[quote=spdrun]Flu — thank G-d for a law that bans asking about prior salary or even salary expectation. Be straightforward, list a damn salary for the job, don’t make it a guessing game.
With the salary question:
Pick too low? You look stupid and ignorant. Or are punished if you came from an academic or non-profit job.
Pick too high? You have too high expectations from the job, they might as well not call.[/quote]
No amount of legislation can fix people who can’t negotiate their comp packages well.
I never had a problem with asking for a comp package that I wanted.I liked it when, unlike others that lied , I could actually prove my comp package.
The other angle is that no one ever works for a published salary because everything is negotiable. I’ve had so many offers from companies that initially published one low ball number, only to go through the interview and end up with something 20% higher than my current comp.
I suspect the reason for wage disparity had a lot to do with how well one negotiates, and quite often, people are too willing to settle for less than they could be compensated for. Maybe because they are desperate,syne they need a paycheck to make ends meet, maybe they waited until the got laid off before they started looking….For some reason, some people dont negotiate well, particularly geeks. You can’t legislate to fix that.
Even when I am perfectly happy at a current job, I always answer
every head hunter, and I am always upfront I will only consider a position that is either a lateral move paying a lot more, or a move upward paying a lot more. Confronted with “wouldn’t you want to work for an exciting startup” , I always answer “show me the money” and if I get “this is a startup without a lot money”, I say “show me the equity”, and if I get “we’ll determine that after youve worked for a few years” I say “good luck with finding your candidate, I don’t run a charity”.
For me, I not obligated to work, they were trying to recruit me, and considering I am much more leaning towards retirement these days, yeah I’ll postpone my retirement only if a nice number is thrown my way with decent hours. This is the best negotiation tactic I have found. No amount of legislation can help that.
