High Salaries Haunt Some Job Hunters

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.

pmiller22• 10 years ago

Didn't work for me. Neither did the google link thing. Wonder what's going on here. :(

beau26• 10 years 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.

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.

alvern2• 10 years ago

thank you!

vorotato• 10 years ago

Piracy on HN. wags finger

TheOtherHobbes• 10 years ago

"ensures that candidates have reasonable expectations"

"a quick way to cull the large numbers of candidates for open jobs"

"holds down wages because now the jobs are being filled by people with lower salary expectations"

"U.S. employers continue to hold the line on wages"

"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"

"47% of chief financial offers said they plan to work to lower or control labor costs this year, by taming compensation growth"

gauge applicants’ “level of reality"

Very interesting language in this piece.

Between culling applicants, testing their level of "reality", taming their unrealistic expectations, and holding the line, I think we can speculate that perhaps CFOs are panicking about rising wage pressure, using propaganda pieces like this one to reassure themselves, and trying hard to pressure applicants to be "realistic."

If employers want to try to save money by flying budget instead of first, they should be encouraged to do that. Maybe eventually they'll understand how that works out for them.

OhHeyItsE2• 10 years ago

Incognito

withdavidli• 10 years ago

Clicked link on mobile, chrome, and got me in. Thought that was strange since its WSJ.

imh• 10 years ago

Since the google thing doesn't work anymore, I deleted my cookies and it worked like a charm.

OhHeyItsE2• 10 years ago

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

officialchicken• 10 years ago

And their advice is "take one for the team" because there are managers trying to control costs.

mooreds2• 10 years 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• 10 years 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.

free2rhyme2142• 10 years 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-b2• 10 years 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.

free2rhyme2142• 10 years ago

I don't think it's misleading. Companies know mistakes cost money and experience doesn't always associate with better productivity.

pmoriarty5• 10 years 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.

joezydeco5• 10 years 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• 10 years ago

What's a jump-number? Googling it came up with your comment as the top result and then skydiving :)

srpeck• 10 years ago

My standard response is "What is the pay range? Who is the client?" to the recruiter emails. The recruiters that get back to you generally mean business. Because of this, I have a huge amount of data on contract rates now. Also, a good side effect is that at least someone is telling them their rates are too low. Hope it helps another consultant down the line...

whoiskevin• 10 years ago

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.

Can't upvote that enough! I've been doing this for years. I don't have time to waste and if they won't talk the numbers there is no point in having the conversation. Statements like "we are competitive" or my other favorite "can you send us proof of your current salary" are hilarious. The proof is my favorite. What is the point of that? If I won't talk to you for less than x dollars there is no value in proving what I currently make.

tossaway17• 10 years ago

As someone who's regularly on the other side of the hiring (i.e. negotiating with candidates), I often prefer to have some insight into a candidate's rough salary requirements early in the process -- especially if it's someone that might demand more than I could offer. The hiring process is a huge time commitment for both me and the candidate -- I don't want all that time to be wasted if we could identify early on that it's not going to be a good fit.

I wouldn't necessarily walk away from a candidate who wouldn't share approximate salary requirements early on in the process but it would probably be an added red flag if it was someone where I already had this concern.

pmoriarty5• 10 years ago

So just tell the candidate what the salary range for the position is. If that number's a dealbreaker for them, they'll let you know. Why does it always have to be the candidate who shows their cards first?

Personally, for me there are no salary-based dealbreakers. There's always room for negotiation, after both sides determine there's a good fit.

noddingham• 10 years ago

Then you should share the range for the position and let the candidate decide if it's worth continuing.

fweespeech4• 10 years ago

Posting the salary range for the position solves this problem.

Riod5• 10 years ago

I think the issue is that a fair number of people doing hiring think this is still the 1980s. People worth hiring would like the company to be upfront with them too. If you put the salary range in the posting or mentioned it upfront then problem solved no?

ska• 10 years ago

So I presume you are sharing your salary range early, then?

zippergz• 10 years ago

I've found this to be an excellent way to waste a bunch of time by getting far along in the process, only to find out near the end that the company won't make an offer that's anywhere near my requirements. While I don't like being the first to name a number, I also haven't found putting the discussion off until the end of the process to be beneficial.

I've been on the hiring side as a manager in a number of companies, and I've NEVER seen a situation where a candidate was so uniquely awesome that the company was willing to make an offer drastically larger than their normal range for that role. A bit more? Sure. Some more stock or something? Often. But not, say, 50% more salary than anyone else at that level is getting.

After many years in this industry on both the candidate and hiring manager side, I believe that it's in everyone's best interest to make sure you can at least get in the right ballpark early in the process before you waste everyone time.

fweespeech4• 10 years ago

I've been on the hiring side as a manager in a number of companies, and I've NEVER seen a situation where a candidate was so uniquely awesome that the company was willing to make an offer drastically larger than their normal range for that role. A bit more? Sure. Some more stock or something? Often. But not, say, 50% more salary than anyone else at that level is getting.

Fyi, at $DayJob we have one guy at my level who makes 50% more than anyone else at the level he is at.

So it does happen but its unusual. [e.g. Developer A-Z get $60-80k, Developer Unicorn gets $120k]

SwellJoe• 10 years ago

How old are you?

I think something often unsaid in conversations about stuff like this is that ageism is rampant in the tech sector. I haven't experienced it first-hand (and I'm probably just now approaching the age where it might be a factor, and I haven't looked for a full-time job in a couple of decades), but I know several folks who have. Even when they've been willing to take lower salaries, when applying for startups, in particular, older folks often get passed over. It gets called things like "cultural fit", etc.

But, the thing is, we're talking about a "low six-figure salary" here, which is not that high for engineering work. In fact, in many markets, it's the baseline for anyone with more than a couple of years experience. I can't believe salary is the primary motivating factor, if it is a reasonable salary, well within the bounds of expected pay for people with experience.

I haven't been in the job market since I was quite young (I've run my own companies since my 20s, with some contract work along the way to make ends meet), but, I know my dad experienced this to some degree; and he was an engineer in an industry that was not nearly as ageist as high tech fields often are (he worked in the oil and gas industry). His salary climbed through his 30s and 40s, and then finding work became more difficult in his 50s, and he retired early partly due to health issues, but also because of difficulty finding good long-term work.

I don't think salary is the only factor here, especially given that most of the folks I know who've experienced this aren't insisting on making more than their peers doing the same work. The people motivated by money tend to rise up to management roles. The engineers who are driven by the desire to build things just want to make a decent salary while being in an environment where they get to build things. The most productive software engineer I think I've ever worked with was in his late 50s, and was making less than a number of developers in the company (but he had a private office and a few other perks that no one else got, and got to work on stuff that excited him, so he seemed reasonably content).

ChemicalWarfare• 10 years ago

As long as the recruiter (either a headhunter or a company recruiter) is up front with what they can offer compensation wise I don't have a problem telling them where I'm at and where I want to be salary-wise. If it's apparent that there's no match there - saves time to all the parties involved. Sure you don't want to be "pigeonholed" into an X..Y salary bucket forever but for the short term while looking for the next opportunity that's just the reality of the situation.

EC1• 10 years ago

My mentality going in is "please give me a reason to walk away". The few that don't are always surprising offers and get me excited. I go in determined to find a reason to walk away.

fecak• 10 years ago

I own my recruiting agency, and I don't care what your last salary was. I do care about what you are looking for so I don't waste your time, my time, or the client's time. I also realize that any target range you give me before even meeting the client may increase or even decrease after you learn all about the company, team, benefits, etc.

All that said, a candidate that knows their market value should never have to fear talking about salary history or expectations. If you know your market rate, and you stick to that as your expectation, you never have to worry about being underpaid. Market rate can be hard to define sometimes, and there are clearly companies that are willing to pay above market rate in certain scenarios, but candidates who do their research (or trust the knowledge of others) never have to worry about talking compensation.

vacri• 10 years ago

All that said, a candidate that knows their market value should never have to fear talking about salary history or expectations.

The main article starts with an anecdote about how talking about salary history prevents a guy from getting work.

Bahamut• 10 years ago

I actually am happy to reveal the salary, mainly because I find myself on the higher end of the compensation scale for my experience. When you're on the higher end, it can help on the candidate side to avoid wasting time with prospective employers who want to lowball.

It also doesn't stop me from negotiating hard, since I have turned down drastically higher numbers than most companies are willing to pay, so they know I easily have options. I'm more than willing to walk away from recruiters (and employers) who want to coerce me into accepting bad deals. Setting number expectations upfront with knowledge of the market saves me time, and tends to be enough to weed out the crap.

vinceguidry6• 10 years ago

I would not tell recruiters my current salary, ($75K) but I did tell him my target salary, which was market rate for a mid-level Ruby dev in my city. ($115K) He wanted to go in at $110K.

I kept telling him how odd it was to be negotiating salary upfront, and he told me "that's just how recruiting works." I just shrugged and let him do his job. If I'd wanted to negotiate my salary myself, I wouldn't be using a recruiter. Truth be told, I'd take $95K.

I learned from the art world, a lot of times "market value" is a fiction created by people whose job it is to manage expectations on all sides. It's in everybody's best interest to simply accept the status quo. Sure, you can buck the system and gain an additional $10-20K, but that takes a lot of effort and I'd rather put that effort elsewhere.

People buy into the cult of individualism too much. There was an article a month or so back about the maple syrup cartel. People here were applauding the renegades bucking the cartel. Not me. I'd get on very good terms with my cartel rep, get him a very good gift basket for Christmas, jump through every hoop they want me to jump through. The cartel takes a nasty, volatile market and smooths it out and makes it into a nice, reliable engine. That's what I want to be a part of. Not a damn free-for-all.

Any other career field, it would be 10+ years before I can make $100K. Here I managed to do it in 3 years. Be a team player. Climb the ladder, pay your dues. It doesn't take as long as you think.

pmoriarty5• 10 years ago

"If I'd wanted to negotiate my salary myself, I wouldn't be using a recruiter."

For me, recruiters are useful for two reasons: to find me interesting opportunities and to help me get an interview.

When they've served those two functions, I'd prefer them to just get out of my way. From that point on, I feel my own interests are best served by me representing myself.

The recruiter's real customer is not really any one particular candidate, who they might see just once in their whole career, but the employer, who will likely be a repeat customer if the recruiter satisfies their needs. Looked upon from that perspective, it's not always in the recruiter's interest to land the candidate the highest salary possible. That might get the recruiter a higher cut that one time, but their real customer might not be too pleased if the recruiter keeps sending them expensive candidates. They'd be far happier if the recruiter managed to get them a sweet deal on a good worker.

So I'll just keep doing my own negotiations, thank you very much.

eastbayjake• 10 years ago

Be a team player. Climb the ladder, pay your dues. It doesn't take as long as you think.

This attitude is why engineers get bullied and steamrolled into working for a small fraction of the value they create for their employers, leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table over the course of their careers. Being a team player is for after you're on the team -- but before that happens it's not personal, it's business. Anyone who takes it personally and not as a purely business negotiation is not someone you should work for.

patmcguire• 10 years ago

They have the same incentives as realtors selling homes. If you're commission's 15%, what's the value of 15% of the extra $5k versus time?

ikeboy• 10 years ago

By realizing you have to use the system and studying how to get the system to do your work, you learn how to adapt the system to your desires. Or you can fight it steadily, as a small undeclared war, for the whole of your life.

Many a second-rate fellow gets caught up in some little twitting of the system, and carries it through to warfare. He expends his energy in a foolish project. Now you are going to tell me that somebody has to change the system. I agree; somebody's has to. Which do you want to be? The person who changes the system or the person who does first-class science? Which person is it that you want to be? Be clear, when you fight the system and struggle with it, what you are doing, how far to go out of amusement, and how much to waste your effort fighting the system. My advice is to let somebody else do it and you get on with becoming a first-class scientist. Very few of you have the ability to both reform the system and become a first-class scientist.

From http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html

There's a couple more quotes like that. Very similar to your point.

ido• 10 years ago

    Sure, you can buck the system and gain an
    additional $10-20K, but that takes a lot of
    effort and I'd rather put that effort
    elsewhere.

$10-20k per year is a lot of money for an extra few hours or days of tenacity.

mrfusion• 10 years ago

You're not worried about wasting your time on salary mismatches?

Consultant324524• 10 years ago

I'm the exact opposite. I'm at a rate that's above the local market, so I mostly have to work remotely for firms in areas with higher cost of living. Any recruiter is going to find my salary range within the first 90 seconds of talking to me. This allows me to filter out 90% of calls because the salary range they're offering isn't even close.

LargeCompanies• 10 years ago

If recruiters are chasing me while I'm gainfully employed...

I, jack up the rate Im currently making, which has worked once; got a better paying gig.

If recruiters are chasing me while I'm looking for my next gig...

I make up a fair livable wage salary that won't push me out of consideration

vinceguidry6• 10 years 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.

Riod5• 10 years 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.

vinceguidry6• 10 years 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• 10 years 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 = )

cushychicken3• 10 years 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• 10 years ago

This one? http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/

cushychicken3• 10 years ago

That's the one. Probably Patrick's best piece of advice, in terms of broad application.

ryguytilidie3• 10 years 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.

skewart2• 10 years ago

Exactly. There is never a reason to tell anyone your current salary, just what you're looking for now.

gedy2• 10 years ago

Thanks for the insight. Though most of your peers I've dealt with only frame it as "what's your current salary" not expectations.

pc863• 10 years ago

Not a recruiter but I've gotten all but my current job through recruiters.

I think the quoted moral still applies - you obviously have to disclose what you want to earn if you expect to actually earn that. However, what I made at my last job had zero bearing on my expected salary at my current job. If a recruiter is just trying to find out what I want, they can ask. However, I think more often than not they're getting paid on the spread and if they can place me in a job with a cap of $180 for $150, they'll do so and pocket whatever their percentage of the spread is.[0]

[0] I know this isn't how all recruiters are paid, but many are.

pmiller22• 10 years ago

Exactly! I wish more recruiters thought like this. There's absolutely no point for either the recruiter or the candidate to go through an interview process only to get an offer that won't be accepted. For instance, I'm working at a great place right now, and it would take a significant bump in salary to get me to even consider moving.

kafkaesq• 10 years ago

I think he meant questions about current (or past) salary.

gedy2• 10 years ago

I've tried that (nicely), but it backfires too. Some companies are either old school or clueless on what to offer and have treated me pretty badly and called off interviewing further well into interviewing due not telling them that. E.g. "We've NEVER had someone be so stubborn about sharing their salary".

I realize those places were likely toxic, but it can be never-wracking to someone who needs a job.

jrs235• 10 years ago

"We've NEVER had someone be so stubborn about sharing their salary".

If I heard that and felt I was going to walk away anyway, I'd be tempted to throw back "How much do you make?" And watch to see if they squirm to not share.

If they came back with "what I make has nothing to do with this position you're being interviewed for" come back with "then neither does my previous salaries, if they do then I need to know how much other folks in other positions in this company make so I can gauge whether I think this company will still be here in the future."

draw_down• 10 years ago

Hmm, I would just say something in line with what I want out of the new company. They want a number, they can have a number. They might not like it, but that's life.

pc863• 10 years 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• 10 years 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.

joezydeco5• 10 years ago

No, it's Chicago too, unless you're working on low-latency finance stuff.

lastofus• 10 years ago

6 figures is the exception, but it's far from impossible in Milwaukee and Madison writing code.

thorin• 10 years ago

Could be in the uk. Tech jobs get sparse once you go over £60k outside London.

kasey_junk• 10 years ago

Depending on what "electronics engineer" means it is perfectly viable that he was at a low six figure number. The electrical engineering field generally in the US has been dramatically outsourced to Asia which has caused obvious downward price pressure.

kevin_thibedeau• 10 years ago

I had to side step into firmware because of this. Amazing that they're starting the beat the drum for even more EEs because of a "shortage" when there are so many now that can't find employment in their field.

TwiztidK• 10 years ago

I work in the engineering department of a large electrical utility company. Although no one here really talks about salary, based on what I am paid and our corporate promotion schedule I assume that most late career engineers are in the very low $100k range. The only people exceeding that would be the managers of the engineering department.

Spooky233• 10 years ago

At 45 you become untouchable. Too old to be young, too young to be old. How many 50 year olds do you see in SV companies?

I knew a guy who was about 50, brilliant, brilliant engineer working for one of the big IT players. Well respected and trusted advisor to many customers. He got vaporized in some big restructuring that hit his division.

Because of non-compete and what he did, he was basically out of work for almost a year, and was stuck in career purgatory for a few years doing random contract work.

greggarious• 10 years ago

I don't understand - I thought non-competes were unenforceable in CA?

geoelectric2• 10 years ago

I see quite a few 50 year olds in larger, more established companies. Older people don't join startups because they can't afford to, as a general rule, but the rest of the age skew that exists is as much because the current round of technological skill set is rooted in the GUI and Internet advances of the 90s as much as anything. That ends up putting a soft bound on career length based on if you did your primary learning before or after that.

Anyone older cut their teeth on assembly or C, NetBIOS, and CLI and may or may not have stayed current afterwards. Consider that the industry was a lot "older" (just look at old pictures) until those technological shifts happened and shook out all the people that learned in the 60s or 70s.

If something like quantum computing or a parallel functional computing revolution or VR/augmented interfaces or anything else grossly disruptive to current development practices comes around, we're all going to be in the same boat: learn or die. Getting through that is not so much a factor of age as the circumstances around age and one's willingness to keep at it.

quaffapint• 10 years ago

Around here in the mid-atlantic states I know that's the norm - and actually can be lower than that. It's not until you start managing teams do you get near the lower mid 100s.

aplusbi• 10 years ago

"Six-figure salary" encompasses everything from $100k to $999,999 (okay, that's a bit pedantic perhaps but you get what I mean). $185k is still low six-figures.

thedufer• 10 years ago

"six-figure salary" implies a log scale, I would think. So 185k is about a quarter of the way from 100k to 1M. Still potentially "low", I suppose.

collyw• 10 years ago

Europe, you will only be on 5 figures in most countries.

njharman2• 10 years 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• 10 years ago

I'm in finance and looking to get out. Why did you move?

njharman2• 10 years 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• 10 years 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• 10 years ago

Why not tell them an imaginary salary then?

noarchy• 10 years 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• 10 years 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-b2• 10 years 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.

mywittyname2• 10 years ago

If you buy at Walmart prices, expect Walmart quality.

lmm2• 10 years 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• 10 years 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.'

lmm2• 10 years 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• 10 years 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.)

arprocter2• 10 years 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

corin_• 10 years ago

Depends on the industry, I see lots of management/marketing/bizdev job postings which just say something along the lines of "competitive salary offered", including roles where you'd guess the salary might be £20k or £150k.

skewart2• 10 years 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• 10 years 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.

pmoriarty5• 10 years 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.

marktangotango• 10 years 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.

dba7dba3• 10 years 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• 10 years 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• 10 years 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.

ChuckMcM3• 10 years 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• 10 years 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.

ChuckMcM3• 10 years 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.

geodel• 10 years ago

Very true. Sometime back I interviewed a person for Java related work. He had roughly 20 years of experience. Unfortunately most of knowledge and skills were intimately related to his last employer. The said person was jobless for 1 year so. Apparently not much use of company specific skills.

biot• 10 years ago

Both sides are interested in getting a price and, ultimately, it's the person in the weaker position who ends up revealing theirs. Imagine the roof of your house was getting old and started to leak, so you figure it's time to replace it. Upon contacting a roofing company and inquiring what it would cost, they say "You're the one who wants a new roof and are willing to pay for that being done, so you should be offering a price. How much is having a dry roof over your family's head and preserving your home's value by avoiding water damage worth to you? What's the current value of your home? Perhaps we can work on a percentage basis since we're protecting your investment for the next 20 years." Of course, you wouldn't accept such an "enterprise sales" tactic because they're in the weaker position (fairly close to being a commodity) and you have dozens of qualified choices so you'll insist they reveal their hand.

A job situation is no different. If it's a role requiring only "commodity" experience which dozens of qualified candidates are available for and wanting, they're going to pick the best combination of price and performance that they can find. If you have special talents that only you are uniquely suited for, you're the one who will be asking them about their offer.

ChuckMcM3• 10 years ago

True, in the article the people are looking for jobs as opposed to being cold called / emailed by a recruiter. As an employer one of the things I liked about hired.com was that you could put out there the salary you were willing to pay for the position and that got that out of the way right away.

dpweb2• 10 years ago

It's an interesting analogy. I would say the customer is in the stronger position and while granted a rare bird has negotiating power - that means the employer is ultimately in the stronger position of the employer/employee relationship.

melted• 10 years 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• 10 years 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• 10 years 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• 10 years 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• 10 years 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• 10 years 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• 10 years 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.

throwaway29342• 10 years 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?

learnstats2• 10 years 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.

pmorici• 10 years 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.

High Salaries Haunt Some Job Hunters

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