The least helpful possible framing for this, I think. Refusing to answer altogether has all of the risks of giving too high/low a salary, and none of the benefits of actual negotiation.
If you're in a position where you can not answer, you're in a position there's no reason not to give them your desired salary up front and let them tell you why they can't do it. Pick a high number of course!
If you're in a position where you can't afford not to answer, you should pick a reasonable number, and take whatever they give you, because you completely lack agency. This is the case where you might screw yourself out of money, but if you need the job that badly, do you really care?
A better way to frame this, and this is always what I do if I have the agency to not answer, is to give them the number I'd like or remain mum, but either way when they make the final offer just ask them a simple question: "Is there any way you can come up a little bit from that?". If they say no, you decide based on that first number. But they'll almost always say yes, and you'll get a small effortless raise.
I've done this about 10 times across my career and about 70-80% of the time I've gotten a bump in the 5-10% range. Which means that, collectively, about 30-40% of my current salary level is a result of that one question, applied consistently over time.
You won't get a raise outside the salary band, but you might move from the median for that band up a notch or two within it, and that absolutely matters in the long run.
Nearly every time I've held out and not given a number I've gotten a much higher salary than the number I would have given.
It is true, of course, that when they give you the number that they leave money on the table for negotiation, that is standard practice. It's even factored into the offer amount at bigcorps, and chances are they have an amount they cannot go over and it's set. So you should always ask for more after they lay the money out.
My experience has been about 50/50 with that. Twice when I haven't given the number first, they've pleasantly surprised me with significantly higher offers than I would have expected. Twice when I did give a number, they said "oh no that's way too low, we want you to be extremely happy with comp" and bumped me up. In all other circumstances I don't think it mattered, and I suspect that giving the number or not was moot in all 4 of those cases.
In the second example, it's likely that you still left money on the table. They almost certainly gave you the lower/midrange of your projected band which was likely significantly above the number you gave.
Hard to say from a blurb whether the situation is an outlier, just generalizing here based on on basically every salary discussion I see on the hiring side.
My first “real job” offer I got when I did an interview just for the experience. They offered me a job and I did not expect it. I would have to move many hours away to a big city.
I told them I needed time to think about it. That was my honest answer because I hadn’t even thought about the possibility that I would get an offer outright.
I drove home and they called and upped the offer. I didn’t even know I was playing the game…
Yes perfect advice -- negotiate from a position of leverage and always ask for that little bump at the end.
In my experience, not talking about salary early kind of sets everyone up to waste their time. One time it ended up with a full interview process that went very well for a job I thought would be perfect in an industry that _should_ have outstanding pay, and the resulting offer that was lower than my current role, paid hourly without benefits with a vague promise to later be an FTE; not only did we all waste our time, I was pretty upset about it. When I sent an email to the hiring manager they said "well you never told us your expectations" -- now the guy was dumb, he _knew_ I had a good job already, the comp he was offering was well below industry standard, and he knew my background, but nevertheless that is where a lot of hiring folks heads are at and it makes total sense: they want to get a good deal just like you do.
Asking for salary band is good, especially earlier in your career, but to me it's now kind of irrelevant -- for the same reason you will go high, they will try to go low. I have a price I will be happy at, I say a number higher in the beginning but say depending on how everything goes there may end up being flexibility, and that I look at the entire package holistically. This is just to assess: "is it worth us continuing to engage". Not doing this would have wasted a colossal amount of time.
I'm now in a position where I know where salaries generally are in different parts of the industry, and I can set a price based on what I expect and what my current role is, and I explain my reasoning. But yes: it depends so much on the situation. Benefits good? Growth potential at a startup good? Do I believe in the mission and that the founder won't abandon for an acquihire and tank my equity? Etc.
Imho, there is an easy way to turn this around. Ask: "What is your range for the role?" Then it becomes easy to say: "Fine, I'm comfortable with this range", or maybe "Oh, I'm afraid I can't afford this".
Once you're at the offer stage, you can bargain about specifics.
IMO leaving salary to late stages leads to a huge waste of time.
I am not going to spend time going to interviews, let alone preparing for them, many rounds over many days, just to discover at the end that their salary range is not a fit. I did that once, never again.
And of course if I'm interviewing, I'm not doing so with just one company, I'm talking to many. So now multiply that time waste by N companies? No thanks.
I confirm salary on the first intro call with the recruiter. If we're not on the same page, I just saved myself many days of what would've been wasted time.
The sheer amount of information asymmetry is the tricky part here. I think that’s the only relevant part of the equation. The company hires N people per year, you get hired by 1 company every N years. Maybe you work for a company that hired 100 people last year, and there’s someone who’s done analysis for salaries day in and day out. That person has a shitload of information about what the salaries are and what people will accept.
So you exploit the flipside of the information symmetry. The company is obviously not telling me all their employee salaries, so I am not telling them mine. I just need enough of a sense of what the range is to figure out if a number I like is in there.
The company is not planning to blow you away with some big salary number, but I’ve gotten some pretty good offers. This happens sometimes because you’re stepping up to a higher role at the other company, or sometimes because you’re going to a company which just has higher compensation bands to begin with. Or maybe you just look really good to that company. I’ve gotten offers which were +50% above the number I had in my head, or well above that.
It feels like a waste of time and such a song and dance to some people, but the time spent is not wasted, it’s turned into salary dollars.
The irony is the information asymmetry exists solely because we, the employees, are taught to believe it's 'cultural inappropriate' to ask each other's salary. Sometimes even by our parents.
The first time I worked with a bunch of Germans, for a German company, the very first topic, at our very first dinner together, was "how much are you being paid?". I was taken aback by this, until they explained the above point, and it totally clicked. One girl that night discovered that she was being paid less than the rest at her level, and with everyone's encouragement went straight to our boss the next morning, and got a raise. Result!
Back in Anglo-Saxon (UK and US) contexts, I've told this story and talked up this approach in every workplace I've been a part of, but it's like pushing on a rope.
I remember doing my usual prep, did research, wrote down my range. Then they hit me with a number over my top level range that it totally threw me off balance. I should have asked for more, worst case they say no, but I just wasn't prepared for a number over my research and data.
imo giving a range before the offer stage, just gives them a potential reason not to waste their time on you. Thats what they are screening for. So its always a bad idea. Wait for them to want you, then you A. Have leverage and B. don't get cut out early. Even if you don't get the job, having an offer is data you can carry forward. If you are so blessed to have multiple at the same window, great, but even if there are months in-between, you can push the next company that much more with confidence.
Today my plan is simple:
1. If they ask early - I hit them with the market range, lets see if theres a strong fit and we can work something out. I'm not worried etc
2. Do your research, don't just pull cold numbers but factor in your situation as much as possible. Put $ to any benefits, how much is it worth to you? Put that in a spreadsheet
3. When the time comes. Ask them to make an offer. If they ask you to throw the number out first just be bold and say something like "id love to hear your offer first, and then we can chat about any details"
4. Always ask for more. Its a short conversation, quick no and its over. I've gotten 5-20% more constantly when I've asked. I've never had an offer rescinded. Just be polite, use a team/us attitude (i.e. What are your constraints? Hmm ok how can we figure this out?) and embrace the silence. Putting on them to make the solution and just let the silence hang.
5. The only rule is whatever you say you'll accept, you must accept. Never ask for more once they have budged on your request, this is why you must ask for more and if you have a range, and they offer low, maybe tell them the range from the data and say something like "I know you only hire the best and you want to raise the bar with each hire, so I was hoping to see a number at the higher end of that range"
I've used what I consider the golden guide of salary negotiation for a software engineer that has been linked on HackerNews[1].
I've applied these guidelines in my own negotiations and it worked very well for me. I would've undersold myself by at least 15% if I went ahead and answered the salary question first. I declined politely to give a number first—even saying "it's not in my interest to answer that first, as you most likely understand".
Those guidelines work for all jobs that have high added value, I would say.
This guide has aged surprisingly well, but I’d add to this: the above response is about as good as you can get—it is firm, non-combative, and moves the conversation forward.
Don’t antagonize your recruiter. You want them to advocate _for you_ when a prospective employer is drafting an offer. Work with them to give them the ammo they need to make that happen.
Would you say I was antagonizing him with my response? Because he was an in-house recruiter (and not a headhunter) and I got along with him pretty well.
I tell them the number up front. Because I'm not spending a week in their interview loop to find out they're going to offer me 30% less than my current job. Benefits are never a decider, and equity is a lottery ticket.
What's surprised me is that most of the younger coworkers I've had, having grown up largely through boom times, absolutely believe that this equity has tremendous value. I've had multiple younger coworkers talk about how excited they are to have so much equity in companies that have no visible path to a liquidity event.
I assume the mention of benefits was mostly a polite way to decline giving a number... It might also be more applicable in other industries/roles where benefits are more varied.
In either case, it never amounts to more than a $10K swing in comp. Same for vacation time.
Yes, it's a polite way to brush off the question. But the end result is the same. A job offer way lower than what you're making, and now they have $20K in a bucket to go a little higher when you try to negotiate.
Last 2 positions I’ve had haven’t had 401k matching and the health insurance costs are eye watering. I might consider an improvement in both to be worth a fair bit.
In my experience, those are the two things that are impossible to move. They're built into company HR structures and they don't bend them for individuals unless you're C-suite.
Benefits are rarely a decider IMO. Unless you need certain health care or there is something terribly unusual. The only time in my career I considered a benefits package was for a University that offered 12% 401k matching up to 100% of your contributions.
The argument is “we have a competitive benefits package”. Yeah, so does everyone else.
I don't trust the ranges put into job listings. It may give you a ballpark idea of the range, but anything that looks even slightly attractive or above market is usually put there to attract resumes. The real number is worse.
I’ve been surprised by too many low ball job offers to spend much time in an interviews without a good idea the salary will work for me. Usually I find out through back channels or levels.fyi though.
I can’t see how it would possibly work in Polish market. Polish job IT market (at least for Go developers) is very specific. There’s very few companies actually building their own products and plenty of software houses/hiring agencies looking to hire cheaply. I’ve been doing Go for long enough that what I ask for is on the higher end, so much so that I probably refuse ~95% offers because they are significantly below my expectations. Importantly, I’m no public figure nor I’m 10x developer, I’m just a regular guy who chose Go very early in my career, just before it really took off.
Now, imagine that I don’t ask for a number nor share my expectations. With 3-4 rounds of interviews, even if we assume 1/10 is in my range, I’d have to SUCCESSFULLY do maybe 30-40 interviews on average to find a job that matches my expectations. Another thing is that benefits in Poland are pretty standard almost nearly everywhere: private medical care, gym card, 20 vacation days, 10 sick days… unless you’re willing to work in the big few companies that just have unlimited money.
(If someone in Poland has different experience, please share - would love to hear more.)
I'm kind of curious why language specializations matter much to all but the most hardcore of hardcore performance firms. People have demonstrated now that you can pick up even Rust with an LLM and be productive with it in a few days if you know what you are doing: https://github.com/humanlayer/advanced-context-engineering-f...
I just like my stack, which includes Go. That stack is of course ever changing, but why would I make a drastic change if I’m already both happy and somewhat good?
I’ve been recruiting people and had exposure to small sample of generalists as an interviewer, but also in a team. Not too long ago, I’ve been briefly exposed to „staff” level Go developers who, I kid you not, would not follow ANY known and widely accepted as best practice Go convention (that I could identify). Obviously these were Java, C#, Python developers bringing habits from their last language to that project and boy was it bad. I suppose that was an extreme end of the spectrum (they were also incredibly toxic), but not once before were I in a team where new code was that bad. Of course, best practices are there to serve you and not the other way around, but each time I’d ask, they couldn’t explain why in a coherent way.
I suppose once you know programming it’s kinda easy to change the syntax, but imo code is just significantly better if people know what they are doing.
100% agree! But how many organizations actually need an expert vs someone productive? Goes back to the "only the most hardcore performance-based orgs" point as an example
The usual whoring out of personal info by third parties:
"The Work Number receives data directly from employers, payroll providers, or third-party administrators that choose to use The Work Number for employment verifications. We report your data as we receive it from these sources."
I opted out a long time ago after learning about them. I’d recommend doing so unless you like losing leverage in job negotiation. They get their info directly from companies (or indirectly through payroll companies like ADP). I recall there being a scary amount of detail, including the exact dollar amount of gross pay, and how much I put into my 401k/medical/etc on each paycheck.
In limited experience, I've been unclear if this strategy changes when dealing with companies that actually list the salary range (generally when required per some recent state laws).
Most of the time, I'd just answer "I'm ok with your published range, we can proceed." or similar.
But, I've also seen ranges that span hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like "Software engineer: $150k-$250" which is a ridiculous range that makes it almost meaningless. I mean, what are they thinking - any candidate worth their time is going to aim for the $250 end...
Even that range is much better than nothing. A person making 300k knows not to bother with the process and a person making 100k knows that it is definitely worth applying.
That feels like malicious compliance to me. I'd expect vastly different capabilities and output across the spread. At least in my region, the low end of that is somebody a few years out of college. And the high end is... well, pretty much nobody with that title is making that much.
Yeah, I think if they have published a range and you are comfortable with it, you can say "I reviewed the range on the website and am comfortable with it".
If you are not comfortable, then I'd be clear why, with data, upfront. "I saw the range on the website and it seems low based on X, Y, and Z. Is that range flexible?"
Whether the answer to that is yes or no, you'll be in a better spot whether to decide to move forward.
Right now, this standard recruiter question is on the side of the table that's often being especially penny-wise and pound-foolish...
A weird thing I'm seeing is early AI startups lowballing both salary and equity for AI startup jobs, compared to a few years ago for generic Web/app developer jobs.
You're in a narrow opportunity window of a massive investment gold rush. You probably got funding with a weak/nonexistent business model, and some mostly vibe-coded demo and handwavey partnership.
Now you need to hire a few good founding engineer types who can help get the startup through a series of harder milestones, with skillsets less clear than for generic Web/app development. If you can hire people as smart and dedicated as yourself, they'll probably do things that make a big positive difference, relative to what bottom of the barrel hires will do.
So why would you lowball these key early hires, at less than a new-grad starting salary, plus a pittance of ISOs that will be near-worthless even if you have a good exit.
Is it so that the founders and investors can have the maximum percentage of... something probably less valuable than what they'd get by attracting and aligning the right early hires? (Unless it's completely an investment scam, in which genuine execution doesn't affect the exit value.)
I’ve also noticed this, and it causes real issues long term when you want to build the product. Suddenly management is surprised your senior engineer with no relevant experience is taking a long time and needs to bring in a half million in consultants to actually do the work. It stresses everyone else out and then you end up with a lot of churn, a lot of burn, and very little internal knowledge to build off of for the future
I don’t get this, I’d rather talk about money upfront, I have a number I know I need to be at and I ask for at least that. Imagine spending the time and energy interviewing etc and then finding out that salary is far far below expectations?
My thought too, HR’s only care so far as they have a range they need to stick to. I don’t like to be too specific but I usually suggest my salary, possibly higher, as a minimum
You can set some reasonably high expectation, not as a target but as an aspiration.
Case in point, once when I was asked it I was "I read in an study that one gets happier with more salary up until 85K€, so my aim is to go towards that range". In the end I ended up halfway between that and my then salary. BTW, the study was then superseded by another that happiness keeps increasing, just not as fast.
Of course your situation might be different, and you could take inspiration for 6 digits, $500K or any other amount that would be perfect for you if accepted because it's higher than what you would have accepted, and you can get something below that that would be a stepping stone.
In Spain, at least, salary needs discussing early, too many divergences between some companies and some people expectations on that. So I disagree leaving it for later.
I don’t want a higher salary, I want a higher net worth so I can not work, or at least not work meaningless jobs that only serve as a high salary. I would prefer $2m in my pocket than a 500k/year ex. tax job.
Edit: and if you’re unclear on my point, which I assume you are given you think that some rudimentary math invalidates my comment, the point was that a salary does not result in happiness, having money does, a high salary is the thing required to achieve it.
"A million an hour, obviously (haha). But in all seriousness, I'd expect to be compensated commensurate with the responsibilities of the role, keeping in mind that the salary number is just one aspect of a compensation package as health insurance and other benefits are important to me."
There are only two reasons HR asks this:
1. possible leverage later in the process.
2. attempting to not waste time if the candidate's expectations are way out of line with the amount the company is willing to pay.
Either way, there is no good reason to name numbers prior to the company making an offer with compensation package details.
> Either way, there's no reason to name numbers until AFTER the company makes an offer with included compensation package details.
I agree that a candidate shouldn't name numbers until after an offer.
But I think the company should give a range as early as possible. This is because of point #2 above. As an engineering manager I've had at least one heartbreaking experience where we took a candidate through the hiring cycle and then found out we and they were way out of line re: comp. Hiring sucks enough without that curveball.
That's why, for all the warts, I'm a fan of salary disclosure laws (like those in Colorado, USA). Yes, it's hard to have an accurate range, because jobs and skills are squishy. Yes, candidates anchor towards the top. Yes, it's weird for a buyer of a thing (labor) to state a price.
But companies have more power in the hiring process (there are, after all, many employees working for a company, but usually only one company an employee works for). Companies, or the hiring managers, also have a budget.
If you are a hiring manager, I'd encourage you to have your salary range shared with candidates as early as possible in the process.
No one wants to work for a company in category #1, though I recognize some people might have to.
Find out their range and standard benefits package as soon as possible in the process. If you still don't know after the first phone screen/chat and are not in dire need of employment, move on. It's a great filter.
It's not hard, just say you're looking for competitive compensation for someone with your experience and expertise and anchor on the high end of the range.
That said, what you say isn't as important as what you do. If you're interviewing, you should be interviewing at at least a few places to get comps. You will get lowballed if you don't have comps. Once you have a few offers, do one round of playing them off each other, decide which company you want to work for, and then say you'll sign today if they can beat the current best offer.
They write as if there is unlimited budget but it is never is. There is a range and you'd better fit into it. Also if you think you are at the top of a market range already and the hiring company thinks it's too early to discuss - run. Unless you don't have a job or want to switch in any case.
The author thinks they made the wrong move a few times during their career, and now they're replaying it in hindsight as if their present experience has a measure on previous performance. They are only able to write this post because they did some things badly in the past, but after a load of other steps they got to a point where they could write a post or a book and basically skip all of the hard bits they don't want to talk about.
You have to be careful to not be led into this, as if you can follow OP's self-help advice and skip the failures. You will, in fact, fail in a different way.
Is this cynical? Yes. But it's how self-help advice works.
reading comments so far.. seems from people who have not tried how the current situation is. Yes most of these "cant say" worked 3+ years go. But it is harsh employer-driven market now. 100 candidates for 1 position.
The question is baked and mandatory in most forms, and there's no "cant say" - only about 20% do not ask it, all else.. have it. And it is the easiest filter for the above 100 candidates, so.
Negotiation phase? hah. You are lucky if you get a rejection e-mail. Most don't bother with even that, regardless the importance of the role. And you never know if the number was too high, or completely irrelevant.
I have helped a lot of people earn more money. The best advice I have for anyone doing salary negotiations: you cannot negotiate without options, so step 1 in any negotiation is to gather options.
How are folks navigating the sheer rate of inflation in the last 5 years?
In job listings, I’ve seen salaries for Senior or Staff remain about the same as they were (thought usually edging a little lower), but adjusted for inflation, they are way lower.
If I were to insist on my 2021 salary with inflation adjustment, I’m often blowing past the listed range by anything from 15k to 30k.
With the market the way it is, how are y’all handling that?
1. Continuing to maintain and improve my skills so I can earn more
2. Realizing that the rate of inflation and my achievable hourly rate (or the equivalent in salary) have little to do with each other at the personal level so your framing of the question doesn't make much sense
good answer if the job is in a big and very expensive city:
"I like this job and would do it for free if I was rich. But I'm not: I'll need to live with this salary. The absolute minimum I require is food and shelter for my family (single dad of 3). Look at the rent of a comfortable 4 bedroom apartment within 10 minutes on foot to the lab, and multiply it by three. That number is the least that I'm able to take. But of course if you pay me more I'll be happier."
Sorry, this is utter BS, or at least it doesn't apply to all situations.
I played exactly this script during my first interviews, never giving the first number, etc. It worked well for me exactly one time: the very first job I had out of academia where I did actually have to negotiate a salary. All the other times it resulted in waste of time and loss of sanity.
I am now very upfront with my expectations, or at least my non-expectations: "My current salary is X and I have Y perks, and I am in a good team; I wouldn't even consider moving for less than this, regardless of how cool your team is, and if you don't beat these numbers substantially I already know that my current employer will make me a counteroffer, and then you lose time but I win regardless." (of course not literally, but the message is this).
In my (non-tech) field, most recruiters (except for tech company recruiters) start off by asking what the candidate's number is so that they're not wasting anyone's time, since no gainfully employed candidate is going to jump to a new company for the same or less compensation. For some reason, tech recruiters seem to believe that everyone outside of tech has been ignoring the massive layouts and still think that tech is super sexy and are just dying to work for tech no matter how low the salary is.
I am also fortunate enough to live in a state where job postings are required by law to include a salary range of actual or target salaries for the position (meaning, it must include both the salary range the company is willing to pay and also capture the salaries of anyone at the company who has substantially the same title or job responsibilities). Most companies make a good faith effort to comply. Tech companies generally don't bother, even when they're located in California. They usually slap a "remote" somewhere in the description even as the text elsewhere indicates that the position is hybrid or full-time on-site.
I’m not sure this article really applies to my experience. There are lots of companies who have extremely rigid pay ranges, and if you ask for wiggle room on a low salary they just move on to the next applicant. You should apply to jobs because you’d rather work there, and should come in with minimum salaries you’d accept. Thinking you’re going to negotiate 50k more after holding an offer in your hand is a good way to have the offer taken back
Terrible advice if you value your time or sanity, especially if you are experienced or not desperate for a job.
Find out the range up front by reading the job posting, making the recruiter tell you, asking a friend who works there, or asking after applying if you have no other connections.
No company is going to refuse to share the information because they are secretly planning to blow a qualified applicant away with a top of market offer.
I've used this as a chance to turn things back around on the recruiters. "That's a great question and I noticed you didn't mention a salary range on the posting". Allow for an uncomfortable silence as now they're either forced to give a range, or try to say something like, "it's flexible for the right candidate". The latter is my opportunity to agree, "Of course, let's concentrate on that question then, I'd sure like if we could get to the bottom of this 'right candidate' question".
No, don't let them get off the hook with "it's flexible for the right candidate", especially if you are talking to a recruiter (either internal or external).
That "flexibility" will suddenly disappear if your expectations are higher than they are looking to pay for the role, even if your expectations are completely warranted.
The least helpful possible framing for this, I think. Refusing to answer altogether has all of the risks of giving too high/low a salary, and none of the benefits of actual negotiation.
If you're in a position where you can not answer, you're in a position there's no reason not to give them your desired salary up front and let them tell you why they can't do it. Pick a high number of course!
If you're in a position where you can't afford not to answer, you should pick a reasonable number, and take whatever they give you, because you completely lack agency. This is the case where you might screw yourself out of money, but if you need the job that badly, do you really care?
A better way to frame this, and this is always what I do if I have the agency to not answer, is to give them the number I'd like or remain mum, but either way when they make the final offer just ask them a simple question: "Is there any way you can come up a little bit from that?". If they say no, you decide based on that first number. But they'll almost always say yes, and you'll get a small effortless raise.
I've done this about 10 times across my career and about 70-80% of the time I've gotten a bump in the 5-10% range. Which means that, collectively, about 30-40% of my current salary level is a result of that one question, applied consistently over time.
You won't get a raise outside the salary band, but you might move from the median for that band up a notch or two within it, and that absolutely matters in the long run.
Nearly every time I've held out and not given a number I've gotten a much higher salary than the number I would have given.
It is true, of course, that when they give you the number that they leave money on the table for negotiation, that is standard practice. It's even factored into the offer amount at bigcorps, and chances are they have an amount they cannot go over and it's set. So you should always ask for more after they lay the money out.
My experience has been about 50/50 with that. Twice when I haven't given the number first, they've pleasantly surprised me with significantly higher offers than I would have expected. Twice when I did give a number, they said "oh no that's way too low, we want you to be extremely happy with comp" and bumped me up. In all other circumstances I don't think it mattered, and I suspect that giving the number or not was moot in all 4 of those cases.
In the second example, it's likely that you still left money on the table. They almost certainly gave you the lower/midrange of your projected band which was likely significantly above the number you gave.
Hard to say from a blurb whether the situation is an outlier, just generalizing here based on on basically every salary discussion I see on the hiring side.
Hot market, they bumped me to mid-high for that band. the real move would have been to go up a band but it turns out it didn't matter in the end
but either way when they make the final offer just ask them a simple question: "Is there any way you can come up a little bit from that?"
I use a similar phrase and it works really well on recruiter psychology.
"If you can get me to ${SLIGHTLY_HIGHER_NUMBER}, I will sign today."
They want the deal closed, and you've just given them a super easy path to do it in their minds.
> I will sign today.
My first “real job” offer I got when I did an interview just for the experience. They offered me a job and I did not expect it. I would have to move many hours away to a big city.
I told them I needed time to think about it. That was my honest answer because I hadn’t even thought about the possibility that I would get an offer outright.
I drove home and they called and upped the offer. I didn’t even know I was playing the game…
Yes perfect advice -- negotiate from a position of leverage and always ask for that little bump at the end.
In my experience, not talking about salary early kind of sets everyone up to waste their time. One time it ended up with a full interview process that went very well for a job I thought would be perfect in an industry that _should_ have outstanding pay, and the resulting offer that was lower than my current role, paid hourly without benefits with a vague promise to later be an FTE; not only did we all waste our time, I was pretty upset about it. When I sent an email to the hiring manager they said "well you never told us your expectations" -- now the guy was dumb, he _knew_ I had a good job already, the comp he was offering was well below industry standard, and he knew my background, but nevertheless that is where a lot of hiring folks heads are at and it makes total sense: they want to get a good deal just like you do.
Asking for salary band is good, especially earlier in your career, but to me it's now kind of irrelevant -- for the same reason you will go high, they will try to go low. I have a price I will be happy at, I say a number higher in the beginning but say depending on how everything goes there may end up being flexibility, and that I look at the entire package holistically. This is just to assess: "is it worth us continuing to engage". Not doing this would have wasted a colossal amount of time.
I'm now in a position where I know where salaries generally are in different parts of the industry, and I can set a price based on what I expect and what my current role is, and I explain my reasoning. But yes: it depends so much on the situation. Benefits good? Growth potential at a startup good? Do I believe in the mission and that the founder won't abandon for an acquihire and tank my equity? Etc.
Imho, there is an easy way to turn this around. Ask: "What is your range for the role?" Then it becomes easy to say: "Fine, I'm comfortable with this range", or maybe "Oh, I'm afraid I can't afford this".
Once you're at the offer stage, you can bargain about specifics.
IMO leaving salary to late stages leads to a huge waste of time.
I am not going to spend time going to interviews, let alone preparing for them, many rounds over many days, just to discover at the end that their salary range is not a fit. I did that once, never again.
And of course if I'm interviewing, I'm not doing so with just one company, I'm talking to many. So now multiply that time waste by N companies? No thanks.
I confirm salary on the first intro call with the recruiter. If we're not on the same page, I just saved myself many days of what would've been wasted time.
This guy interviews (+1 this is the only way IMO)
The real problem comes where you can't afford not to answer, and what's "reasonable," in their minds, is very unclear.
The sheer amount of information asymmetry is the tricky part here. I think that’s the only relevant part of the equation. The company hires N people per year, you get hired by 1 company every N years. Maybe you work for a company that hired 100 people last year, and there’s someone who’s done analysis for salaries day in and day out. That person has a shitload of information about what the salaries are and what people will accept.
So you exploit the flipside of the information symmetry. The company is obviously not telling me all their employee salaries, so I am not telling them mine. I just need enough of a sense of what the range is to figure out if a number I like is in there.
The company is not planning to blow you away with some big salary number, but I’ve gotten some pretty good offers. This happens sometimes because you’re stepping up to a higher role at the other company, or sometimes because you’re going to a company which just has higher compensation bands to begin with. Or maybe you just look really good to that company. I’ve gotten offers which were +50% above the number I had in my head, or well above that.
It feels like a waste of time and such a song and dance to some people, but the time spent is not wasted, it’s turned into salary dollars.
> The sheer amount of information asymmetry
The irony is the information asymmetry exists solely because we, the employees, are taught to believe it's 'cultural inappropriate' to ask each other's salary. Sometimes even by our parents.
The first time I worked with a bunch of Germans, for a German company, the very first topic, at our very first dinner together, was "how much are you being paid?". I was taken aback by this, until they explained the above point, and it totally clicked. One girl that night discovered that she was being paid less than the rest at her level, and with everyone's encouragement went straight to our boss the next morning, and got a raise. Result!
Back in Anglo-Saxon (UK and US) contexts, I've told this story and talked up this approach in every workplace I've been a part of, but it's like pushing on a rope.
Sharing comp details is the first step to employees working together to organize for a fair wage
And obviously the C-suite will do everything in their power to make sure we never take a step down that road
Agree
But would you share your salary here right now?
If not, is it purely cultural? Or are there other motivations?
I think it's purely cultural, and totally to our (meaning workers') detriment. See my above comment about working in Germany.
I remember doing my usual prep, did research, wrote down my range. Then they hit me with a number over my top level range that it totally threw me off balance. I should have asked for more, worst case they say no, but I just wasn't prepared for a number over my research and data.
imo giving a range before the offer stage, just gives them a potential reason not to waste their time on you. Thats what they are screening for. So its always a bad idea. Wait for them to want you, then you A. Have leverage and B. don't get cut out early. Even if you don't get the job, having an offer is data you can carry forward. If you are so blessed to have multiple at the same window, great, but even if there are months in-between, you can push the next company that much more with confidence.
Today my plan is simple: 1. If they ask early - I hit them with the market range, lets see if theres a strong fit and we can work something out. I'm not worried etc 2. Do your research, don't just pull cold numbers but factor in your situation as much as possible. Put $ to any benefits, how much is it worth to you? Put that in a spreadsheet 3. When the time comes. Ask them to make an offer. If they ask you to throw the number out first just be bold and say something like "id love to hear your offer first, and then we can chat about any details" 4. Always ask for more. Its a short conversation, quick no and its over. I've gotten 5-20% more constantly when I've asked. I've never had an offer rescinded. Just be polite, use a team/us attitude (i.e. What are your constraints? Hmm ok how can we figure this out?) and embrace the silence. Putting on them to make the solution and just let the silence hang. 5. The only rule is whatever you say you'll accept, you must accept. Never ask for more once they have budged on your request, this is why you must ask for more and if you have a range, and they offer low, maybe tell them the range from the data and say something like "I know you only hire the best and you want to raise the bar with each hire, so I was hoping to see a number at the higher end of that range"
The company hires N people per year, you get hired by 1 company every N years.
Sure, but the company hires you even less often -- at most once every 2N years and probably even less than that.
If you are interchangable with all their other hires... well, that's not a good position to be in for many reasons.
> The company hires N people per year, you get hired by 1 company every N years
Yes, but you can tilt this in your favor (if you find it valuable information) by getting X offers per year.
I've used what I consider the golden guide of salary negotiation for a software engineer that has been linked on HackerNews[1].
I've applied these guidelines in my own negotiations and it worked very well for me. I would've undersold myself by at least 15% if I went ahead and answered the salary question first. I declined politely to give a number first—even saying "it's not in my interest to answer that first, as you most likely understand".
Those guidelines work for all jobs that have high added value, I would say.
[1]: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/
This guide has aged surprisingly well, but I’d add to this: the above response is about as good as you can get—it is firm, non-combative, and moves the conversation forward.
Don’t antagonize your recruiter. You want them to advocate _for you_ when a prospective employer is drafting an offer. Work with them to give them the ammo they need to make that happen.
Would you say I was antagonizing him with my response? Because he was an in-house recruiter (and not a headhunter) and I got along with him pretty well.
I tell them the number up front. Because I'm not spending a week in their interview loop to find out they're going to offer me 30% less than my current job. Benefits are never a decider, and equity is a lottery ticket.
> and equity is a lottery ticket.
What's surprised me is that most of the younger coworkers I've had, having grown up largely through boom times, absolutely believe that this equity has tremendous value. I've had multiple younger coworkers talk about how excited they are to have so much equity in companies that have no visible path to a liquidity event.
There's a mythology in this business and it's highly seductive. You need to get burned once or twice by the reality before you learn.
I assume the mention of benefits was mostly a polite way to decline giving a number... It might also be more applicable in other industries/roles where benefits are more varied.
In either case, it never amounts to more than a $10K swing in comp. Same for vacation time.
Yes, it's a polite way to brush off the question. But the end result is the same. A job offer way lower than what you're making, and now they have $20K in a bucket to go a little higher when you try to negotiate.
Last 2 positions I’ve had haven’t had 401k matching and the health insurance costs are eye watering. I might consider an improvement in both to be worth a fair bit.
In my experience, those are the two things that are impossible to move. They're built into company HR structures and they don't bend them for individuals unless you're C-suite.
Benefits are rarely a decider IMO. Unless you need certain health care or there is something terribly unusual. The only time in my career I considered a benefits package was for a University that offered 12% 401k matching up to 100% of your contributions.
The argument is “we have a competitive benefits package”. Yeah, so does everyone else.
Yes. I pre-screen job postings to make sure that the compensation is workable before applying.
I don't trust the ranges put into job listings. It may give you a ballpark idea of the range, but anything that looks even slightly attractive or above market is usually put there to attract resumes. The real number is worse.
Interesting - I've never had that experience. In my experience the most variable part is the amount of stock/bonus on top of base salary.
I’ve been surprised by too many low ball job offers to spend much time in an interviews without a good idea the salary will work for me. Usually I find out through back channels or levels.fyi though.
I can’t see how it would possibly work in Polish market. Polish job IT market (at least for Go developers) is very specific. There’s very few companies actually building their own products and plenty of software houses/hiring agencies looking to hire cheaply. I’ve been doing Go for long enough that what I ask for is on the higher end, so much so that I probably refuse ~95% offers because they are significantly below my expectations. Importantly, I’m no public figure nor I’m 10x developer, I’m just a regular guy who chose Go very early in my career, just before it really took off.
Now, imagine that I don’t ask for a number nor share my expectations. With 3-4 rounds of interviews, even if we assume 1/10 is in my range, I’d have to SUCCESSFULLY do maybe 30-40 interviews on average to find a job that matches my expectations. Another thing is that benefits in Poland are pretty standard almost nearly everywhere: private medical care, gym card, 20 vacation days, 10 sick days… unless you’re willing to work in the big few companies that just have unlimited money.
(If someone in Poland has different experience, please share - would love to hear more.)
I'm kind of curious why language specializations matter much to all but the most hardcore of hardcore performance firms. People have demonstrated now that you can pick up even Rust with an LLM and be productive with it in a few days if you know what you are doing: https://github.com/humanlayer/advanced-context-engineering-f...
I just like my stack, which includes Go. That stack is of course ever changing, but why would I make a drastic change if I’m already both happy and somewhat good?
I’ve been recruiting people and had exposure to small sample of generalists as an interviewer, but also in a team. Not too long ago, I’ve been briefly exposed to „staff” level Go developers who, I kid you not, would not follow ANY known and widely accepted as best practice Go convention (that I could identify). Obviously these were Java, C#, Python developers bringing habits from their last language to that project and boy was it bad. I suppose that was an extreme end of the spectrum (they were also incredibly toxic), but not once before were I in a team where new code was that bad. Of course, best practices are there to serve you and not the other way around, but each time I’d ask, they couldn’t explain why in a coherent way.
I suppose once you know programming it’s kinda easy to change the syntax, but imo code is just significantly better if people know what they are doing.
Being productive isn't the same as being an expert
100% agree! But how many organizations actually need an expert vs someone productive? Goes back to the "only the most hardcore performance-based orgs" point as an example
Related ("what is your current salary"), you should know about "the work number"
"Talent Report™ Income and Employment Provides verification of employment plus verification of a candidate’s income." https://theworknumber.com/solutions/industries/pre-employmen...
Opt out: https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze
Wow. I didn't know this existed.
Do you know the data-source? Is it primarily from your self-declarations to your credit card company? Or do they have access to tax records?
The usual whoring out of personal info by third parties:
"The Work Number receives data directly from employers, payroll providers, or third-party administrators that choose to use The Work Number for employment verifications. We report your data as we receive it from these sources."
https://employees.theworknumber.com/faq#:~:text=The%20Work%2...
I opted out a long time ago after learning about them. I’d recommend doing so unless you like losing leverage in job negotiation. They get their info directly from companies (or indirectly through payroll companies like ADP). I recall there being a scary amount of detail, including the exact dollar amount of gross pay, and how much I put into my 401k/medical/etc on each paycheck.
In limited experience, I've been unclear if this strategy changes when dealing with companies that actually list the salary range (generally when required per some recent state laws).
Most of the time, I'd just answer "I'm ok with your published range, we can proceed." or similar.
But, I've also seen ranges that span hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like "Software engineer: $150k-$250" which is a ridiculous range that makes it almost meaningless. I mean, what are they thinking - any candidate worth their time is going to aim for the $250 end...
Even that range is much better than nothing. A person making 300k knows not to bother with the process and a person making 100k knows that it is definitely worth applying.
GitHub’s current Senior Software Engineer listings have a range of $124k - $329k
That feels like malicious compliance to me. I'd expect vastly different capabilities and output across the spread. At least in my region, the low end of that is somebody a few years out of college. And the high end is... well, pretty much nobody with that title is making that much.
Yeah, I think if they have published a range and you are comfortable with it, you can say "I reviewed the range on the website and am comfortable with it".
If you are not comfortable, then I'd be clear why, with data, upfront. "I saw the range on the website and it seems low based on X, Y, and Z. Is that range flexible?"
Whether the answer to that is yes or no, you'll be in a better spot whether to decide to move forward.
Right now, this standard recruiter question is on the side of the table that's often being especially penny-wise and pound-foolish...
A weird thing I'm seeing is early AI startups lowballing both salary and equity for AI startup jobs, compared to a few years ago for generic Web/app developer jobs.
You're in a narrow opportunity window of a massive investment gold rush. You probably got funding with a weak/nonexistent business model, and some mostly vibe-coded demo and handwavey partnership.
Now you need to hire a few good founding engineer types who can help get the startup through a series of harder milestones, with skillsets less clear than for generic Web/app development. If you can hire people as smart and dedicated as yourself, they'll probably do things that make a big positive difference, relative to what bottom of the barrel hires will do.
So why would you lowball these key early hires, at less than a new-grad starting salary, plus a pittance of ISOs that will be near-worthless even if you have a good exit.
Is it so that the founders and investors can have the maximum percentage of... something probably less valuable than what they'd get by attracting and aligning the right early hires? (Unless it's completely an investment scam, in which genuine execution doesn't affect the exit value.)
I’ve also noticed this, and it causes real issues long term when you want to build the product. Suddenly management is surprised your senior engineer with no relevant experience is taking a long time and needs to bring in a half million in consultants to actually do the work. It stresses everyone else out and then you end up with a lot of churn, a lot of burn, and very little internal knowledge to build off of for the future
I don’t get this, I’d rather talk about money upfront, I have a number I know I need to be at and I ask for at least that. Imagine spending the time and energy interviewing etc and then finding out that salary is far far below expectations?
My thought too, HR’s only care so far as they have a range they need to stick to. I don’t like to be too specific but I usually suggest my salary, possibly higher, as a minimum
You can set some reasonably high expectation, not as a target but as an aspiration.
Case in point, once when I was asked it I was "I read in an study that one gets happier with more salary up until 85K€, so my aim is to go towards that range". In the end I ended up halfway between that and my then salary. BTW, the study was then superseded by another that happiness keeps increasing, just not as fast.
Of course your situation might be different, and you could take inspiration for 6 digits, $500K or any other amount that would be perfect for you if accepted because it's higher than what you would have accepted, and you can get something below that that would be a stepping stone.
In Spain, at least, salary needs discussing early, too many divergences between some companies and some people expectations on that. So I disagree leaving it for later.
I don’t want a higher salary, I want a higher net worth so I can not work, or at least not work meaningless jobs that only serve as a high salary. I would prefer $2m in my pocket than a 500k/year ex. tax job.
The latter is a pretty good path towards making the former happen.
I’m not sure what your point is.
Edit: and if you’re unclear on my point, which I assume you are given you think that some rudimentary math invalidates my comment, the point was that a salary does not result in happiness, having money does, a high salary is the thing required to achieve it.
"What's your desired salary?"
"A million an hour, obviously (haha). But in all seriousness, I'd expect to be compensated commensurate with the responsibilities of the role, keeping in mind that the salary number is just one aspect of a compensation package as health insurance and other benefits are important to me."
There are only two reasons HR asks this:
1. possible leverage later in the process.
2. attempting to not waste time if the candidate's expectations are way out of line with the amount the company is willing to pay.
Either way, there is no good reason to name numbers prior to the company making an offer with compensation package details.
> Either way, there's no reason to name numbers until AFTER the company makes an offer with included compensation package details.
I agree that a candidate shouldn't name numbers until after an offer.
But I think the company should give a range as early as possible. This is because of point #2 above. As an engineering manager I've had at least one heartbreaking experience where we took a candidate through the hiring cycle and then found out we and they were way out of line re: comp. Hiring sucks enough without that curveball.
That's why, for all the warts, I'm a fan of salary disclosure laws (like those in Colorado, USA). Yes, it's hard to have an accurate range, because jobs and skills are squishy. Yes, candidates anchor towards the top. Yes, it's weird for a buyer of a thing (labor) to state a price.
But companies have more power in the hiring process (there are, after all, many employees working for a company, but usually only one company an employee works for). Companies, or the hiring managers, also have a budget.
If you are a hiring manager, I'd encourage you to have your salary range shared with candidates as early as possible in the process.
No one wants to work for a company in category #1, though I recognize some people might have to.
Find out their range and standard benefits package as soon as possible in the process. If you still don't know after the first phone screen/chat and are not in dire need of employment, move on. It's a great filter.
> 2. attempting to not waste time if the candidate's expectations are way out of line with the amount the company is willing to pay.
Good reason for them to say what they're willing to pay before I bother reading their job advert
It's not hard, just say you're looking for competitive compensation for someone with your experience and expertise and anchor on the high end of the range.
That said, what you say isn't as important as what you do. If you're interviewing, you should be interviewing at at least a few places to get comps. You will get lowballed if you don't have comps. Once you have a few offers, do one round of playing them off each other, decide which company you want to work for, and then say you'll sign today if they can beat the current best offer.
https://archive.is/Xh8E6
Site was hugged to death
Should have used a CDN :) .
I went through this a few years ago and wrote about it. https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/2565
They write as if there is unlimited budget but it is never is. There is a range and you'd better fit into it. Also if you think you are at the top of a market range already and the hiring company thinks it's too early to discuss - run. Unless you don't have a job or want to switch in any case.
The author thinks they made the wrong move a few times during their career, and now they're replaying it in hindsight as if their present experience has a measure on previous performance. They are only able to write this post because they did some things badly in the past, but after a load of other steps they got to a point where they could write a post or a book and basically skip all of the hard bits they don't want to talk about.
You have to be careful to not be led into this, as if you can follow OP's self-help advice and skip the failures. You will, in fact, fail in a different way.
Is this cynical? Yes. But it's how self-help advice works.
reading comments so far.. seems from people who have not tried how the current situation is. Yes most of these "cant say" worked 3+ years go. But it is harsh employer-driven market now. 100 candidates for 1 position.
The question is baked and mandatory in most forms, and there's no "cant say" - only about 20% do not ask it, all else.. have it. And it is the easiest filter for the above 100 candidates, so.
Negotiation phase? hah. You are lucky if you get a rejection e-mail. Most don't bother with even that, regardless the importance of the role. And you never know if the number was too high, or completely irrelevant.
I have helped a lot of people earn more money. The best advice I have for anyone doing salary negotiations: you cannot negotiate without options, so step 1 in any negotiation is to gather options.
How are folks navigating the sheer rate of inflation in the last 5 years?
In job listings, I’ve seen salaries for Senior or Staff remain about the same as they were (thought usually edging a little lower), but adjusted for inflation, they are way lower.
If I were to insist on my 2021 salary with inflation adjustment, I’m often blowing past the listed range by anything from 15k to 30k.
With the market the way it is, how are y’all handling that?
1. Continuing to maintain and improve my skills so I can earn more
2. Realizing that the rate of inflation and my achievable hourly rate (or the equivalent in salary) have little to do with each other at the personal level so your framing of the question doesn't make much sense
good answer if the job is in a big and very expensive city:
"I like this job and would do it for free if I was rich. But I'm not: I'll need to live with this salary. The absolute minimum I require is food and shelter for my family (single dad of 3). Look at the rent of a comfortable 4 bedroom apartment within 10 minutes on foot to the lab, and multiply it by three. That number is the least that I'm able to take. But of course if you pay me more I'll be happier."
Sorry, this is utter BS, or at least it doesn't apply to all situations.
I played exactly this script during my first interviews, never giving the first number, etc. It worked well for me exactly one time: the very first job I had out of academia where I did actually have to negotiate a salary. All the other times it resulted in waste of time and loss of sanity.
I am now very upfront with my expectations, or at least my non-expectations: "My current salary is X and I have Y perks, and I am in a good team; I wouldn't even consider moving for less than this, regardless of how cool your team is, and if you don't beat these numbers substantially I already know that my current employer will make me a counteroffer, and then you lose time but I win regardless." (of course not literally, but the message is this).
Less interviews, less time wasted.
I don’t give prospective employers a number. I just tell them that I pay rent on a 2BR in NYC. Then the ball is in their court.
> "Error establishing a database connection"
RIP, looks like the site got hugged.
It is exactly the point, stay blank if they ask that question!
In my (non-tech) field, most recruiters (except for tech company recruiters) start off by asking what the candidate's number is so that they're not wasting anyone's time, since no gainfully employed candidate is going to jump to a new company for the same or less compensation. For some reason, tech recruiters seem to believe that everyone outside of tech has been ignoring the massive layouts and still think that tech is super sexy and are just dying to work for tech no matter how low the salary is.
I am also fortunate enough to live in a state where job postings are required by law to include a salary range of actual or target salaries for the position (meaning, it must include both the salary range the company is willing to pay and also capture the salaries of anyone at the company who has substantially the same title or job responsibilities). Most companies make a good faith effort to comply. Tech companies generally don't bother, even when they're located in California. They usually slap a "remote" somewhere in the description even as the text elsewhere indicates that the position is hybrid or full-time on-site.
I’m not sure this article really applies to my experience. There are lots of companies who have extremely rigid pay ranges, and if you ask for wiggle room on a low salary they just move on to the next applicant. You should apply to jobs because you’d rather work there, and should come in with minimum salaries you’d accept. Thinking you’re going to negotiate 50k more after holding an offer in your hand is a good way to have the offer taken back
Terrible advice if you value your time or sanity, especially if you are experienced or not desperate for a job.
Find out the range up front by reading the job posting, making the recruiter tell you, asking a friend who works there, or asking after applying if you have no other connections.
No company is going to refuse to share the information because they are secretly planning to blow a qualified applicant away with a top of market offer.
I've used this as a chance to turn things back around on the recruiters. "That's a great question and I noticed you didn't mention a salary range on the posting". Allow for an uncomfortable silence as now they're either forced to give a range, or try to say something like, "it's flexible for the right candidate". The latter is my opportunity to agree, "Of course, let's concentrate on that question then, I'd sure like if we could get to the bottom of this 'right candidate' question".
No, don't let them get off the hook with "it's flexible for the right candidate", especially if you are talking to a recruiter (either internal or external).
That "flexibility" will suddenly disappear if your expectations are higher than they are looking to pay for the role, even if your expectations are completely warranted.
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