[mcny]

Thank you for the insightful comment.

One small nit though

> I always ask what their salary expectations are

I thought we were supposed to never answer this question. Why do you even bother asking this question? You have a budget for any role, right? Why not share this information instead of asking people how much they want? Does it matter if I want a million dollars a year?

[Terretta]

> I thought we were supposed to never answer this question.

It is legal to ask what they're looking for or "expect".

It is not legal in many US jurisdictions (California, New York as notable ones) to ask what they made at their prior job.

The first question is necessary since the numbers have to start somewhere.

The second question tends to perpetuate any comp bias the interviewee may have been subject to previously.

That said, as the interviewee, it's fair to turn the order of setting expectations on its head: “I hear your question, but first, what are you expecting to spend to fill this?”

If they object you can try again: “You are a differentiated business with differentiated priorities, meaning your roles provide different returns on investment relative to other companies. What value do you put on this role?”

If they object again, and you are confident in your value creation, try: “One of us has to start with expectations, so I'll start with this — based on my prior roles, I expect to have fully paid for myself within the first X days/weeks/months. My expectation is that will be true here as well.”

Reality is a candidate's dollar "value" to a firm does in fact depend on the utility the firm can make of that skill. This is largely out of the candidate's control. As such, the firm should reveal the range they have in mind first.

[mathgeek]

> The first question is necessary since the numbers have to start somewhere.

It’s not, though. The only thing asking the candidate for a number specifically generates is leverage for the company performing the interview. The company can just as easily provide a range to start “the numbers” and display good will to boot.

[mrmetanoia]

It's like they've started applying that 'value based' pricing bullshit to salaries.

[mathgeek]

I’m sure they do that somewhere. Most places it’s a simple “this chart shows industry salaries favor the employer by some percentage when the following question is asked” during training.

[makeitdouble]

> I thought we were supposed to never answer this question.

As a candidate that's the first question I get, and as an interviewer it also helps a lot.

I understand the risk to abuse the info to low ball a candidate, but setting an expectation level as early as possible helps to better target the interview process and be more efficient when it won't work out.

If someone is asking for a CTO level salary but but we're seeing they'd fit an entry level position, it needs to be discussed at the second round, not at the last round after both sides spent 6h of overall process.

Having the info earlier also helps better target the interview, in particular to justify the person fits in the role. If you're only doing 2~3 interview, they better be well targeted.

[cj]

> Why do you even bother asking this question?

If someone is asking for $250k and we're budgeting $150k, I don't want to waste their (and my) time.

[throwaway6977]

If that's the case perhaps you could, I don't know, state that up front and save everyone some time...

[cj]

(Last reply I’ll post here): I guess just to be ultra clear so there’s no ambiguity.

At our company no candidate talks to anyone at our company before talking to our 3rd party recruiter who screens all candidates before they make it to us. The recruiter has short 15-20 min pre-screening calls with candidates and she’s responsible for weeding out candidates who are likely to not be a fit.

A major category to evaluate is mutual compensation expectations (what are they expecting to be paid, what are we expecting to pay).

I don’t have full visibility into how our recruiter articulates this part of the screening call. She says some candidates don’t have a salary in mind, in which case she shares the lower bound of our range to feel them out.

All roles have a salary range, e.g. could be $130-160k. We don’t just come out and say that, otherwise everyone will want the top end of the range, even if (in our opinion) their experience matches closer to the bottom or middle of the range.

It’s an art, not a science. My goal is to not overpay for a role if we don’t have to. (Important: overpay doesn’t mean underpay!) more importantly, I want the person we’re hiring to be happy with the compensation. I don’t want to hire someone who’s going to quit in 6 months for a higher paying role.

It’s a negotiation and both sides are trying to find the “market rate” through the process. You can be bitter about this fact, but it’s a simple reality in business. That’s just how things work.

[FireBeyond]

> otherwise everyone will want the top end of the range, even if (in our opinion) their experience matches closer to the bottom or middle of the range.

My perspective of this, sometimes stated, sometimes not, is that if I'm getting the offer I should at least be in the top 50% of the range.

Why?

How many candidates did you interview, with all their experiences, some more than me, some less than me, but you chose me, which means you saw me as the highest caliber candidate, but you also see me as "closer to the bottom of the range"? Barring other contributing factors, "does not compute".

[cj]

I can’t speak for every company.

As a 12 person engineering team, we really need a strong team lead or someone who we can put on a management track over the next 2-3 years (SWE to Lead to EM to Director to VP). We prefer to promote from within rather than hire those roles directly.

So, the top end of our range for engineering roles right now is reserved for people with management potential because we’re willing to pay a premium for that, but doesn’t mean we will reject good individual contributors.

(This is my last reply on this thread, the debate could go on, e.g. “how do you know if someone has management potential”, etc - hiring and finding a job is an art, not a science, no right answers, nothing is perfect)

[FireBeyond]

Actually, that's a good perspective that I hadn't considered. I can appreciate that.

I can't really find much justification for hiring in the lower third of a band, but I could see what you've said, or middle third being the default, upper third.

I usually don't like the "we prefer to leave room for raises and such", because that's trite - you set the bands, you can adjust them.

(I also get - and have been burned by companies who didn't - the need for a pipeline: not every engineer can be a senior engineer, you need juniors to be able to grow and evolve and be the seniors when those people become EMs etc.)

[simoncion]

> We prefer to promote from within rather than hire those [management] roles directly. ... So, the top end of our range for engineering roles right now is reserved for people with management potential...

So, disclose that.

You clearly have two ranges, one for folks who are decent tech folks, and one who are decent tech folks who can (and are willing to) do management.

Disclose both pairs of numbers, along with the caveat that the company is very, very highly unlikely to hire (and pay for) an external management-potential employee.

[massung]

> ...e.g. could be $130-160k. We don’t just come out and say that, otherwise everyone will want the top end of the range, even if (in our opinion) their experience matches closer to the bottom or middle of the range.

I hope you can see the hypocrisy in this statement: you want the candidate to take on the risk you're unwilling to, in a situation where you hold all the cards.

What if a candidate said $110k? Would you still offer them $160k if you felt they were worth that? Or would you take advantage of this newfound information and offer them less than what you thought the job was worth to you?

Because of this - as a candidate - when someone asks me "what salary are you looking for?" it's an immediate turn-off for me. I pretty much refuse to answer the question or ask what the salary range is for the company.

My favorite thing that a company can do regarding comp is to publicly state what their roles, titles, and salary ranges for those are. Then specify in the job description what title they are hiring for and link to that information.

This absolutely is great for the already-working employees as well as candidates. Knowing what title I am, how much I can expect my compensation to be upon promotion, etc. is beneficial for everyone. You can also publicly state the trade-offs your company has chosen to make regarding compensation and attract candidates who appreciate those things.

Perhaps your base salary is lower than the norm, but you offer other things that make up for it. Examples of things worth more to me than base salary:

* More vacation time * 100% remote * 100% medical coverage * 9+% 401K match * ESPP, RSUs, ... * Very short vesting times * Paid child care (possibly on-site)

The list goes on. I guarantee - unless you are grossly underpaying your employees - that if you just publicly list title : salary, heavily promote your other benefits, and have recruiters link to that, you'll end up being much better off.

[latency-guy2]

> What if a candidate said $110k? Would you still offer them $160k if you felt they were worth that? Or would you take advantage of this newfound information and offer them less than what you thought the job was worth to you?

I will answer from the things that I control, but yes I would offer what I believe their value is to me. The number given to me by a candidate is just the conversation we have to ensure we are in each other's ballpark. If my budget is in range and your performance in the interview is good to excellent you will be getting good to excellent pay in my organization from my say on the matter.

But there are absolutely things I don't control. E.g. my company participates in regional pay adjustments on salary.

Negotiations provided other competing offers are things HR have effectively full control over, at best I can recommend an uplevel for exceptional talent here to keep in budget for a particular role, but this is determined sooner at the evaluations stage.

The process to uplevel may require input from other managers in my org, my manager, and my skip (maybe even my skip's skip which is pretty much C-suite) to approve depending on experience so its an uphill battle even for me to do this.

Lowest friction is to bring you in at the level I have approved and then get you promoted within the year, but this would likely not be ideal for the candidate as on-hire package items would not be adjusted. OTOH, given a certain level of visibility and impact, you would be eligible for special awards and extra bonus pay which would likely exceed the amortized scheduled of an uplevel on its own for a single year.

[rsanek]

You must not be a US-based company -- many states / cities now require posting salary ranges on job ads. Based on population, it covers ~25% of all US workers https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/03/where-us-companies-have-to-s...

[eric-hu]

I’m currently job seeking. Some companies apply to the letter of this but still share almost no information. I’ve seen salary ranges like 140-280k. In essence that tells me the company still wants to not overpay like the parent comment said.

[duskwuff]

Hell, I've seen companies post jobs with "salary ranges" spanning all the way from barely minimum wage to C-suite. It's just lazy compliance.

[BurningFrog]

Maybe that just reflects the fact that some engineers do far more valuable work than others.

[Salgat]

Market rate is based on the responsibilities of the job, not on what a single candidate might want. My advice is to not try to negotiate down on what you're going to offer a candidate, just state the responsibilities of the job, the expected compensation, and let the best match fill that. This isn't a menial job where you can swap in a new employee quickly, but is a major investment where an extra 5-10% could save you a large amount of wasted effort when this person moves on to the next company using his time at your company to close that wage gap you created. It always amazed me that companies would fight over a relatively small amount, lowering retention rates, while paying massive amounts towards recruiting and training of new employees.

[ponector]

Market rate is based on probability of finding candidate to accept the lowest possible rate. It does not really depends on responsibilities.

A person can double the salary for the same responsibilities simply moving to the other company/location.

And yes, company will easily accept higher attrition than increase salary by 10%. Now even more so, and will hire for lower salary because there are so many desperate unemployed people who have no choice but to accept huge pay cut.

[mekoka]

Newsflash my friend, candidates always have a number in mind, even if they're not sharing it. By disclosing only your lower bound rather than the full range of your compensation, I'm pretty sure you're doing yourself a disservice. When people apply for a position at one company, they're probably also interviewing at 10 others. A good engineer that seemed (to you) unsure about comp will eventually pass the first round at places that are more transparent with a number that hits your undisclosed upper range (just the fact that such places exist should hint at something wrong about your beliefs). That'll then solidify a ballpark figure for that candidate. Guess what happens then. At best, your lower bid puts you in a low priority pile. At worst, if you're then willing to revise that number when the candidate later tells you it's too low, you look like a company with a culture of trying to lowball engineers.

Instead of being cagey about comp, do your own homework. Determine how much filling the role is worth (which should also include cost of keeping it vacant). Disclose a range to candidates. Evaluate them for your needs and determine what you're willing to compensate them based on your own estimation of their competence. If there's a mismatch between their expectations and yours, that's where negotiations should begin.

Not overpaying for a role if you don't have to? How much is "overpaying"? You're a business, so shop like one. Don't play games with nickel and dime accounting. Put a number on resources. Acquire them and move it to expenses. Then go back to getting things done.

[theonething]

throwaway6977 made a perfectly logical point and you come back with the most BS comment I've seen on HN in a long time.

> We don’t just come out and say that, otherwise everyone will want the top end of the range, even if (in our opinion) their experience matches closer to the bottom or middle of the range.

Of course candidates would want the top range. You don't have to give it to them if you feel that don't deserve it.

Again, you claim don't want to waste people's time including your own, so just post range and then if people don't like it, they won't apply. What's so hard about that?

> That’s just how things work.

No it's not. Plenty of companies post their salary ranges. It's perfectly within your right to choose not too. I have no problem with that. The part I'm criticizing is your hypocritical self-justification for it.

[BurningFrog]

This is not how price negotiations work.

[c0mbonat0r]

how should a candidate respond if they arent sure what range this role should pay?

[vkou]

Answer honestly. That their pay expectations depend on the details of the job.

[marcosdumay]

So, you just push the interviewed to guess a random number without any context, and discard the ones that guess wrong.

That's great! There's also that method of throwing paper curriculums up on a stair, and discarding the ones that land on the wrong steps.

[cj]

No. More like:

Recruiter: “what are your compensation requirements?

Candidate: “$250k”

Recruiter: “Ah, that’s too bad. We were thinking this role would pay closer to $150k. Are you still interested in moving forward?”

Candidate: (negotiate…)

[icedchai]

I had some recruiter contact me, immediately asks for my salary expectations. I give him a range, between 10% to 20% higher than I'm currently making. They come back with 50K less than I'm making now. "Thanks, but I don't think I am the right fit, this is significantly less than I am making now for what sounds like more responsibilities."

A few hours later, the come back... offering 30K less than I'm making now. "I just talked to the manager and we are willing to come up!" I told him thanks again, but under no circumstances would I take less I was making now. Did he think I was kidding about the initial range? I never heard from him again.

[looshch]

if you think 3rd party recruiters usually do this, you are out of touch with reality

[vkou]

If you've gotten to the point of an in-person interview, before bringing it up, you're absolutely wasting everyone's time.

[cqqxo4zV46cp]

What? Have you ever hired before? This sounds exactly like the unrealistically simple view of someone that’s never been in this position before.

You thought people were never supposed to answer that question? Well, they do. Especially developers, who are more introverted than average, on average, and are easy to catch off guard.

I have a budget, sure. Unless your corporate setup is one that especially takes all power away from hiring managers, it’s almost always more complex than that. Maybe I could move some money around to free more budget up. Maybe someone on my team is a retention risk and I need to weigh up priorities. Maybe a billion billion other things.

Your personal budget, no matter how implicit or explicit it is, almost certainly isn’t this simple so I have no idea why anyone thinks it works this way at work. Any organisation that is that simple and rigid isn’t capable of rolling with the punches, and isn’t somewhere anyone should want to work.