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Reddit CEO Ellen Pao Bans Salary Negotiations To Equalize Pay For Men, Women

Posted by samzenpus on from the all-things-equal dept.

sabri points out that Reddit CEO Ellen Pao plans to ban salary negotiations in an attempt to equalize pay for men and women. "After losing a sex-discrimination lawsuit in Silicon Valley last week, Ellen Pao continues on her crusade to bring gender equality to the tech world, but this time with a focus on her home turf. As Reddit’s interim CEO, Pao said she wants to eliminate salary negotiations from the company’s hiring process. In her first interview since the lawsuit, Pao told with the Wall Street Journal Monday that the plan would help level the playing field. 'Men negotiate harder than women do and sometimes women get penalized when they do negotiate,' she said. 'So as part of our recruiting process we don’t negotiate with candidates. We come up with an offer that we think is fair. If you want more equity, we’ll let you swap a little bit of your cash salary for equity, but we aren’t going to reward people who are better negotiators with more compensation.'"

58 of 892 comments (clear)

  1. Hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Penalising better negotiators is hardly a good thing regardless if it's trying to promote equality. Really all they're doing is saving money.

    1. Re:Hmm by Crashmarik · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Really all they're doing is saving money.

      Yep. I will bet good coin, that the average salary as a whole goes down over this.

    2. Re:Hmm by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I think that in the end they might make it harder for themselves to recruit talent.

      E.g. they find a really talented person who already has a job, but they REALLY want THIS person, so they make an offer. This person already makes at or near the amount offered, so he/she wants to negotiate for more before considering taking the position. End result is they don't acquire the talent they want and settle for something else.

      I personally haven't tried to bargain for more, but I'm still rather fresh out of college so I've been rather satisfied with the offers I've received.

    3. Re:Hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, there are two problems. (1) Women are socialized to not negotiate. And, much more importantly, (2) the people the women are negotiating with are sexist (unconsciously or not) and will tend reject attempts to negotiate from women.

    4. Re:Hmm by Ixokai · · Score: 4, Informative

      You're missing the part where there are actual studies that show that when women DO negotiate, they get penalized FOR doing so. Women are seen as "pushy" and "demanding" whereas a man doing the same thing is "assertive".

    5. Re:Hmm by mariox19 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Perhaps—just perhaps—the women who do attempt to negotiate are, statistically speaking, more pushy and demanding. There is a certain style to negotiating. Maybe, by and large, women are less likely to negotiate. And, maybe, the ones who do are more likely to do it wrong. I think it possibly could be more complicated than people would like to think.

      --

      quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.

    6. Re:Hmm by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think that in the end they might make it harder for themselves to recruit talent.

      Or easier, now that the initial offer is also their best offer, rather than a low-ball. This may also encourage more resume submissions from people that don't like to haggle.

    7. Re:Hmm by Daemonik · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Or, conversely, they find a strong willed individual who's great at negotiating but sucks at the actual job and their overpowering personality always derail's team tasks.

      Negotiating skill does not equate to job performance, unless your job is being a negotiator.

    8. Re:Hmm by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If a man and a woman both use the same tactics for negotiation, the guy will, on average, be rewarded for it more than the woman. There is a lot of evidence that there is subconscious bias applied - guys are seen as "hard negotiators/motivated/etc" while gals are seen as "high needs/bitchy/demanding".

      Um huh - I sort of agree, but by the other women.

      I know a number of women who were successful in their fields, including my SO.

      Most of them say their biggest problem is not with men. But with other women. My wife, who can negotiate as well or better than anyone I know, BTW, has had more problems with other women who simply hate her. Oddly enough, the men she works with and those who worked for her, just love her. And since she's dealing with a number of construction guys, they are not always the most liberated. But they do what she tells them to do, no griping. The women though, are not so nice.

      And the same went for the successful female engineers I've worked with. The less successful ones had more of a concept of forcing a new paradigm on the workplace, with a sort of 40 hours only outlook, no lost vacation, sick leave balance of 0.

      Meanwhile the successful men and women were doing what they had to to get the job done, not trying to mold the workplace towards the LCD.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    9. Re:Hmm by turbidostato · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "The less successful ones had more of a concept of forcing a new paradigm on the workplace, with a sort of 40 hours only outlook, no lost vacation, sick leave balance of 0."

      Oh! but, but... what a f* bastards! 40 hours/week, and stay by the hiring contract they signed... how they dared!!!???

      What will come next? Abolishing slavery!!!???

    10. Re:Hmm by russotto · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Except being "pushy" and being "assertive" are the same thing. The only difference is the gender of the person doing it. If a man sticks up for himself, he is respected. If a woman sticks up for herself, she's a bitch.

      So you say. I say that doing the things that would get a woman called "pushy" are typically things that would get a man called "pushy", and doing things that get a woman called "bitchy" would generally get a man called an "jerk" or an "asshole".

    11. Re:Hmm by barc0001 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You know, when I was in my 20s and even 30s I thought the same way you did. Looking back on it I realize there were a lot of tech companies that got a lot of free work that was left on the table from me and my peers because of those attitudes. Sure, staying late a couple of nights to finish something or booking time on the weekend is fine *as long as your company is also fine with giving you that time back somewhere else*. Most companies aren't, treating it as a one way street, especially in software/tech and that's not right.

      Companies love attitudes like yours because it helps weed out the people who won't be taken advantage of.

    12. Re:Hmm by turbidostato · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "The thing is, if you go to a company where everyone works 60 hours a week and you want to work 40, you are fucking everyone else in your team."

      I have no problems, in principle, to sign for a 60 hour/week under a fair agreement both parties are comfortable with. And under such a fair agreement, I don't give a damn about how much the rest of my team works nor I think I should.

      But the thing is, if you go to a company that hires for a 40 hour/week but where everyone works 60 hours a week, not such an uncommon scenario, it is the company the one fucking all of them, not the one that wants to stay by the letter of the contract that both the company and him have agreed upon and signed.

      It is curious -and sad, how we the minions get to accept the master's rationale and make it ours.

    13. Re:Hmm by sa1lnr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "(1) Women are socialized to not negotiate"

      Having been married for 28 years I can tell you that this statement is utter nonsense.

    14. Re:Hmm by horm · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You're assuming the women are negotiating with men, which reveals your own prejudice.

  2. These days... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Men negotiate harder than women do"

    Let's punish people who are good at something! Diversity!

    1. Re:These days... by rudy_wayne · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Men negotiate harder than women do"

      So everyone is penalized because women are inferior to men. Nice.

      But the bigger issue is why negotiating even exists at all. Too many companies want to make the hiring process like buying a used car, offering you a low figure, hoping you'll take it, and only offering more if you "negotiate harder".

    2. Re:These days... by Yoda222 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There is no good reason to pay a good negotiator more than a bad, except if you want to hire someone for a position where you need negotiation skills.

    3. Re:These days... by Cereal+Box · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It exists because you've got two parties with two different goals. One wants to get paid as much as possible, the other wants to acquire something for as little as possible.

    4. Re:These days... by LessThanObvious · · Score: 4, Informative

      Saying men negotiate harder than women do is about the most sexist thing I've heard lately from an executive.

    5. Re:These days... by Anrego · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I feel like it exists for a few main reasons:

      - People have different priorities. Some are all about the money, some want the retirement contribution, some want equity, some want vacation, etc. People also proportionally value these things differently. How much do you value an extra week of vacation to say, more retirement contribution or more salary? Negotiation solves this problem.

      - As has been said, the employer and candidate have two directly opposing goals. The employer wants to pay the least they can while not feeling like you'll get a higher paying opportunity a few weeks later, and the employee wants the most money.

      - Negotiation keeps things competitive. If every company stopped allowing negotiations, it would either become a race to the bottom or the top (I'm actually not even sure which, but the cynic in me thinks bottom).

      Ultimately, I think this whole thing is stupid. I'm a guy, but I have to imagine this is patronizing as all hell to women. Isn't this the kind of shit feminists have been fighting forever?

    6. Re:These days... by tlambert · · Score: 3, Informative

      How much do you value an extra week of vacation to say, more retirement contribution or more salary?

      Vacation accrual rate and initial vacation balances are generally non-negotiable. Most of silicon valley outsources their human resources to a couple of companies, and, posing as a company interested in obtaining the services of those of both Apple and Google, and in the middle of considering options, neither company could handle an initial balance.

      The Apple one (ADC) could handle a different accrual rate, but given business rules and set-limits, they would have had to have pretended I was at Apple 5 years to give the extra week of accrual, and it would top out exactly the same point as anyone else who had been there for sufficient years to top out, as soon as I hit "sufficient - 5". In addition, there would have been sabbatical triggers, stock vesting triggers (I'd vest month-to-month, instead of a one year cliff).

      In the Google case, I delayed my start date as an "unpaid absence" to get the vacation. In the Apple case, the boss stepped in and said "just take the week; let me know when it will be ahead of time, and don't schedule it through the system, and I'll ignore it if you will" (worked until the second manager change happened).

      Payroll systems are generally set up on a "minimal business rules" basis, and are stupid hard to change.

      So no, some things are not in the bucket with everything else as "everything's negotiable".

    7. Re:These days... by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually most things can be negotiated for. What determines it is the relative price. If it's 5 bucks, they aren't likely to negotiate because they have very little profit margin.

      If it's $100K, there's going to be multiple 1000s in wiggle room.

      But mostly, you list examples of buying 'goods' and not services. Services are inherently more negotiable since it's time vs money instead of stuff vs money. (basically the same as above)

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    8. Re:These days... by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      maybe its not about men vs women. that's a red herring.

      in the bay area, at least, job salary negotiations exist mostly for non H1B's. H1B's will take what they can get and be thankful for that.

      US born and raised folks have had more options and they won't be manipulated (as much) as foreign workers let themselves be.

      which do you think companies want more of? those that can walk and go elsewhere vs those that are indentured?

      the same for salaries. those who are indentured won't be able to negotiate salaries. those few of us who are left, 'need' to be stripped of that right, too (according to her).

      this is CEO vs common man, not man vs woman.

      war on the middle class, just with a distraction tactic added.

      same old, same old (sigh) ;(

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    9. Re:These days... by s0nicfreak · · Score: 4, Informative

      All monetary transactions are like that. Yet we don't negotiate for toothpaste, gas, etc.

      That's because nowadays, we (in first world countries) rarely interact with anyone that has the power to charge a different price for toothpaste and gas.
      Back when the store/station workers were also the store/station owners, we did negotiate for toothpaste and gas. And this negotiation can still be seen in less "developed" countries where the person doing the selling is the person that sets the price of the items.

    10. Re:These days... by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's a difference between being 'confident' and 'pushy,' and it has nothing to do with gender.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    11. Re:These days... by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Moreover the OP missed (as did most of the readers here) a too-subtle point made in the summary: it's not about who's better at negotiating, it's about the fact that culturally we (usually) are comfortable about men being pushy about their salary, while women tend to be treated negatively if they do the same thing. It's likely not a conscious decision on the part of those they try to negotiate with, more an unconscious reaction to a difference in expectations, but ill intentioned or otherwise it does actually happen.

      I know women I work with who are considered "difficult" by all the (male) colleagues around me, simply because they do actually try to get ahead. For the example I'm thinking of, there's literally nothing she does that isn't done by far less qualified male colleagues who end up in more senior positions. But nobody wants to work with her, because she's "pushy".

      We're rewarding people of one gender when they negotiate a salary. We're punishing people of the other when they negotiate a salary. Surely even Slashdot's current infestation of MRAs must see the problem with that.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  3. Negotiation by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We come up with an offer that we think is fair.

    That's a pretty poor negotiating strategy if you're trying to hire the talent you want rather than the gender you want.

    Why wouldn't I spend the time to fly out and interview if there was a significant chance I wouldn't like whatever number it was that they considered 'fair' and I couldn't negotiate from there?

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    1. Re:Negotiation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because you should know what they are offering beforehand, otherwise why go? You are paid for your ability to work, probably at a technically challenging job, not for your skill at negotiation and self marketing. If you have more skill go for a better job or try for a "senior" version of the same post but dont expect better pay for the same work.

  4. What if you are hiring a salesperson? by xmas2003 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wouldn't the ability to negotiate be a useful skill for a Reddit salesperson?

    --
    Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
  5. Yeah, right. by msauve · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Men negotiate harder than women do"

    So, she makes a sexist statement to defend not negotiating in order to eliminate sexism? Fail. Would she use the same claim to defend hiring men over women for positions which involve negotiating contracts?

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    1. Re:Yeah, right. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      In more specific terms it is a known and measurable effect that men who push and demand more are praised as go getting or leader types and women making the same moves are called names, bossy at best, and penalised for asking. So women learn not to push because others punish them for it, not because of any real difference in temperament or talent.

    2. Re:Yeah, right. by Citizen+of+Earth · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The gender wage gap is a myth. When you control for all the extraneous variables, men and women are paid the same. The reality is that men are paid more because they are willing to take uglier, riskier jobs, move longer distances for them, work longer hours, have more experience and qualifications in occupations with stronger demand, are willing to demand higher salaries, and are less likely to leave their career tracks for family obligations. Sorry to burst your politically correct bubble.

      http://www.amazon.ca/Why-Earn-More-Warren-Farrell/dp/0814472109/

      The wage-gap argument doesn't even make sense. Just imagine if a company could get the same productivity out of women and pay them 30% less. It would have an enormous competitive advantage over every other company in its industry and all the companies would quickly be forced to either hire all women themselves or go out of business, not because of any misguided government interference, but purely because of overwhelming free-market forces. The same argument applies for women in the boardroom. If they gave a company a distinct competitive advantage, every company would already be forced by the market to have lots of them.

    3. Re:Yeah, right. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      YES
      paper title -
      Social incentives for gender dfferences in the propensity to initiate negotiations: Sometimes it does hurt to ask
      Abstract -
      Four experiments show that gender differences in the propensity to initiate negotiations may be explained by differential treat-ment of men and women when they attempt to negotiate. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants evaluated written accounts of candidates who did or did not initiate negotiations for higher compensation. Evaluators penalized female candidates more than male candidates for initiating negotiations. In Experiment 3, participants evaluated videotapes of candidates who accepted compensation offers or initiated negotiations. Male evaluators penalized female candidates more than male candidates for initiating negotiations; female evaluators penalized all candidates for initiating negotiations. Perceptions of niceness and demandingness explained reistance to female negotiators. In Experiment 4, participants adopted the candidate’s perspective and assessed whether to initiate negotiations in same scenario used in Experiment 3. With male evaluators, women were less inclined than men to negotiate, and nervousness explained this effect. There was no gender difference when evaluator was female.

      link
      https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/cfawis/bowles.pdf

    4. Re:Yeah, right. by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 4, Informative

      http://content.time.com/time/b...
      http://online.wsj.com/news/art...
      http://www.consad.com/content/...

      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
      http://www.thedailybeast.com/a...
      http://www.slate.com/articles/...
      http://www.cbsnews.com/news/th...
      http://www.aei-ideas.org/2014/...

      --
      A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
  6. Crazy by yog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I thought she was a little off, because of her battle with her previous employer. But this is ridiculous. According to the WSJ, she is personally vetting potential candidates for their attitudes on diversity, and if a candidate says "I am not concerned about diversity" or "I don't consider diversity important" then they don't get hired. And now this salary non-negotiation thing. No one of any value is going to interview there.

    I suppose the ones who are already there are safe because if she starts firing, say, white men, she's going to eventually have a nasty lawsuit to deal with. But I know her type. She probably won't fire anyone; she'll just harass and hound them into quitting.

    I can't believe Reddit wants this person as their CEO; she's going to destroy the company.

    --
    it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
    1. Re:Crazy by liquid_schwartz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I suppose the ones who are already there are safe because if she starts firing, say, white men, she's going to eventually have a nasty lawsuit to deal with.

      My observation is that unless said white males are either gay or Jewish there's no hope for them to ever win a discrimination lawsuit.

    2. Re:Crazy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You're a funny guy. She tried to sleep her way to the top and then sued her employer when she failed. Her husband is in court over claims that he ran a Ponzi scheme. Who's spinning who here?

  7. Re:Of course that Republican bitch... by 0123456 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    > I thought the mantra of the Democrat party was equality through mediocrity?

    Some Democrats do this, yes. Some Republicans believe in ~~equality~~ fuck you, I got mine. I'm not sure which is worse.

    You can't suddenly make mediocre people good at what they do, so the only way for the left to enforce equality is to make the good people mediocre.

    I read an autobiography some years ago by a woman who was in the Chinese Army in the 70s or 80s, and one thing that particularly stood out was the part where she wrote about how she had to deliberately shoot badly on the shooting range, because anyone who could shoot well would be punished for making the others look bad.

    That's 'equality' red in tooth and claw.

  8. University are just as dumb by jklovanc · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This reminds me of a policy that was caused the closure of Computer Science labs between 2AM and 6AM. The justification went something like this;

    There are women who are afraid to be on campus late at night and therefore will not access the computer labs during that time. If men have access to the labs at that time they will have an unfair advantage in completing their work. Therefore to keep access equal the labs will be closed

    It lasted about two months until they got security cameras in the labs. I think that was a face saving thing as many women on campus were upset about the closure too. This is the same faculty that shut off the phones in the labs because they could be used to make long distance calls (with some work). They forgot that those same phones could be used to call security if needed. This whole idea of making everyone equally bad is just stupid.

  9. She's a piece of work. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Gay scammer husband who also sued for "discrimination", and will possibly spend time in prison for fraud. Real bitch on wheels that nobody at work liked, and she felt entitled to raises/bonuses/etc... Sues company nice enough to hire her in the first place, and which bent over backwards acceding to her crazy demands prior and during the lawsuit.

    She then gets a job as CEO at Reddit 'somehow' (some sort of shady nepotism), and proceeds to get revenge by basically turning the place into an SJW-only space.

    If I was a white dude working at Reddit I'd be looking around for other work.

    Oh, and she can't ban salary negotiation. She can only say Reddit won't budge on their first offer. The potential employee can just say "mm, OK, but X-Cotech just offered me 5% more - see ya."

  10. Statistical Reports Are Always Right... by Press2ToContinue · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... as long as they agree with my opinion.

    --
    Sent from my ENIAC
  11. Re:I tried this myself by msauve · · Score: 4, Funny

    "...I told her..."

    See, there's the problem. If it was a male cashier, he would have negotiated. I hear they're better at it.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  12. Sounds good to me. by Seor+Jojoba · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It means that in order for Reddit to be competitive in hiring, they will need to make a first offer (the fixed salary+benefits) that is at or above the market average. As a jobseeker, I can just look at what they have to offer and take it or leave it. No haggling. No drama. That sounds good to me! I'm decent at negotiating, but I don't enjoy it.

    For jobs where negotiating skill is NOT part of the job, the negotiation ban should make hiring decisions better correlate with merit. And generally, I want to be surrounded with people hired for relevant merits, and not just good self-promoters.

  13. Is negotiation a skill required for the job? by duckintheface · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If the ability to negotiate aggressively is not a talent required for the job, there is no reason why someone who negotiates well should get a higher salary. The same skills that make for aggressive negotiation (affinity for conflict situations for example) may make a prospective employee perform less well in team situations.

    An interview should give the employer a chance to describe the job and the prospective employee a chance to describe their relevant talents. Each side should then know the market value of the applicants skills with respect to the job. If the company's offer does not match the applicants pay requirement, them should part ways. What does a negotiation accomplish?

    --
    "He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
    1. Re:Is negotiation a skill required for the job? by turbidostato · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "If the ability to negotiate aggressively is not a talent required for the job, there is no reason why someone who negotiates well should get a higher salary."

      Maybe you are right.

      But how funny that the "solution" this CEO proposes to avoid negotiation is "I'll make an offer and you'll take it" instead of, say, "you'll make an offer and I'll take it".

      "What does a negotiation accomplish?"

      Last I reviewed, a hiring contract is still a contract. You know, that stuff about "meeting of the minds", "consensus ad idem", "mutual assent"...

      And this specific kind of contracts are basically about exchanging labour for *money*. It's difficult to reach that "meeting of the minds", "consensus ad idem", "mutual assent"... about the exchange of labour for money when one party is void to bring the issue about money onto the table. Oh! and how convenient for the hirer while, at the same time, inconvenient for the hiree.

    2. Re:Is negotiation a skill required for the job? by TranquilVoid · · Score: 3

      Spot on. How about calling it the ability to negotiate well or successfully? For a whole bunch of reasons, men on average are more inclined to sell themselves and their abilities. If Reddit is too naive to see past this or they truly have a problem with aggressive/bullying negotiators then they need to become tougher negotiators themselves or stop hiring aggressive people.

    3. Re:Is negotiation a skill required for the job? by Immerman · · Score: 3, Interesting

      When is the last time you negotiated prices at the grocery store? Yes, there are places where you can do so, but the prices then get determined almost entirely by the relative skill of the hagglers, rather than the actual value of the merchandise. "Market pricing" is an almost completely unrelated phenomena determined by the intersection of supply and demand curves for commodity-scale trading.

      Of course there are other options as well to try to get the best of both worlds - transparent salaries for one: put everybodies salary on their name plaque and you'll get a lot of disgruntled workers if you let Frank' superior haggling skills earn him a substantial pay raise, despite him being the office slacker.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    4. Re:Is negotiation a skill required for the job? by goose-incarnated · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, I have to ask - did she negotiate her own salary?

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    5. Re:Is negotiation a skill required for the job? by turbidostato · · Score: 4, Informative

      "Well, I have to ask - did she negotiate her own salary?"

      Are you kidding!?

      She's talking about the minions, not the masters. Of course she negotiated her contract to the latest comma.

    6. Re:Is negotiation a skill required for the job? by goose-incarnated · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Games of chicken are easy to lose. I've found that those who claim to be good negotiators (such as with buying a new car) also tend to be somewhat annoying as well; aggressive, boisterous, high ego, self centered, etc. They're not afraid to lose that game of chicken, and indeed they are treating it like some sporting contest.

      The problem is not "women don't negotiate" in this case, the problem is "Company chief aggressively negotiated own salary but demands that no one else in company is allowed to do as she did."

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    7. Re:Is negotiation a skill required for the job? by N1AK · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When is the last time you negotiated prices at the grocery store?

      When was the last time you didn't negotiate prices on a house or car? And which is selecting an employer more like, buying you milk and bread for the week or a major purchasing decision?

  14. Pao = Sexist by uncqual · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Men negotiate harder than women do

    Is this because woman are unable to negotiate as hard? Because they are unwilling to? Because they are too stupid to? What is her explanation? Is it hormonal? Does it have to do with having different body mass distribution? Inquiring minds want to know.

    If it's to their advantage to negotiate hard and men and women are indistinguishable professionally, women obviously are just as able to negotiate hard (and, given negotiations I've been in, I have no reason to doubt they are not just as capable at this art).

    Pao is really insulting women by saying this.

    This really opens a Pandora's box. If she thinks women, by virtue of being female, are not as good at this important aspect of professional life, one wonders what other parts of their professional lives women are not as good at. She should give us a complete list - who knows what might be on it.

    I wonder what would happen if she ran a purchasing organization or a sales organization. Usually the willingness and capability to negotiate effectively (and, therefore, hard) are basic job requirements for these positions. Would she refuse to hire women because, as she has stated, they are not as good at negotiating hard (ouch, there's a sexual discrimination lawsuit waiting to happen)? Would she refuse to negotiate salary and lose the very people who would negotiate effectively on behalf of her company? In reality, negotiation is always a part of almost any senior job -- you have to negotiate for headcount, resources, approval for projects, even convincing a customer that they don't need something is "negotiating".

    Perhaps she has realized that she (the individual, not the gender) is not good at negotiating and this is a convenient way to avoid acknowledging this reality.

    Perhaps she doesn't realize that no party to a successful negotiation goes away unhappy - does she lack confidence in herself and her own staff being able to negotiate successfully?

    If Reddit has a candidate they really want and offers them $180K and they get an offer from another company for $200K (assuming similar fringe benefits and option valuations), how is it good for the company to walk away from the candidate instead of negotiate? Both $180K and $200K may be "fair" offers. Just because her company didn't happen to guess precisely what the FMV was for the person will she really stubbornly refuse to negotiate and start over from ground zero in trying to fill the position (which will likely cost tens of thousands of dollars in staff time and more tens of thousands of dollars in delay in filling the opening)?

    I also assume that if the board offers, unwisely, to keep her on as permanent CEO and she wants a better offer than they gave her, she will understand when she when the board says "sorry, we don't negotiate and since you don't appear happy with our offer and we want a CEO who is happy with their situation, we retract the offer -- don't let the door hit your ass on the way out".

    --
    Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading /.
  15. Yeah, this is going to work well by russotto · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How does this work? Does Reddit give the same offer to all employees for a given job title? If so, and they make a single offer better than the market initial offer, they'll be paying non-negotiators more than they have to, and losing the best negotiators. This is likely to be costly.

    If they make the same offers they made before this policy, they'll lose negotiators to other companies. If negotiation is correlated with skill this is a loss; otherwise, it could be a loss or a win.

    If they make an individualized offer to each employee, negotiation will happen anyway; it'll just happen without explicit haggling. Candidates will try to signal that they'd require a lot to accept, in order to get a higher offer. I'd bet that candidates who would negotiate are probably better at that kind of signaling.

  16. This can actually work by EmperorOfCanada · · Score: 4, Informative

    One of the big problems with salary negotiations is that inevitably everyone knows everyone else's paycheque. So if you find out that the guy sitting beside you doing the same job is earning way more then you just look at your paycheque as a biweekly insult.

    I worked for one company that paid its programmers a perfectly round number and everyone went up at the same time. But bonuses were far more complicated with a huge factor being voting among the employees. The company literally had a rule that if anyone discussed who they were voting for then it was an instant firing. This way the outstanding employees got massive bonuses.

    What was interesting was that when some people came to the end of their interviews they would begin negotiating their salary after being repeatedly told that it was not negotiable. The ones who pushed this harder and harder tended to be douchebags and this pretty much always resulted in no job offer or a withdrawn offer. They genuinely seemed pissed.

    One douche summed it up as "When I heard that everyone was earning X, I just had to earn X+1 so that I could prove I was better." This was even after he was told how the bonuses worked.

    The cool benefit of bonuses was that it really weeded out the crappy programmers. Bonus time would come along. The results would be published and a few guys had literally zero votes and usually they were gone in a month or less. The only programmer ever fired for talking about bonuses went around with a sob story how he needed the bonus. Literally the next day he no longer worked for the company. This is the same company that didn't fire people after one threw a laptop through a window with the intent of hitting another worker. (they worked out their issues).

  17. Re:Negotiating is necessary. by mysidia · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If I did negotiate and get a much larger salary than someone with the same skills as me, isn't that unfair and selfish?

    No... what's unfair and selfish is that the employer is taking unfair advantage of the other person by accepting their work and not paying nearly as much as they are willing to pay for that kind of work.

    In other words, the company is exploiting them for more than the company's fair share of the profit from their work.

    And you with your negotiation stood up to them and avoided that level of injustice.

    It's selfishness and unfairness; sure, but not on your part... on the employer's part.

  18. Re:Negotiating is necessary. by cas2000 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Of course, if someone asks me what I would like as a starting salary, I'll give an answer. And they rarely ask me that anyway, usually they ask my current salary and then the offer is a bump up over that. But that's not negotiation.

    i've found that most employers do ask you what you expect as salary, knowing that most people will under-value themselves.

    i'm terrible at negotiations (coz i'm not an extroverted sales-arsehole) but even i know to reflect that question back by asking what's being offered.

    about the only thing i am consistently good at in negotiations is gettring rid of any clauses that say that whatever i do (whether in my time or theirs, on my equipment or theirs) belongs to them. I have my own projects and i contribute to various open source projects and i bring my own personal toolbox of tricks and techniques (that i've developed in my own time over many years) in to benefit my workplace - there's no way in hell i'm going to let them own that for any price. i have any clauses like that replaced with clauses that say, in short, that what i do on their time on their equipment is theirs and anything else i do is mine. if they're not willing to agree to that, then they're not the kind of employer i want to work for.

  19. Re: Negotiating is necessary. by goose-incarnated · · Score: 3, Insightful

    All Ellen Pao is doing here is guaranteeing overpayment for mediocre workers. Think about it. To get the best talent she'll have to pay top dollar. But that doesn't guarantee everyone hired is top talent.

    If you read the summary carefully, they are not stating a salary value for a job in advance of making a offer to someone.

    They are interviewing and then making an offer they feel is appropriate for that interviewee, that means that they can still adjust the offer based on the person in front of them (and who is to say the hiring managers don't offer less to women?). All thats changed is that the offer is set in stone, the interviewee either takes it or leaves it.

    This scheme will live or die on how well they predict the job market for the roles they are hiring for but I don't see how it really addresses the stated goal of equalizing pay ranges between genders.

    This scheme doesn't work too well anyway - I won't go for the interview without an upfront statement wrt the salary. I don't think I've ever gone for an interview which did not have a salary range stated upfront. As recently as Monday I've told a slave-trader that the job-spec he sent me neglected to mention a salary range. He came back with "They offer competitive market rates" and I replied with "I don't interview for people who cannot afford me". I will not be going on any interview soon (mostly 'cos I'm happy where I am, but regardless).

    It's actually quite simple - if they cannot afford me then they should waste my time. If I'm unable to adjust my expectations downwards then I won't waste theirs. There is no "Well, we'll offer you competitive market rates for your skills after we interview you," there is only "don't enter the fitting room if you can't afford to buy!"

    --
    I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.