[S_A_P]

So I am in the early stages of starting a consulting business. Currently this business is just me, myself and I, but at some point I want to bring in and mentor junior people. I've kicked around a few ideas around salary and one of them is to tell them what I want to pay them first thing, up front. Hey, this job pays X dollars. If we move past that, then I will work to see if there is a skill/personal fit. This is as yet unproven, but my thought is you can set expectations, get the haggling out of the way first and then try to end up on a positive note instead of trying to play nice and then play the salary game.

[exelius]

It's a little easier to do this in professional services -- you know pretty much what you can bill that person out for, so you know what you can pay them. Employee pay has a pretty direct contribution to margins (and to revenue). This is not the case in most industries - adding an employee does not add a predictable amount of revenue in most cases.