotiate
better more but implement a system that applies to everyone the same. Take
seniority into account, work experience, a base and calculate the salary of
every engineer based on that. Fair and open.

------
nunez
I think the most important bit about negotiation that I've learned and read is
this: if you're not willing to walk away, your attempts to negotiate will
fail. If you're not willing to say "sorry we can't come to a middle ground
here" and leave the conversation with no regrets, you'll eventually cave in
and lose. (This has been my biggest problem wrt salary negotiations. When I
get an offer from a company that I like, I'm almost always unwilling to give
it up. Having multiple offers on the table is the best alternative to this.)

------
igonvalue
Patrick, it seems like this latest episode isn't available on iTunes. Maybe
it's related to the error message I see when I load the feed in my browser [0]

> This page contains the following errors:

> error on line 3559 at column 476: Input is not proper UTF-8, indicate
> encoding ! Bytes: 0xE3 0x81 0xA8 0xE3

[0]
[http://www.kalzumeus.com/category/podcasts/feed/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/category/podcasts/feed/)

~~~
patio11
It's in iTunes. Sometimes there is a delay for them to crawl the feed. Another
issue might be that, if you haven't listened to me recently, your client might
not grab updates. (Totally reasonable since nothing was published in several
months.)

------
jadengore
Josh Doody has been doing great talks on this for a while. Haven't read the
article, but I've heard some of his other work. Should be a good read.

------
ArkyBeagle
Just throw out the number you want, after giving them the clear picture that
you think they're more or less making a mistake. Go high. All they can do is
counter.

I've seen a salary number printed in the initial job ad. If that number
doesn't work for me, I don't pursue the ad. If they ask me for a number,
that's the number they get - with the observation that it was printed on the
ad.

------
blazespin
The problem with more salary is more responsibility. More likely to be cut if
you don't perform at the level commensurate with the salary.

~~~
logicalmind
Yep, and this really becomes a problem has you advance in years. I'm a
programmer and have been for almost 20 years. When you're younger, you are
always negotiating upwards. When you're at a job making 70k and you leave, you
go to a new job and ask for 80k. But then you're 40 and making a lot more. Now
the question as to what you are offered is different. If they're paying you to
be a "programmer", can they really justify that huge salary? They can hire
multiple college grads for what they're paying you. So it's not so much about
your direct programming skill, but your experience/knowledge/wisdom that they
are paying for. And each company is going to value that differently.

Your options really come down to whether you want to truly remain a
"programmer" in which you may have to make some concessions to compete with
the other programmers in the market. Your responsibilities remain that of a
programmer. Or you have to take on a manager/director/architect role which is
less programming skill and more people management skill with a lot more
responsibility.

~~~
15155
Arguably, with that much experience, you would make more money consulting.

Instead of being seen as a curmudgeon who could be replaced by four college
grads, you're an external, automatically-trusted authority who commands a
healthy day rate.

It's just a matter of optics. Though that life isn't for everyone.

------
OpenDrapery
Has anyone had much success with negotiating the health care benefits out of
the equation? For example, if your spouse carries the benefits, then you don't
need them. I'm guessing most employers don't have the luxury of substituting
$20k in salary in lieu of healthcare.

------
Radle
Anyone an idea what I can reasonable expect as a student in Germany?

I am working for a company in the Metal industry as a software Developer. I am
working very independently.

------
marssaxman
What a gross, unpleasant world this article describes.

~~~
floodyberry-
"How to trick everyone in to over-paying and over-compensating you, which you
can then use to become even more over-paid and over-compensated as you hop
jobs"

I guess "How to break the cycle of greed" probably wouldn't go over too well
with them or their target audience.

------
nunez
I've heard that negotiating a higher salary at companies decreases what you
can get for bonuses/profit-sharing. Is that true?

~~~
sokoloff
It's unlikely to be -EV for you to do so.

Technically, the higher the salary they pay you, the less profit there is to
share, so absolutely, a higher salary will reduce the profit sharing. (you can
immediately see how this is massively beneficial to you, of course).

Also, your future raises might (or might not) be smaller if you come in on the
high end of the range. Some companies have a formulaic "X%" type of system,
which means you want to start as high as possible. Others target a ratio to
some fictitious "market reference" where a higher initial salary will result
in lower future raises, which STILL means you want to start as high as
possible.

Some company somewhere no doubt has a policy that works as you describe/fear.
The overwhelming majority do not.

------
oaf357
I have always been honest with what I'm being compensated. In six years I've
nearly doubled my salary.

------
billions
Why are developers NOT paid proportional to output? A 5x developer should get
paid more than a 2x dev but that doesn't seem to happen

~~~
dragonwriter
> Why are developers NOT paid proportional to output?

Because measuring business value of output of individual developers on a team
is not easily done, and other output measures (e.g., SLOC) tend to be things
that, if tied to pay, would create obvious adverse incentives.

~~~
wccrawford
Indeed. I had an employer that told me my output was too low for the first few
years. Then we had a security audit (following an event) and my code was the
_only_ code that came through squeaky clean. They didn't talk about the amount
of my output after that.

It's not easy to measure the value of someone's work, even years later, and
certainly not immediately.

------
oafitupa
Are we still linking to this snake oil salesman?

~~~
dang
We asked you before not to do this. Since you didn't stop, we've banned your
account. If you don't want it to be banned, you're welcome to email
hn@ycombinator.com.

