[lethologica]

This whole game is so stupid to me. It really feels like the employer is trying to screw over the potential employee before they’ve even joined.

My default answer to these questions is now “what’s your budget?” And if they return with a non answer, or try and push me to give a number without giving one themselves, I walk.

I can’t think of anywhere else where the seller (in this case the employer “selling” a position) of something hides the price and expects the buyer (the potential employee) to magically come up with number that meets their criteria.

What a dumb game we’ve developed for ourselves.

[hn_throwaway_99]

> It really feels like the employer is trying to screw over the potential employee before they’ve even joined.

I mean, on the flip side, the employee wants to get as much salary as possible. You say this is a "dumb game" that we've developed, but nearly all negotiations work this way, and a lot of it is fundamentally dependent on leverage: how much does the company really want to hire the person, and how much does the person need the job.

I will say, having hired a lot of software engineers in my time, that I never see it as a bad thing if a potential employee gives a very high number. Similarly, I think it's totally reasonable for an employee to ask "what's the salary range for this position" and to expect an honest answer. But I have seen employees "negotiate themselves out of a job" because they've read too many "principles of negotiating" books and somehow act like we're negotiating over the end to the Ukraine War. Basically, if folks are going to be a total pain in the ass before the job has even started, I'm pretty sure I don't want to work with you (and every single time I've "overridden my gut" and thought "well, maybe this person won't be so bad, after all they're great technically", I e come to regret it). As you point out, the employee is obviously free to walk as well - in my opinion, it's probably better for everyone if things reach a "hmm, someone is going to be unhappy with this decision" moment that folks walk away.

[musicale]

> It really feels like the employer is trying to screw over the potential employee before they’ve even joined

Oh, you noticed.

[aster0id]

It's a dumb game, sure. But I'd say it arises from opposing incentives, not necessarily from a real desire on the company's part to screw you over.

How important is feeling "not screwed over" at the beginning of an employment important for you? Does it trump a great work environment and interesting things to work on? How sure are you that your subjective feelings during negotiations match how the employer actually is objectively?

It would seem intuitively obvious that there must be correlations between being screwed over in the beginning and then having a bad experience later on during the actual job as well. But I'm personally wary of blindly following intuitions in matters that relate to money.

Being able to just "walk away" from decidedly some of the highest paying jobs in the world (irrespective of the feeling of being low balled) is a privilege too.

Anyway, in my own personal experience, I was screwed over during the offer phase of a previous job, and the job was not great either - terrible wlb and politics, but I did learn a lot and became very efficient at my work. As a bonus I stopped caring about my work outside of being necessary for paying my bills, while still maintaining decently high quality output.

I had the opposite experience with my latest job - the recruiter was professional and empathetic, and I had a great offer experience. The job itself is great as well.

So yeah, maybe there are correlations, but I'm still just one data point and so I'm not keen to generalize yet.