The best thing for most people is to delay talking about comp as long as possible into the interview, and not to tell them your current salary or total comp because it isn't relevant or helpful for you. If they have more time invested they are more likely to pay on the higher end of their salary range.

But you should ask the recruiter about the salary range and do research on the company before hand to find out what the range is.

This entirely depends on what you're after. If you have a predetermined number that you want to meet, lettergram's approach is better and will save time. If you instead want to get the company to pay you the most they can, delaying may be better.

If you're generally aware of what companies in the market are paying, quickly filtering out those that pay below what you want (for example, by saying "I'm looking for a total compensation above $500,000, and I know that there are companies in the market that will compensate at this level") is likely to save you time.

To put it into perspective, I’m in that later category. I know what the high end of the market is and I basically just ask for that plus X%.

I’ve been burned too many times waiting. Not worth it to get to the end only to be 50% over what they can pay.

Hiding your current compensation is a good strategy if you know you'll accept say 30% over your current salary, but the company might offer you more if they have to guess your number. This way, you might get pleasantly surprised.

I am no expert, but it sounds like you are naive when it comes to negotiation as well.

Please explain why for the rest of the class. A few sentences for those of us who know we are naive would be helpful.

> You can’t win if you guess at their salaries.

> If you underestimate what they’re willing to pay, you’re leaving money on the table. If the real answer is that they would compensate someone like you up to $75,000 dollars, and you guess they would pay a salary of only $65,000, you very literally may have just cost yourself $10,000. [0]

[0] https://fearlesssalarynegotiation.com/salary-expectations-in...

And a video from the creator of that site (Josh Doody) on this specific issue (disclosing current salary):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N7mOR9yv2U

Can recommend. I followed Josh Doody's advice last time I switched jobs and I did really well in negotiations. Even though in the beginning of my job search I had given a recruiter my preferred salary range (my mistake) and of course the company's offer was at the bottom of that range, I was still able to negotiate and recover quite nicely in the end. Though, having multiple offers on hand helped a lot.

I avoided saying much because, like I said, I'm not expert and don't want to mislead people. But I'm pretty sure laying your cards on the table is the wrong answer.

The goal of every negotiation isn’t to extract the theoretical maximum from the counterparty.

The goal can be to reach a mutually agreeable solution as quickly as possible. In this case, saying “this is what I’ll agree to” up front works towards that goal even if it does leave some meat on the bone.

some hint on naivety. Salary negociation remains an unspoken art and is often taboo. It takes experience and good understanding of the many dynamics in place to stop being misguided/fooled by what's going on and what we are told. The message most companies spread is that it's a meritocracy, that the wellbeing of all employees and fairness are taken very seriously. and the claims are that we roughly work in a meritocracy. Being naive is believing it is true to some extent. Reality, and people who have lengthy experience and no reason to censor themselves in my circle all agree with this: It is an adversarial exchange of information, each party pushing as far as they can get away with in order to serve their own interest.

with that in mind, and the following rule is a basic negociation principle: Information gives an edge.

So if you put down your expectation, or worse provide your current compensation, you are giving away critical information to let the other side know pretty much all you know, which one can roughly derive what you would accept or reject. and the other side will either not give an offer at all (if your expectations are way off higher than budget) or will offer the minimum to get away with.

tldr: trusting potential opponents by telling them what they kindly ask is naive.

Do you feel that salary negotiations are adversarial?

For context: I realize that one-off negotiations (buying a car at a dealership) are strictly adversarial, but negotiations in ongoing relationships (employment) benefit more from sharing information on what you want and why.

For example, you tell the other side that you need 10K extra for planned babysitting expenses and they offer you less, but add paid time off to care for your own child.

I think employment benefits negociations are less adversarial than at the car dealers. Because as you said one off vs to establish a long term relationship obviously leads to different optimal outcome from both sides. It is adversarial non the less and has the same patterns: information disymetry, personal gains and complex dynamics involving other stakeholders with constraints on both sides.

I think basing what should you get basing on your needs, rather than on your worth is a basic mistake.

>I think most people are naive (even on HN) regarding compensation and negotiations.

I think most people on HN are naïve as to how most companies outside of tech startups actually work. They have concrete pay scales, you get the bare minimum of that pay scale when you hire in, anything above that is from your annual merit based increase which is often at or below inflation. You can look at your co-workers and have a very good idea of what they make to the percent based on how long they've been in their role.

"The first thing I do at the start of every interview conversation is ask comp. I then tell them my total comp and ask for X% over."

First, no good team will hire someone that does this, second, this is not a good negotiation tactic at all.

On the former: definitely it's prudent for both sides to be 'in range' or else it's all pointless, but that should be sorted out before the interview process - just the range.

Anyone wanting to talk about salaries up front is not going to make it past that part of the conversation for any decent group. It's the last part, not the first part, for so many reasons not the least of which is trying to put a number on something wherein fit, value etc. has not been established, and more obviously a concern over motivations etc..

As for the later, i.e. 'why it's a bad negotiating tactic' ... because it's not just about Supply, it's about Demand as well.

You may be overstating or understating your position by quite a lot thereby rending moot a real opportunity for exchange of value.

You may have some kind of special skills they really need, and some advanced insight. They might also be in a very profitable position. They might be happy to pay you much more. Alternatively, you may have little to offer, they might be cash constrained etc..

For equity again, they might be offering you a sweet deal, above industry norms, in which case asking for 2-4x just seems aggressive or uninformed.

But really, both of those things combined are bad: anyone wanting to talk comp details before demonstrating value, commitment, professionalism and the incidentals like curiosity/intelligence ... as an employee that's 'really bad signal'. If you're hiring someone you know to be a competent contractor, the scope of the job is established - fine - but that's rarely the case.

YC doesn't publish comp because it's probably not very helpful, the range would have to be wide, and they probably want people who want to be there, the comp distracts a bit from that. That said, I wonder if there were a sea change on that custom if would all be better off.

As someone who’s wasted probably 80+ hours in the last 2 years getting through to the offer stage only to find that none will match my current comp (all of whom were coy at the outset about comp), fuck this opinion. I’ve now learned to check Levels.fyi and, if the company/role are not posted there, will explicitly ask at the outset to ensure I’m not wasting any more of my time (surprise surprise, most of them can’t match it either-asking has literally never cost me a role I wanted but it’s saved me numerous interviews by this point). I’m not taking a pay cut for your company, great as you think it is, so if my skills aren’t worth the premium to you, it’s best we find that out beforehand.

Levels seems to be restricted to a few well known names though.

This is why I'm happy to go through third party recruiters. It's in their own interest to not waste time with people who either can't be placed or need a certain pay range, so you can ask them in the first minute of conversation what the job pays and they'll tell you. Plus they'll know the salary of many many people, as their own compensation depends on it.