WaytoomuchEurope

If I'm interviewing someone and their first questions are about salary and PTO, we're done.

When I interview I typically wait to be asked my expectations or wait for the initial offer. It is typical for companies to tell you that you have to serve your probationary period (90-180 days) before benefits kick in. I make it clear this is a non-starter for me. I have a family - I need to be insured at the employer's expense, I need to have sick days, and I definitely want vacation days (of course those have to be earned first, but I'm not waiting a year!)

Interestingly my brother has unlimited vacation at his company and takes less days off than I do - whether for sickness or holiday.

Bohemian1

Yeah, I've never had a problem getting the benefits probation waived. Admittedly after my first job.

eigenvector

I think it depends a lot of how much information is being proactively provided by the employer.

For instance, if you've posted a salary range with your job ad, or otherwise disclosed it to me early on in the process, I don't need to ask that. But if you're silent on salary, I need to make sure you aren't going to make an insultingly low offer, because that's happened before and only after I wasted a good deal of time (and your money) flying out for an interview. And if you're asking me for a salary range, then I expect feedback from you on how it compares to what you're willing to pay. I also think it's only fair for either party to declare any 'red lines' they have as early on as possible, so the other side can walk away if that's going to be an issue. For instance, if your job requires an on-call rotation, that's fine, but tell me that at the start so I can ask about it and see if it suits me.

My first focus is on learning more about the job itself, because if I don't like the job or the company, there's no need to talk about money. Also, if you've said or I already know that your company isn't very flexible on its offers (i.e. the public sector), then why not just tell me now if there's not going to be negotiation anyway? Then we can all be on the same page.

canadiancow

And there's the issue. In my case, the headhunter was sure we'd be able to work out something with regards to time off, and NO other company I've worked for had been that uptight about a couple weeks of unpaid leave.

So if I'd asked early on about that or compensation (just to set a stronger baseline for how I define "competitive" - though I'd think "at least as good as my current compensation" would be the starting point), I could have avoided:

1. Recruiter call
2. Technical phone screen
3. Recruiter call
4. Day of onsite (requiring a day off my real job, costing me real money)
5. Recruiter call
6. Back onsite for a brief discussion with the CEO (apparently I was a strong candidate)
7. Drinks with a director (unsure what order this was in)
8. Lunch with hiring manager (unsure what order this was in)
9. Onsite meeting to discuss the offer (I actually said to them "If you doubled the stock, I'm still not sure this would be a competitive offer that I'd accept")
10. Phone call to discuss revised offer

I appreciate the offer is going to depend in my performance during (2) (4) (6) (7) (8), but they considered me a very strong candidate that they really wanted, and they wanted to pay me about $40k less than my existing salary (to be expected - last job was well above the market for salary), but also with less stock compensation.

At what point can I tell them "total comp needs to be at least $x at your current valuation or it's not worth our time to continue the process" ? Because my suspicion is that doing it anywhere before the offer would have resulted in "turns me off" or "we're done".

To give some rough numbers for people hired into the same company at the same engineer level, I've seen $100k with $150k stock over 4 years up to $100k with $300k stock over 4 years (and this was GOOG, so the stock value was real). Salary ranges for silicon valley tech companies are pointless, because the comp differences come from stock. Even at my last company, salary was pretty fixed for a given level, but the jumps between levels were on the order of $35k. And "150 to 280 depending on where we level you" isn't exactly a useful salary range, but we couldn't be more specific without actually knowing how good you were.

So I fully understand the problems revealing too much too early, but I just can't stand the situations where I exceed interview expectations for the level they want to bring me in at, yet I get a complete lowball offer.

But I also don't want to say "here's my current total comp, if you won't be able to beat this, it's not worth talking".

Then again, the job I ended up taking was very up front about likely compensation ranges, and even the low end of their range was above my existing compensation.

Bohemian1

As a hiring manager, when I'm working with a good headhunter (and I usually do now) one of the things they get out of the way early are the candidate's salary expectations. This helps avoid the long chain @canadiancow shows above and make a better use of everyone's time.

Not without flaws, but it mostly works.

canadiancow

A big part of my issue is that everyone seems to be focused on SALARY expectations.

Company A pays 100k salary and 100k stock
Company B pays 150k salary and 25k stock

I work for A, and B wants to know what salary I want. I say 125k, and they come back with the above offer.

It's a lowball, and I refuse it. They're shocked because they beat my salary expectation by 25k.

yyznomad

Everyone hires in their own way. There isn't necessarily a right or wrong method.

With my growing experience, I typically tell prospective employers and/or clients what I expect and it works out most of the time.

However, when I was green and out of school, it was probably best that I didn't do that (and I didn't).

On another note, what if CBJ wins again tonight?

Bohemian1

Thus my comment earlier about total compensation.

Sadly, this has been easier for me when joining / hiring at a startup than some larger, public companies. For the latter, the whole option / RSU process can be a whole other byzantine process that makes it really hard to be flexible. I'm sure some orgs are more enlightened, but it hasn't been my first hand experience.

yyznomad

😂😂😂

yyznomad

Double bonkers now.
Insanity.

YYT82

yyznomad

Yes, it is really that surprising.

TB never lost a game all season when leading by 3 goals in the final period, and it happened in Game 1.
TB only lost consecutive games twice all season, one of them being OT and SO earlier this year, and the other early in the season (November).
TB only lost by a 4-or-more-goal differential twice all season, both happening early in the season.
TB swept the regular season series games against CBJ with a total goal differential of 17-3.
Statistically, they steamrolled the rest of the league while having matched the league record for most wins in a season.
They aren't some not-so-bad President's Trophy team... they are arguably one of the best ever.

I'm well aware that in NHL playoff hockey that the history of President's Trophy teams have been abysmal.

But that still doesn't make all of this less surprising.

eigenvector

Just catching up on last week's news and saw that Michel Bacos, captain of AF 139, the Tel Aviv to Paris flight that was hijacked to Entebbe in 1976, died a couple weeks ago. He was 95. The hijackers offered to release him and the crew as they were not Jewish or Israeli, but he refused saying he would stay with the passengers until the end.

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/30/70822...ebbe-hijacking

tcook052

Oh Raps. They couldn't hit the long ball all night and had some bad turnovers down the stretch. Raps 2-14 in game 1 of playoff series to say they're slow starters is a massive understatement.

Jumper Jack

Very interesting top 1% of CDN actually makes 50% of what top 1% of US folks do