choong pw

A bit of background. Recently this has been a hot topic among the engineering leads as we talk about recruitment.

Some think like this:

How all this got started was the trend to make salary transparent. The goal is to help people get their fair share of their pay. What started as a good intention, has turned into something I called “Salary Porn“.

That means people are indulging in other people’s salaries thinking they can have the same share. Without realizing to relate to the context, industry, domain knowledge, impact of their work, etc.

What’s happened next, you see a bunch of people saying they are underpaid regardless if they mean it or not. If you think so, why not contribute to the salary data too?

Nevertheless, I think the effect is decremental. The newcomer who is applying for a job feels like they are entitled. Probably some moonshot luck would land them into one of those.

Company

A hiring manager is not blind. We have enough experience to evaluate people. Even for a fresh grad, we know how to differentiate talent and passion.

As a manager and hiring manager, I am grateful to be able to see how all this got tabulated behind the scene. From one end, how we justify one salary is pretty subjective. We decide based on our guts and feelings through the 3 rounds of interviews we have.

That’s why having a relative number is important for us. As we evaluate and compare against our internal staff.

Why do most companies need your current salary then? Is true that we can go by your expected salary only. Most of the time when this happens, you’re trying to stretch to a salary range beyond your capability.

Then, what is the deciding factor? Unless you’re in the start-up world, salary is mapped to a level. Each level has its salary range to play around with.

What should you do

That said, try to play within your skillset range. Otherwise, you might as well save your time by applying for the role.

Regardless of what the social media said about being underpaid is not important. The job-matching industry is quite mature in a way that they already have all the data they need to represent reality. Think about it.

Focus on growth. Both hard skills (technical) and soft skills (communication) skills. Eventually, your salary will catch up to it. If outgrows your job, is either get yourself promoted or look for external opportunities.

And when you do, is easier to find a company that will pay fairly for the skill, than to find a moonshot company that pays way above the market rate.