25 ms·

High Salaries Haunt Some Job Hunters

187 points by kliao 11y ago

alvern 11y ago
Sigh, paywall
- xlm1717 11y ago
  Click the web link below the title, then click the story in the google results. Pay wall goes down.
  - tarr11 11y ago
    Removed 1 step: https://www.google.com/search?q=High+Salaries+Haunt+Some+Job+Hunters&oq=High+Salaries+Haunt+Some+Job+Hunters&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i61.284j0j1&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=High+Salaries+Haunt+Some+Job...
  - scottshepard 11y ago
    Actually it doesn't. WSJ seems to have closed the google loophole.
    - exhilaration 11y ago
      You're right! Even a Google search in an incognito window didn't work.
    - peterbraden 11y ago
      try opening in an incognito window.
    - xlm1717 11y ago
      That's weird, worked for me.
      - DrScump 11y ago
        Your WSJ cookies don't reflect enough prior access or were cleared.
  - vinceguidry 11y ago
    Did not work for me.
  - jokr004 11y ago
    The google trick has worked for me in the past, but it doesn't seem to be working now for this article..
    - shampine 11y ago
      I think they are dropping a cookie when you visit and hit the paywall then try to access the article through Google. Incognito works.
  - forgetsusername 11y ago
    Is this something that's unlocked with karma? It used to confuse me every time someone mentioned it; it just wasn't there for me. Today, it is.
- epimetheus 11y ago
  I copied and pasted the link into a private window (Firefox) and it worked ok, just FYI for anybody that wants to read it like I did. Searching for title and clicking through Google didn't do it for me this time.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - pmiller2 11y ago
    Didn't work for me. Neither did the google link thing. Wonder what's going on here. :(
    - legohead 11y ago
      Neither did the browser extension "Wait! Google sent me." which was built just for these paywall sites. It looks like Google stopped punishing journalist sites that do this, or the sites don't care anymore.
      - mywittyname 11y ago
        I think Google has some sort of "push" system for publishers to use now.
- beau26 11y ago
  Text: After more than 20 years as an electronics engineer, Pete Edwards reached the low six-figure pay level. Now, as he looks for a job following a layoff, he finds that salary success a burden. Although his experience includes the sought-after field of 3-D printing, the 53-year-old hasn’t been able to land a permanent full-time job. Time and again, he says, employers seem to lose interest after he answers a question that they ask early on: “What was your last salary?” That question comes up sooner than ever nowadays. Hiring managers used to broach salary history or requirements only in later stages, after applicants had a chance to make an impression and state their case. Today, pay increasingly is mentioned early in the process, either as a required field in online applications—which are used more often—or during initial interviews, say recruiters, compensation consultants and job seekers. The shift is vexing applicants, mostly those of a certain age and pay level, who are concerned that a salary they worked to attain now gets in the way of having a job at all. “I’m unemployable now as a result of getting to the top of the tree,” Mr. Edwards lamented. ENLARGE Josh Rock, a recruiter at Fairview Health Services, a 20,000-employee health system in Minnesota, said that during the last recession, recruiters used compensation queries as a quick way to cull the large numbers of candidates for open jobs. The habit has stuck, he said. “Why not figure out what’s going on sooner in the process than doing a dance?” Human-resources executives say asking about pay right off the bat helps contain compensation costs, ensures that candidates have reasonable expectations and spares recruiters from chasing prospects they can’t afford. “Unfortunately, some clients use salary as a pre-screening question,” said Susan Vitale, chief marketing officer at iCIMS Inc., a provider of recruiting software in Matawan, N.J. “So if the role tops out at $55,000 and they say they want $60,000, it might knock the candidate out of consideration” even if the person would be open to salary negotiations. Screening candidates this way may be a factor in wage stagnation, some analysts suggest. Average hourly earnings rose 2.5% in 2015, modest by historical standards. Wage growth has averaged only about 2% for the past five years. Focusing on compensation history “holds down wages because now the jobs are being filled by people with lower salary expectations,” said Thomas Kochan, a professor of employment research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management. “We have a whole generation of people who are permanently adversely affected.” ENLARGE Though hiring tactics have received little attention in the economic debate about wage stagnation, Mr. Kochan said they could have profound effects: “The decisions of firms individually are…creating collectively this macro phenomenon of stagnation,” yet are hard to measure because they are shrouded in secrecy. U.S. employers continue to hold the line on wages despite six years of economic recovery and an unemployment rate of 5%. Finance chiefs are “probably looking ahead and saying they want to keep the escalation of labor costs from going up in a way that will put pressure on earnings,” said Ajit Kambil, global research director of Deloitte’s CFO Program. In Deloitte’s most recent quarterly survey, 47% of chief financial offers said they plan to work to lower or control labor costs this year, by taming compensation growth, reducing benefit costs or other means. Moreover, employers may feel they can lowball applicants because they believe there is still a surplus of qualified candidates. “Workers are still a little discounted” in most fields, said Linda Barrington, executive director of the Institute for Compensation Studies at Cornell University’s ILR School. “Employers won’t pay what the last person in the job was paid because labor is now on sale.” Steve Carpinelli recently applied for a public-relations position with a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C. The role called for a minimum of five-to-seven years of experience. He has more than 14. RELATED How to Field Questions About Salary Expectations Mr. Carpinelli’s pay reached high five figures before the 45-year-old switched to the generally lower-paying field of nonprofits. While preparing for a phone interview with the Washington organization, he discovered that the last person in the job earned $101,000. So when asked early on about his salary expectations, he put his range squarely around what the last employee earned, seeking $85,000 to $110,000. “After that, the conversation was very robotic, not a two-way conversation about what they’re truly looking for,” Mr. Carpinelli said. “I definitely got the impression that I’d priced myself out.” In his experience, “there has been a definite shift or emphasis on beginning the conversation with: ‘What is your salary range?’” Mr. Carpinelli said. “I was always told you never talk about salary until you’re given an offer. But I’ve noticed the salary-range question comes up far earlier in the conversation.” The organization ultimately hired a young woman with five years’ experience. Mr. Carpinelli is still looking for a permanent job. Older job seekers sometimes see such outcomes as evidence of bias. But “employers can make financial decisions and it’s not necessarily age discrimination,” said Raymond Peeler, a senior attorney-advisor at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “What an employee would have to prove…is that the employer is using the salary level as a proxy to disqualify all the older applicants.” Businessolver Inc., a benefits-administration firm in West Des Moines, Iowa, recently hired more than 100 people for its Denver office. Human-resources staffers ask about compensation in the middle of a six-step hiring process and use the answers to gauge applicants’ “level of reality,” said Marcy Klipfel, senior vice president of HR. “A lot of times what you’re looking at is are we going to waste time and get to the end of the process, and it turns out the person is way out of our range?” A majority of workers take a salary cut when they get a new job after a stretch of unemployment, but those over 45 usually take a bigger hit than workers under 35 years of age, according to research from Ms. Barrington and a Cornell colleague, Hassan Enayati. A survey by AARP last year found that of job seekers between 45 and 70 years old who found work after a spell of unemployment, nearly half earned less than before. Some employers hesitate to hire at far below a past salary, concerned that the employee would resent earning so much less. “If someone wants $100,000 and settles for $75,000, they’re not going to be happy,” said Steve Gross, a compensation specialist and senior partner at consulting firm Mercer. Workers, however, say they would like the chance to decide for themselves. “The presumption that I would walk into a job and get $150,000 is not there,” said Rosemary Lynch Kelleher, a baby boomer who has earned at that level during her 25-year career in international trade policy, and has been looking for a permanent job for several years. “I realize very clearly that it’s not there. And I would take something for $100,000 or $75,000.” In Austin, a woman who lost her six-figure position as a data architect in 2014 but recently landed a job, said she had been tempted to say she earned $60,000 to improve her chances of getting hired. While she was searching, the 63-year-old said: “I hate putting down what I want” in salary. “If you put down too much, they think you’re expensive. If you don’t put down enough, they think you’re undervaluing yourself.” Much of this ambiguity could be avoided if employers published a pay range for positions, but they don’t want to tip their hands. So experts suggest job seekers research market rates for particular positions and try to finesse salary questions. “Say, ‘I’m open to a salary commensurate with the job,” recommended Blake Nations, a former recruiter who was laid off and then founded Over50JobBoard.com. “And if they keep going, ask: ‘What do you expect to pay someone with my experience and education for this position?’ ” Some applicants, faced with a salary-history question they fear would exclude them from the start, have toyed with putting a bogus number in a required field in an online form. Mr. Edwards, the electronics engineer, says he tried that once. Not hearing back from the company, he contacted its HR department and was told he was too expensive. That baffled him because he had listed $1,000 as his previous pay. It turned out HR had changed that to $100,000, assuming it was a mistake.
- OhHeyItsE 11y ago
  Incognito
- withdavidli 11y ago
  Clicked link on mobile, chrome, and got me in. Thought that was strange since its WSJ.
- imh 11y ago
  Since the google thing doesn't work anymore, I deleted my cookies and it worked like a charm.
OhHeyItsE 11y ago
Finding engineers is soooo hard! There are no good engineers!
- officialchicken 11y ago
  And their advice is "take one for the team" because there are managers trying to control costs.
- mooreds 11y ago
  Translation: "There are no good engineers who will work for the price I'm willing to pay, either in terms of initial dollars or time to retrain." As the realtors I worked with used to say about houses, "there's no problem that price won't fix", and that works for labor as well as real estate.
- wyclif 11y ago
  "There's no shortage of smart, hardworking engineers. There's a shortage of smart, hardworking engineers willing to work for very little money." ~ David "Pardo" Keppel If you're having trouble hiring, it's probably because you're not paying enough. It turns out that talented people are worth paying a lot for.
free2rhyme214 11y ago
This is a surprise, said no one ever. Sometimes companies will pay for experience but often they'll hire someone younger who screws up more because they cost less.
- y-c-o-m-b 11y ago
  They might think it costs less, but I argue that's misleading. You need to factor in the mistakes, the longer training, slower adaptation, inefficiency, and a client's growing dissatisfaction with the product because of it all.
  - free2rhyme214 11y ago
    I don't think it's misleading. Companies know mistakes cost money and experience doesn't always associate with better productivity.
    - iolothebard 11y ago
      Most companies don't have a inkling of how to actually measure productivity.
      - mooreds 11y ago
        To be fair, neither do most employees. It's a hard problem.
pmoriarty 11y ago
"Time and again, he says, employers seem to lose interest after he answers a question that they ask early on: 'What was your last salary?'" I never answer that question. Almost always it's been recruiters asking that (and only some recruiters, the less reputable ones). This is a seller's market for IT talent. You don't have to give in to bullying tactics to get a good job. I've had to walk away exactly once when a recruiter wouldn't accept that I wasn't going to tell him my previous salary and refused to work with me on that basis. The other recruiters who've asked accepted my refusal to reveal that information. They're generally more interested in getting paid for recruiting you than in finding out what you used to be paid. I also never reveal the salary I'm looking for and insist on doing my own salary negotiations with the employer. I let the employer make an offer they think is reasonable and go from there. You do have to be willing to walk away in the handful of times when this leads to an impasse. Fortunately, the way the IT job market is right now, there are plenty of other fish in the pond, and not showing your hand prematurely puts you in a much stronger negotiating position.
- joezydeco 11y ago
  But it goes the other way, too. I've been contacted by many many recruiters offering interesting jobs but won't discuss the salary range targeted for that position. So how much time are you willing to spend on resume polishing, phone screens, on-site interviews, getting to an offer...just to find out that they can't even come close to your current salary? So now I just flat out say what my jump-number is. Any answer other than "yeah, we can work with that" is a reason to end the conversation and save everybody's time.
  - jasonkostempski 11y ago
    What's a jump-number? Googling it came up with your comment as the top result and then skydiving :)
    - coke12 11y ago
      The salary number that would convince joezydeco to "jump ship".
vinceguidry 11y ago
I have been thinking about this phenomenon for awhile and how to hedge against it. My feeling is that employees are getting more and more exposed to broader economic trends, and not just the low-wage workers. It's one thing to be at the low end of the totem pole, where anonymity and insecurity force you to hedge against the possibility of suddenly losing your job. But once you clear all that and find a bit of professional success, you're still not necessarily secure. So you have to extend this hedging behavior further out. Keep building your skills, expand into other fields so that you are more employable. Complacency will put you into this position eventually, it's just a matter of time. Don't leave a secure position to take one with more earning potential but less security. Constantly keep building bridges at your current job and don't give them a reason to fire you. Above all, try not to hate your job. You may find 5 years down the road that it was the best thing you had going for you. As nasty as the work world can get, it's better than not working.
- Riod 11y ago
  That's rather depressing to hear. I think it is a question of how you rate yourself (objectively). If you're good, you can go on to found the biggest hedge fund of all time (Bridgewater). If not, then yea, I think yours is the way to go.
  - vinceguidry 11y ago
    Eh, I wouldn't look at it that way. Avoiding complacency and building bridges is just as important for those with healthy egos as it is for those with weak ones.
- RamshackleJ 11y ago
  Building bridges != being a loyal employee. Pull your weight and support the people around you but don't grovel to your company! You're a free-thinking human being with value creating skills! Masking how you feel and trying to work the system will only lead to regret. Find out who you are and what your principles are and stand by them, only then will you be able to live with yourself when you get old. Also work can happen outside of the bounds of a company. Your post makes you sound really burned out, I hope you're doing ok = )
cushychicken 11y ago
The moral of the story: never, never, NEVER answer questions about your salary to a recruiter. It firmly pigeonholes your next salary to your current one, instead of the value you bring to a company. Patrick MacKenzie's article on salary negotiations is excellent (I would maybe even say "required") reading on the subject.
- TomSawyer 11y ago
  This one? http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/
  - cushychicken 11y ago
    That's the one. Probably Patrick's best piece of advice, in terms of broad application.
    - Terretta 11y ago
      Content is great. Anti-iDevice editor note is odd: > [Editor’s note: At nearly 7,000 words, you probably don’t want to try reading this on an iDevice. Bookmark it and come back later.] My iDevice is a 13" 5.6K screen that I hold in my hands like a magazine. Surely better suited to long form reading than a lower res rMBP I generally read at a desk or table. iPad had Retina display since iPad 3rd Gen released in 2012 when this was written.
- ryguytilidie 11y ago
  Recruiter here. I think: "The moral of the story: never, never, NEVER answer questions about your salary to a recruiter." is pretty simplistic and naive. You simply have to figure out how to get what you want. If you want 180 and currently make 140 and a recruiter asks what you make, just say something like "my expectation for my next role is around 180". You say that and you both probably get what you want and save a lot of back and forth.
  - 11y ago
pc86 11y ago
> After more than 20 years as an electronics engineer, Pete Edwards reached the low six-figure pay level. Where is it that late-career engineers are barely pulling in six figures? Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of money (3x mean personal income in the US, and ~1.75x mean HHI, give or take), but I'd expect most senior folks in any engineering field to be in the mid 100k range if not pushing 185ish. > Time and again, he says, employers seem to lose interest after he answers a question that they ask early on: “What was your last salary?” Your last salary has absolutely no bearing on what you are worth or what the market rate is for the position for which you're applying. You have absolutely nothing to gain by sharing a previous salary. > A survey by AARP last year found that of job seekers between 45 and 70 years old who found work after a spell of unemployment, nearly half earned less than before. I don't think this is that surprising, is it? If I make $100k and lose my job, often with little notice, I will take $80k. If I make $100k and leave of my own volition, it's unlikely I'll entertain anything below $110 or $115.
- maxsilver 11y ago
  > Where is it that late-career engineers are barely pulling in six figures? Almost everywhere in the Midwest, except Chicago perhaps. Unless your remote working, low cost of living doesn't come without a big catch.
  - joezydeco 11y ago
    No, it's Chicago too, unless you're working on low-latency finance stuff.
    - nicholasjarnold 11y ago
      Untrue. I lived and worked as a software engineer in Chicago (downtown) for a number of years before moving westward. Most mid-career developers I knew there were comfortably in the 100's and only one worked at the CME ('finance stuff', in C++). It boils down to simple economic rules. If you're good at developing software, there aren't a lot of people like you looking for a job and the market has a high demand for your skill then you are probably doing something wrong if you're not earning well into the 100's or higher (if that is what you're trying to optimize for).
njharman 11y ago
Moving from engineer in financial industry to engineer in "regular" industry (same city) I just accepted and told potential employers I expected a pay cut. Sooo much money in finance, everyone is "over" paid.
- votr 11y ago
  I'm in finance and looking to get out. Why did you move?
  - njharman 11y ago
    Nothing to do with industry. I was in a more or less dead end devops role. I wanted more of a pure programming role.
smileysteve 11y ago
I find recruiters hurt this more than help it too. If you tell them your last salary, they'll just try to get enough % more to make it worth the transition.
- sirkneeland 11y ago
  Why not tell them an imaginary salary then?
  - noarchy 11y ago
    >Why not tell them an imaginary salary then? Indeed. After all, some companies suddenly become "flexible" once they find a candidate who really blows them away. Their alleged "top range" becomes malleable. So their range can be imaginary as well. In the information war that both sides are waging, similar tactics can be used.
- X-Istence 11y ago
  That's what I don't tell anyone what my previous salary was. I am looking for X dollars per hour, do you have anything for me in that range? Yes or no... That's it. I'll generally let them know it is open to negotiation as well.
y-c-o-m-b 11y ago
Companies that hire like this will typically be the first to layoff employees when shareholders are not happy. They often struggle to meet customer expectations over time. This is particularly true if they have never ending layers of management going up the chain. That's why startup culture is so appealing to many.
- mywittyname 11y ago
  If you buy at Walmart prices, expect Walmart quality.
lmm 11y ago
The tendency to talk about salary upfront is a good one for both sides - it avoids wasting everyone's time when the expectations simply don't align. It does need to be mutual though. I expect employers to include some salary guidance in a job ad. And if they claim to offer market rates, I expect them to live up to that.
- mhurron 11y ago
  > It does need to be mutual though. No it doesn't. The hiring company needs to be upfront, but the candidate doesn't. The company has a budget range set for the position whereas the candidate is asking the question 'Am I willing to do this job for the money they are offering me.'
  - lmm 11y ago
    Disagree. Most of the time the company could in fact pay 2x what they thought was the top of their range for an exceptional candidate. It's a rare candidate who's in a position to take an exceptional job for 1/2 what they thought was the bottom of their range.
- pkaye 11y ago
  At some of my recent employers, for a couple standard roles, we have a single job profile but the expectations and salary are scaled with their skill level. Generally we combined their years of experience, skill level (based on interview) and current salary to derive an offer. So we would take the years of experience to get the base range, use the skill level to adjust within the range, then compare to current salary to see if we were fair or not. From there, the candidate is free to negotiate. The problem would occur when someone had lots of years working but their skill level is below par. Basically people who have done a narrow set of skills over the years and haven't broadened their knowledge. If we give them a low salary, it would be insulting and if it is too high for their skill then it would be unfair to some of the current employees (salary inversion.)
- arprocter 11y ago
  It's strange to me that US job ads don't state the wage being offered. In the UK a ballpark pay figure is normally expected information
skewart 11y ago
"Say, ‘I’m open to a salary commensurate with the job,” recommended Blake Nations, a former recruiter who was laid off and then founded Over50JobBoard.com. “And if they keep going, ask: ‘What do you expect to pay someone with my experience and education for this position?'" This. If you're asked early on just flip the question back to them. Companies don't publish salaries for jobs because they're afraid of turning people off from applying to the job in the first place. They know applicants are more likely to take a lower offer after they've invested time into the process and maybe have a little rapport with the interviewers. You can use the exact same strategy as a job seeker. Companies can be more likely to accept a higher ask after they've put resources into interviewing you and gotten to know you a bit. That said, an honest chat about expectations early on - where the hirer says roughly how much they're looking to pay and asks if it's something you'd be interested in - can be a really nice way to save everyone's time.
- gohrt 11y ago
  That advice doesn't apply at all when you are going through a recruiter who is or plays dumb: "I just need you to fill in this form so we can proceed. [I don't care if if makes you mistrust me and management, and you come in on Day 1 suspicious and with low morale]" Big companies, at least, have a relatively streamlined process to tilt the negotiations in their favor as much as they can systemically.
  - pmoriarty 11y ago
    I fill out those forms but leave that field empty. If they have a problem with that, I'll find another recruiter. There's no shortage of them around. As for big companies, I've never had any of them even notice that I didn't fill in that field. So that's never been an issue.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
marktangotango 11y ago
I recently found myself in a stale role, and hence I've been job searching lately, so I have recent experience. From my anecdotal experience, the local job market is hot for my skill set, so I'm looking for a 10% raise. I've gotten 3 offers from 3 companies. Two would not come up to my required salary so I walked. The third came up, but it was a W2 at a contracting shop, and wasn't too appealing for a couple of reasons. So I passed on that as well. I still get pinged multiple times per week, sometimes for the same job at the same company I've already turned down, which I find a bit amusing. Now I'm continueing the search, but openly talk about what I'm looking for salary wise, I've wasted quiet a lot of my own time this past month.
dba7dba 11y ago
This is why for every thing I learn in IT/computer, I angle for a skill that I can use in freelance or 1-person company. Not interested in some proprietary skill that requires expensive hardware to stay current. Such as Cisco or storage stuff.
pjungwir 11y ago
Interesting discussion here about whether candidates and companies should reveal their range up front. Personally I would not quit freelancing except for something really exceptional, so I lean toward talking numbers immediately. That saves my time, but I feel like it's actually pretty unreasonable. In the freelancing world, we suffer from a "market for lemons" situation where the bad freelancers hurt everyone's rates. To charge a premium rate you need prospects to trust you a priori, which probably means referrals. I suppose candidates for full-time jobs suffer the same thing: asking for an "unrealistic" salary at the beginning of the process, when you are an unknown, just gets you thrown out. I suppose the way around this is to have an insider who will vouch for you. Any other advice on being able to ask for a high salary and not be dismissed?
- Eridrus 11y ago
  I think it's more about company margins/culture than it is about them not dismissing you. Some companies are willing to pay top dollar, others are more interested in getting someone in their range, so name your price and move on if they blink.
ChuckMcM 11y ago
I expect there is more than one factor at work here. I've known folks who "grew up" in a single company; joined out of college, worked there 15+ years, got annual raises, then got laid off and then couldn't find work at their previous salary. And the expectation of an annual raise kept forcing up their salary but I don't think the company was actually evaluating whether or not the person was getting more valuable over time. I once had an interesting conversation with a recruiter who wanted me to pony up my current compensation. I asked, "Why is that relevant? You are the one with the job, and you are willing to pay some amount for someone to do that job, isn't it up to me to decide if I would be willing to do that job at the price offered?" There are jobs I would do for free, and jobs that you almost couldn't pay me enough to take, and that has nothing at all to do with what I'm currently being paid. And if someone insists, I really do think they are looking to have something on paper that they can point to which will give them a safe "out" for hiring someone else while minimizing lawsuits. So much safer than "we are looking for someone who has more time to spend in this position", or "we were really hoping for a masculine point of view", or "we don't think you could relate culturally to our customers." All of which would violate the equal opportunity guidelines.
- joncrocks 11y ago
  Regarding your first point, I think it's important to think about the fact that you may well be worth more to your current company than to another one, if you've been there a long time. Your experience in exactly what your current company does, the way it does it, the relationships you have within the organisation etc may mean that part of your worth within the organisation is related to how long you've been there.
  - ChuckMcM 11y ago
    I completely agree with this, there is certainly a strong value in knowing how to get things done within a particular company, and it is something that is usually not well documented. However, I have also observed that this value is also quite hard to quantify. I have seen the key individual to a particular process get transferred or leave after a management change resulted in their "food chain" not understanding this value. Only later when they ask "Why can't we ship X any more?" do they find out that person they felt was over paid and under utilized was in fact quite essential. Sadly, management that clueless is prone to yelling at everyone else rather than do a little introspection.
melted 11y ago
IMO the whole situation could easily be avoided if employers provided salary ranges up front. I heard that's what they do in Japan, and several recruiter pings I have received from there did contain the ranges. Alas they were too low to justify the aggravation of moving to another country, but from what I can tell, they were very respectable by Tokyo standards.
desireco42 11y ago
As someone who keeps getting more and more money, I find other limit as well. Your only job is to be in-demand and don't tell recruiters everything. Let them tell you, how much they can get you (and this is often bull, so think and research).
hackercomplex 11y ago
In my view the entire problem is that developers in general have been brainwashed into beliving that they are better off dealing with recruiters when in fact the best thing they could do for themselves would be to do their homework, that is, research companies that are hiring, figure out who to contact, and write a personalized introduction email. If you do that then you have two things in your favor already.. 1. you are cheaper to hire because there are no recruitment feeds associated with you. 2. you showed some initiative to zero them out, and you demonstrated that you have creative writing skills which are an important trait in software development
- city41 11y ago
  These are the bread and butter tactics of What Color Is Your Parachute. Still a relevant book, even in the tech industry IMO.
aaron695 11y ago
TL;DR people who are unemployed aren't willing to take less than 100,000 a year and feel like the system is screwing them? Off topic, but I've said I won't answer it because of commercial in confidence reasons before.
gizi 11y ago
I am only ever in the market for co-founder jobs, and not really looking at the moment, because I really like my current co-founder job. Besides good domain knowledge, and preferably an existing customer base, the non-technical co-founder will need to find enough money for the startup to survive until the inflection point. Otherwise, they are 12 in a dozen. If a potential non-technical co-founder wants to save money by not paying enough, it is quite easy to cut the discussion short and to move on to another candidate -- entire websites full of them. There is really no shortage there. Lather, rinse, repeat. Salary history? Sounds like a ridiculous concept. I don't even remember my previous salaries.
sqldba 11y ago
Wow, madness. So before we were told not to ask the question in interviews; but suddenly it's ok to be asked the question in interviews. For me it's definitely negotiable. If you can't afford me then after negotiation then any gulf can be made up with a guaranteed longer contract or shorter hours; it's as simple as that. Disqualifying off the bat is stupid, especially as some places pay extra because they need someone urgently for a short period.
learnstats2 11y ago
“I’m unemployable now as a result of getting to the top of the tree” This shows a lack of understanding of the market and poor self-awareness for someone who claims to be at the top of the tree. The average company is looking to employ someone who will do the same job cheaper. In order to earn more, it's necessary to identify employers who are willing to pay a premium for convenience or for an unusually skilled or experienced worker, and be aware of those before getting laid off. This man seems particularly aggrieved that he lost a role to a "young woman with five years experience". A white man should not and does not automatically trump a woman - if he costs more (which he doesn't actually know for sure) then that's his problem.
throwaway29342 11y ago
I did something sort of crazy when the last recruiter asked me about my salary. I lied. The number I told him I was being paid at the time was actually the number it would take for me to leave my job. He came back with an offer that was slightly higher than that and I accepted. Perhaps that's not the best idea?
pmorici 11y ago
The article doesn't really address it directly but they seem to be mainly talking about people who are looking for jobs who are currently _unemployed_. They are in a position of weakness when it comes to looking for a job and especially when negotiating salary. I think this has way more to do with that than any alleged trend of talking about salary up front. It's been the norm for decades to ask framing questions about salary early on.

187 points by kliao 11y ago

alvern 11y ago

Sigh, paywall

xlm1717 11y ago
Click the web link below the title, then click the story in the google results. Pay wall goes down.
- tarr11 11y ago
  Removed 1 step: https://www.google.com/search?q=High+Salaries+Haunt+Some+Job+Hunters&oq=High+Salaries+Haunt+Some+Job+Hunters&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i61.284j0j1&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=High+Salaries+Haunt+Some+Job...
- scottshepard 11y ago
  Actually it doesn't. WSJ seems to have closed the google loophole.
  - exhilaration 11y ago
    You're right! Even a Google search in an incognito window didn't work.
  - peterbraden 11y ago
    try opening in an incognito window.
  - xlm1717 11y ago
    That's weird, worked for me.
    - DrScump 11y ago
      Your WSJ cookies don't reflect enough prior access or were cleared.
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  Did not work for me.
- jokr004 11y ago
  The google trick has worked for me in the past, but it doesn't seem to be working now for this article..
  - shampine 11y ago
    I think they are dropping a cookie when you visit and hit the paywall then try to access the article through Google. Incognito works.
- forgetsusername 11y ago
  Is this something that's unlocked with karma? It used to confuse me every time someone mentioned it; it just wasn't there for me. Today, it is.
epimetheus 11y ago
I copied and pasted the link into a private window (Firefox) and it worked ok, just FYI for anybody that wants to read it like I did. Searching for title and clicking through Google didn't do it for me this time.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- pmiller2 11y ago
  Didn't work for me. Neither did the google link thing. Wonder what's going on here. :(
  - legohead 11y ago
    Neither did the browser extension "Wait! Google sent me." which was built just for these paywall sites. It looks like Google stopped punishing journalist sites that do this, or the sites don't care anymore.
    - mywittyname 11y ago
      I think Google has some sort of "push" system for publishers to use now.
beau26 11y ago
Text: After more than 20 years as an electronics engineer, Pete Edwards reached the low six-figure pay level. Now, as he looks for a job following a layoff, he finds that salary success a burden. Although his experience includes the sought-after field of 3-D printing, the 53-year-old hasn’t been able to land a permanent full-time job. Time and again, he says, employers seem to lose interest after he answers a question that they ask early on: “What was your last salary?” That question comes up sooner than ever nowadays. Hiring managers used to broach salary history or requirements only in later stages, after applicants had a chance to make an impression and state their case. Today, pay increasingly is mentioned early in the process, either as a required field in online applications—which are used more often—or during initial interviews, say recruiters, compensation consultants and job seekers. The shift is vexing applicants, mostly those of a certain age and pay level, who are concerned that a salary they worked to attain now gets in the way of having a job at all. “I’m unemployable now as a result of getting to the top of the tree,” Mr. Edwards lamented. ENLARGE Josh Rock, a recruiter at Fairview Health Services, a 20,000-employee health system in Minnesota, said that during the last recession, recruiters used compensation queries as a quick way to cull the large numbers of candidates for open jobs. The habit has stuck, he said. “Why not figure out what’s going on sooner in the process than doing a dance?” Human-resources executives say asking about pay right off the bat helps contain compensation costs, ensures that candidates have reasonable expectations and spares recruiters from chasing prospects they can’t afford. “Unfortunately, some clients use salary as a pre-screening question,” said Susan Vitale, chief marketing officer at iCIMS Inc., a provider of recruiting software in Matawan, N.J. “So if the role tops out at $55,000 and they say they want $60,000, it might knock the candidate out of consideration” even if the person would be open to salary negotiations. Screening candidates this way may be a factor in wage stagnation, some analysts suggest. Average hourly earnings rose 2.5% in 2015, modest by historical standards. Wage growth has averaged only about 2% for the past five years. Focusing on compensation history “holds down wages because now the jobs are being filled by people with lower salary expectations,” said Thomas Kochan, a professor of employment research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management. “We have a whole generation of people who are permanently adversely affected.” ENLARGE Though hiring tactics have received little attention in the economic debate about wage stagnation, Mr. Kochan said they could have profound effects: “The decisions of firms individually are…creating collectively this macro phenomenon of stagnation,” yet are hard to measure because they are shrouded in secrecy. U.S. employers continue to hold the line on wages despite six years of economic recovery and an unemployment rate of 5%. Finance chiefs are “probably looking ahead and saying they want to keep the escalation of labor costs from going up in a way that will put pressure on earnings,” said Ajit Kambil, global research director of Deloitte’s CFO Program. In Deloitte’s most recent quarterly survey, 47% of chief financial offers said they plan to work to lower or control labor costs this year, by taming compensation growth, reducing benefit costs or other means. Moreover, employers may feel they can lowball applicants because they believe there is still a surplus of qualified candidates. “Workers are still a little discounted” in most fields, said Linda Barrington, executive director of the Institute for Compensation Studies at Cornell University’s ILR School. “Employers won’t pay what the last person in the job was paid because labor is now on sale.” Steve Carpinelli recently applied for a public-relations position with a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C. The role called for a minimum of five-to-seven years of experience. He has more than 14. RELATED How to Field Questions About Salary Expectations Mr. Carpinelli’s pay reached high five figures before the 45-year-old switched to the generally lower-paying field of nonprofits. While preparing for a phone interview with the Washington organization, he discovered that the last person in the job earned $101,000. So when asked early on about his salary expectations, he put his range squarely around what the last employee earned, seeking $85,000 to $110,000. “After that, the conversation was very robotic, not a two-way conversation about what they’re truly looking for,” Mr. Carpinelli said. “I definitely got the impression that I’d priced myself out.” In his experience, “there has been a definite shift or emphasis on beginning the conversation with: ‘What is your salary range?’” Mr. Carpinelli said. “I was always told you never talk about salary until you’re given an offer. But I’ve noticed the salary-range question comes up far earlier in the conversation.” The organization ultimately hired a young woman with five years’ experience. Mr. Carpinelli is still looking for a permanent job. Older job seekers sometimes see such outcomes as evidence of bias. But “employers can make financial decisions and it’s not necessarily age discrimination,” said Raymond Peeler, a senior attorney-advisor at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “What an employee would have to prove…is that the employer is using the salary level as a proxy to disqualify all the older applicants.” Businessolver Inc., a benefits-administration firm in West Des Moines, Iowa, recently hired more than 100 people for its Denver office. Human-resources staffers ask about compensation in the middle of a six-step hiring process and use the answers to gauge applicants’ “level of reality,” said Marcy Klipfel, senior vice president of HR. “A lot of times what you’re looking at is are we going to waste time and get to the end of the process, and it turns out the person is way out of our range?” A majority of workers take a salary cut when they get a new job after a stretch of unemployment, but those over 45 usually take a bigger hit than workers under 35 years of age, according to research from Ms. Barrington and a Cornell colleague, Hassan Enayati. A survey by AARP last year found that of job seekers between 45 and 70 years old who found work after a spell of unemployment, nearly half earned less than before. Some employers hesitate to hire at far below a past salary, concerned that the employee would resent earning so much less. “If someone wants $100,000 and settles for $75,000, they’re not going to be happy,” said Steve Gross, a compensation specialist and senior partner at consulting firm Mercer. Workers, however, say they would like the chance to decide for themselves. “The presumption that I would walk into a job and get $150,000 is not there,” said Rosemary Lynch Kelleher, a baby boomer who has earned at that level during her 25-year career in international trade policy, and has been looking for a permanent job for several years. “I realize very clearly that it’s not there. And I would take something for $100,000 or $75,000.” In Austin, a woman who lost her six-figure position as a data architect in 2014 but recently landed a job, said she had been tempted to say she earned $60,000 to improve her chances of getting hired. While she was searching, the 63-year-old said: “I hate putting down what I want” in salary. “If you put down too much, they think you’re expensive. If you don’t put down enough, they think you’re undervaluing yourself.” Much of this ambiguity could be avoided if employers published a pay range for positions, but they don’t want to tip their hands. So experts suggest job seekers research market rates for particular positions and try to finesse salary questions. “Say, ‘I’m open to a salary commensurate with the job,” recommended Blake Nations, a former recruiter who was laid off and then founded Over50JobBoard.com. “And if they keep going, ask: ‘What do you expect to pay someone with my experience and education for this position?’ ” Some applicants, faced with a salary-history question they fear would exclude them from the start, have toyed with putting a bogus number in a required field in an online form. Mr. Edwards, the electronics engineer, says he tried that once. Not hearing back from the company, he contacted its HR department and was told he was too expensive. That baffled him because he had listed $1,000 as his previous pay. It turned out HR had changed that to $100,000, assuming it was a mistake.
OhHeyItsE 11y ago
Incognito
withdavidli 11y ago
Clicked link on mobile, chrome, and got me in. Thought that was strange since its WSJ.
imh 11y ago
Since the google thing doesn't work anymore, I deleted my cookies and it worked like a charm.

OhHeyItsE 11y ago

Finding engineers is soooo hard! There are no good engineers!

officialchicken 11y ago
And their advice is "take one for the team" because there are managers trying to control costs.
mooreds 11y ago
Translation: "There are no good engineers who will work for the price I'm willing to pay, either in terms of initial dollars or time to retrain." As the realtors I worked with used to say about houses, "there's no problem that price won't fix", and that works for labor as well as real estate.
wyclif 11y ago
"There's no shortage of smart, hardworking engineers. There's a shortage of smart, hardworking engineers willing to work for very little money." ~ David "Pardo" Keppel If you're having trouble hiring, it's probably because you're not paying enough. It turns out that talented people are worth paying a lot for.

free2rhyme214 11y ago

This is a surprise, said no one ever. Sometimes companies will pay for experience but often they'll hire someone younger who screws up more because they cost less.

y-c-o-m-b 11y ago
They might think it costs less, but I argue that's misleading. You need to factor in the mistakes, the longer training, slower adaptation, inefficiency, and a client's growing dissatisfaction with the product because of it all.
- free2rhyme214 11y ago
  I don't think it's misleading. Companies know mistakes cost money and experience doesn't always associate with better productivity.
  - iolothebard 11y ago
    Most companies don't have a inkling of how to actually measure productivity.
    - mooreds 11y ago
      To be fair, neither do most employees. It's a hard problem.

pmoriarty 11y ago

"Time and again, he says, employers seem to lose interest after he answers a question that they ask early on: 'What was your last salary?'" I never answer that question. Almost always it's been recruiters asking that (and only some recruiters, the less reputable ones). This is a seller's market for IT talent. You don't have to give in to bullying tactics to get a good job. I've had to walk away exactly once when a recruiter wouldn't accept that I wasn't going to tell him my previous salary and refused to work with me on that basis. The other recruiters who've asked accepted my refusal to reveal that information. They're generally more interested in getting paid for recruiting you than in finding out what you used to be paid. I also never reveal the salary I'm looking for and insist on doing my own salary negotiations with the employer. I let the employer make an offer they think is reasonable and go from there. You do have to be willing to walk away in the handful of times when this leads to an impasse. Fortunately, the way the IT job market is right now, there are plenty of other fish in the pond, and not showing your hand prematurely puts you in a much stronger negotiating position.

joezydeco 11y ago
But it goes the other way, too. I've been contacted by many many recruiters offering interesting jobs but won't discuss the salary range targeted for that position. So how much time are you willing to spend on resume polishing, phone screens, on-site interviews, getting to an offer...just to find out that they can't even come close to your current salary? So now I just flat out say what my jump-number is. Any answer other than "yeah, we can work with that" is a reason to end the conversation and save everybody's time.
- jasonkostempski 11y ago
  What's a jump-number? Googling it came up with your comment as the top result and then skydiving :)
  - coke12 11y ago
    The salary number that would convince joezydeco to "jump ship".

vinceguidry 11y ago

I have been thinking about this phenomenon for awhile and how to hedge against it. My feeling is that employees are getting more and more exposed to broader economic trends, and not just the low-wage workers. It's one thing to be at the low end of the totem pole, where anonymity and insecurity force you to hedge against the possibility of suddenly losing your job. But once you clear all that and find a bit of professional success, you're still not necessarily secure. So you have to extend this hedging behavior further out. Keep building your skills, expand into other fields so that you are more employable. Complacency will put you into this position eventually, it's just a matter of time. Don't leave a secure position to take one with more earning potential but less security. Constantly keep building bridges at your current job and don't give them a reason to fire you. Above all, try not to hate your job. You may find 5 years down the road that it was the best thing you had going for you. As nasty as the work world can get, it's better than not working.

Riod 11y ago
That's rather depressing to hear. I think it is a question of how you rate yourself (objectively). If you're good, you can go on to found the biggest hedge fund of all time (Bridgewater). If not, then yea, I think yours is the way to go.
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  Eh, I wouldn't look at it that way. Avoiding complacency and building bridges is just as important for those with healthy egos as it is for those with weak ones.
RamshackleJ 11y ago
Building bridges != being a loyal employee. Pull your weight and support the people around you but don't grovel to your company! You're a free-thinking human being with value creating skills! Masking how you feel and trying to work the system will only lead to regret. Find out who you are and what your principles are and stand by them, only then will you be able to live with yourself when you get old. Also work can happen outside of the bounds of a company. Your post makes you sound really burned out, I hope you're doing ok = )

cushychicken 11y ago

The moral of the story: never, never, NEVER answer questions about your salary to a recruiter. It firmly pigeonholes your next salary to your current one, instead of the value you bring to a company. Patrick MacKenzie's article on salary negotiations is excellent (I would maybe even say "required") reading on the subject.

TomSawyer 11y ago
This one? http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/
- cushychicken 11y ago
  That's the one. Probably Patrick's best piece of advice, in terms of broad application.
  - Terretta 11y ago
    Content is great. Anti-iDevice editor note is odd: > [Editor’s note: At nearly 7,000 words, you probably don’t want to try reading this on an iDevice. Bookmark it and come back later.] My iDevice is a 13" 5.6K screen that I hold in my hands like a magazine. Surely better suited to long form reading than a lower res rMBP I generally read at a desk or table. iPad had Retina display since iPad 3rd Gen released in 2012 when this was written.
ryguytilidie 11y ago
Recruiter here. I think: "The moral of the story: never, never, NEVER answer questions about your salary to a recruiter." is pretty simplistic and naive. You simply have to figure out how to get what you want. If you want 180 and currently make 140 and a recruiter asks what you make, just say something like "my expectation for my next role is around 180". You say that and you both probably get what you want and save a lot of back and forth.
- 11y ago

pc86 11y ago

> After more than 20 years as an electronics engineer, Pete Edwards reached the low six-figure pay level. Where is it that late-career engineers are barely pulling in six figures? Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of money (3x mean personal income in the US, and ~1.75x mean HHI, give or take), but I'd expect most senior folks in any engineering field to be in the mid 100k range if not pushing 185ish. > Time and again, he says, employers seem to lose interest after he answers a question that they ask early on: “What was your last salary?” Your last salary has absolutely no bearing on what you are worth or what the market rate is for the position for which you're applying. You have absolutely nothing to gain by sharing a previous salary. > A survey by AARP last year found that of job seekers between 45 and 70 years old who found work after a spell of unemployment, nearly half earned less than before. I don't think this is that surprising, is it? If I make $100k and lose my job, often with little notice, I will take $80k. If I make $100k and leave of my own volition, it's unlikely I'll entertain anything below $110 or $115.

maxsilver 11y ago
> Where is it that late-career engineers are barely pulling in six figures? Almost everywhere in the Midwest, except Chicago perhaps. Unless your remote working, low cost of living doesn't come without a big catch.
- joezydeco 11y ago
  No, it's Chicago too, unless you're working on low-latency finance stuff.
  - nicholasjarnold 11y ago
    Untrue. I lived and worked as a software engineer in Chicago (downtown) for a number of years before moving westward. Most mid-career developers I knew there were comfortably in the 100's and only one worked at the CME ('finance stuff', in C++). It boils down to simple economic rules. If you're good at developing software, there aren't a lot of people like you looking for a job and the market has a high demand for your skill then you are probably doing something wrong if you're not earning well into the 100's or higher (if that is what you're trying to optimize for).

njharman 11y ago

Moving from engineer in financial industry to engineer in "regular" industry (same city) I just accepted and told potential employers I expected a pay cut. Sooo much money in finance, everyone is "over" paid.

votr 11y ago
I'm in finance and looking to get out. Why did you move?
- njharman 11y ago
  Nothing to do with industry. I was in a more or less dead end devops role. I wanted more of a pure programming role.

smileysteve 11y ago

I find recruiters hurt this more than help it too. If you tell them your last salary, they'll just try to get enough % more to make it worth the transition.

sirkneeland 11y ago
Why not tell them an imaginary salary then?
- noarchy 11y ago
  >Why not tell them an imaginary salary then? Indeed. After all, some companies suddenly become "flexible" once they find a candidate who really blows them away. Their alleged "top range" becomes malleable. So their range can be imaginary as well. In the information war that both sides are waging, similar tactics can be used.
X-Istence 11y ago
That's what I don't tell anyone what my previous salary was. I am looking for X dollars per hour, do you have anything for me in that range? Yes or no... That's it. I'll generally let them know it is open to negotiation as well.

y-c-o-m-b 11y ago

Companies that hire like this will typically be the first to layoff employees when shareholders are not happy. They often struggle to meet customer expectations over time. This is particularly true if they have never ending layers of management going up the chain. That's why startup culture is so appealing to many.

mywittyname 11y ago
If you buy at Walmart prices, expect Walmart quality.

lmm 11y ago

The tendency to talk about salary upfront is a good one for both sides - it avoids wasting everyone's time when the expectations simply don't align. It does need to be mutual though. I expect employers to include some salary guidance in a job ad. And if they claim to offer market rates, I expect them to live up to that.

mhurron 11y ago
> It does need to be mutual though. No it doesn't. The hiring company needs to be upfront, but the candidate doesn't. The company has a budget range set for the position whereas the candidate is asking the question 'Am I willing to do this job for the money they are offering me.'
- lmm 11y ago
  Disagree. Most of the time the company could in fact pay 2x what they thought was the top of their range for an exceptional candidate. It's a rare candidate who's in a position to take an exceptional job for 1/2 what they thought was the bottom of their range.
pkaye 11y ago
At some of my recent employers, for a couple standard roles, we have a single job profile but the expectations and salary are scaled with their skill level. Generally we combined their years of experience, skill level (based on interview) and current salary to derive an offer. So we would take the years of experience to get the base range, use the skill level to adjust within the range, then compare to current salary to see if we were fair or not. From there, the candidate is free to negotiate. The problem would occur when someone had lots of years working but their skill level is below par. Basically people who have done a narrow set of skills over the years and haven't broadened their knowledge. If we give them a low salary, it would be insulting and if it is too high for their skill then it would be unfair to some of the current employees (salary inversion.)
arprocter 11y ago
It's strange to me that US job ads don't state the wage being offered. In the UK a ballpark pay figure is normally expected information

skewart 11y ago

"Say, ‘I’m open to a salary commensurate with the job,” recommended Blake Nations, a former recruiter who was laid off and then founded Over50JobBoard.com. “And if they keep going, ask: ‘What do you expect to pay someone with my experience and education for this position?'" This. If you're asked early on just flip the question back to them. Companies don't publish salaries for jobs because they're afraid of turning people off from applying to the job in the first place. They know applicants are more likely to take a lower offer after they've invested time into the process and maybe have a little rapport with the interviewers. You can use the exact same strategy as a job seeker. Companies can be more likely to accept a higher ask after they've put resources into interviewing you and gotten to know you a bit. That said, an honest chat about expectations early on - where the hirer says roughly how much they're looking to pay and asks if it's something you'd be interested in - can be a really nice way to save everyone's time.

gohrt 11y ago
That advice doesn't apply at all when you are going through a recruiter who is or plays dumb: "I just need you to fill in this form so we can proceed. [I don't care if if makes you mistrust me and management, and you come in on Day 1 suspicious and with low morale]" Big companies, at least, have a relatively streamlined process to tilt the negotiations in their favor as much as they can systemically.
- pmoriarty 11y ago
  I fill out those forms but leave that field empty. If they have a problem with that, I'll find another recruiter. There's no shortage of them around. As for big companies, I've never had any of them even notice that I didn't fill in that field. So that's never been an issue.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

marktangotango 11y ago

I recently found myself in a stale role, and hence I've been job searching lately, so I have recent experience. From my anecdotal experience, the local job market is hot for my skill set, so I'm looking for a 10% raise. I've gotten 3 offers from 3 companies. Two would not come up to my required salary so I walked. The third came up, but it was a W2 at a contracting shop, and wasn't too appealing for a couple of reasons. So I passed on that as well. I still get pinged multiple times per week, sometimes for the same job at the same company I've already turned down, which I find a bit amusing. Now I'm continueing the search, but openly talk about what I'm looking for salary wise, I've wasted quiet a lot of my own time this past month.

dba7dba 11y ago

This is why for every thing I learn in IT/computer, I angle for a skill that I can use in freelance or 1-person company. Not interested in some proprietary skill that requires expensive hardware to stay current. Such as Cisco or storage stuff.

pjungwir 11y ago

Interesting discussion here about whether candidates and companies should reveal their range up front. Personally I would not quit freelancing except for something really exceptional, so I lean toward talking numbers immediately. That saves my time, but I feel like it's actually pretty unreasonable. In the freelancing world, we suffer from a "market for lemons" situation where the bad freelancers hurt everyone's rates. To charge a premium rate you need prospects to trust you a priori, which probably means referrals. I suppose candidates for full-time jobs suffer the same thing: asking for an "unrealistic" salary at the beginning of the process, when you are an unknown, just gets you thrown out. I suppose the way around this is to have an insider who will vouch for you. Any other advice on being able to ask for a high salary and not be dismissed?

Eridrus 11y ago
I think it's more about company margins/culture than it is about them not dismissing you. Some companies are willing to pay top dollar, others are more interested in getting someone in their range, so name your price and move on if they blink.

ChuckMcM 11y ago

I expect there is more than one factor at work here. I've known folks who "grew up" in a single company; joined out of college, worked there 15+ years, got annual raises, then got laid off and then couldn't find work at their previous salary. And the expectation of an annual raise kept forcing up their salary but I don't think the company was actually evaluating whether or not the person was getting more valuable over time. I once had an interesting conversation with a recruiter who wanted me to pony up my current compensation. I asked, "Why is that relevant? You are the one with the job, and you are willing to pay some amount for someone to do that job, isn't it up to me to decide if I would be willing to do that job at the price offered?" There are jobs I would do for free, and jobs that you almost couldn't pay me enough to take, and that has nothing at all to do with what I'm currently being paid. And if someone insists, I really do think they are looking to have something on paper that they can point to which will give them a safe "out" for hiring someone else while minimizing lawsuits. So much safer than "we are looking for someone who has more time to spend in this position", or "we were really hoping for a masculine point of view", or "we don't think you could relate culturally to our customers." All of which would violate the equal opportunity guidelines.

joncrocks 11y ago
Regarding your first point, I think it's important to think about the fact that you may well be worth more to your current company than to another one, if you've been there a long time. Your experience in exactly what your current company does, the way it does it, the relationships you have within the organisation etc may mean that part of your worth within the organisation is related to how long you've been there.
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  I completely agree with this, there is certainly a strong value in knowing how to get things done within a particular company, and it is something that is usually not well documented. However, I have also observed that this value is also quite hard to quantify. I have seen the key individual to a particular process get transferred or leave after a management change resulted in their "food chain" not understanding this value. Only later when they ask "Why can't we ship X any more?" do they find out that person they felt was over paid and under utilized was in fact quite essential. Sadly, management that clueless is prone to yelling at everyone else rather than do a little introspection.

melted 11y ago

IMO the whole situation could easily be avoided if employers provided salary ranges up front. I heard that's what they do in Japan, and several recruiter pings I have received from there did contain the ranges. Alas they were too low to justify the aggravation of moving to another country, but from what I can tell, they were very respectable by Tokyo standards.

desireco42 11y ago

As someone who keeps getting more and more money, I find other limit as well. Your only job is to be in-demand and don't tell recruiters everything. Let them tell you, how much they can get you (and this is often bull, so think and research).

hackercomplex 11y ago

In my view the entire problem is that developers in general have been brainwashed into beliving that they are better off dealing with recruiters when in fact the best thing they could do for themselves would be to do their homework, that is, research companies that are hiring, figure out who to contact, and write a personalized introduction email. If you do that then you have two things in your favor already.. 1. you are cheaper to hire because there are no recruitment feeds associated with you. 2. you showed some initiative to zero them out, and you demonstrated that you have creative writing skills which are an important trait in software development

city41 11y ago
These are the bread and butter tactics of What Color Is Your Parachute. Still a relevant book, even in the tech industry IMO.

aaron695 11y ago

TL;DR people who are unemployed aren't willing to take less than 100,000 a year and feel like the system is screwing them? Off topic, but I've said I won't answer it because of commercial in confidence reasons before.

gizi 11y ago

I am only ever in the market for co-founder jobs, and not really looking at the moment, because I really like my current co-founder job. Besides good domain knowledge, and preferably an existing customer base, the non-technical co-founder will need to find enough money for the startup to survive until the inflection point. Otherwise, they are 12 in a dozen. If a potential non-technical co-founder wants to save money by not paying enough, it is quite easy to cut the discussion short and to move on to another candidate -- entire websites full of them. There is really no shortage there. Lather, rinse, repeat. Salary history? Sounds like a ridiculous concept. I don't even remember my previous salaries.

sqldba 11y ago

Wow, madness. So before we were told not to ask the question in interviews; but suddenly it's ok to be asked the question in interviews. For me it's definitely negotiable. If you can't afford me then after negotiation then any gulf can be made up with a guaranteed longer contract or shorter hours; it's as simple as that. Disqualifying off the bat is stupid, especially as some places pay extra because they need someone urgently for a short period.

learnstats2 11y ago

“I’m unemployable now as a result of getting to the top of the tree” This shows a lack of understanding of the market and poor self-awareness for someone who claims to be at the top of the tree. The average company is looking to employ someone who will do the same job cheaper. In order to earn more, it's necessary to identify employers who are willing to pay a premium for convenience or for an unusually skilled or experienced worker, and be aware of those before getting laid off. This man seems particularly aggrieved that he lost a role to a "young woman with five years experience". A white man should not and does not automatically trump a woman - if he costs more (which he doesn't actually know for sure) then that's his problem.

throwaway29342 11y ago

I did something sort of crazy when the last recruiter asked me about my salary. I lied. The number I told him I was being paid at the time was actually the number it would take for me to leave my job. He came back with an offer that was slightly higher than that and I accepted. Perhaps that's not the best idea?

pmorici 11y ago

The article doesn't really address it directly but they seem to be mainly talking about people who are looking for jobs who are currently _unemployed_. They are in a position of weakness when it comes to looking for a job and especially when negotiating salary. I think this has way more to do with that than any alleged trend of talking about salary up front. It's been the norm for decades to ask framing questions about salary early on.