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>John Garison wrote:
>>Gene Kim-Eng wrote:
>>
>>In a case where my stated starting sum is more than what the company has
>>budgeted and they don't have the ability or the will to come up, I prefer
>>to just cut the discussion short as quickly as possible and get on with my
>>life.
>
>Once again I agree with Mr. Kim-Eng.
One of these days he'll be wrong, but I doubt that I'll live that long.
>Often in an interview, I get a sense that money might be a major obstacle
>in the negotiation, and I often will bring it up as a potential
>showstopper.
Most of the time I've known going into the interview what the pay rate is.
I've gone into interviews knowing that the pay rate was less than I'm used
to working for in the hopes that my experience and sunny personality will
show the hirer that I'm worth a few more bucks. Mostly it's my experience.
>If I'm expecting salary X, and they're expecting to pay X-Y, then we have a
>problem.
You're weird. Why would you work for chromosomes?
>And if the difference is significant, then there's no sense in proceeding.
>This is especially true as a freelancer. If I expect to get 2 or 3 times
>more than they're willing to pay per hour, the sooner that's discovered the
>better for both of us. Every now and then I get a call back when they
>discover the quality of what their range will provide, but not often.
I've found this to be true for startup companies, which tend to pay on the
low end. The last that this happened, a startup company was offering $20
less than my average rate of pay for the past five years. We ended the
interview early and on friendly terms as we both discovered that there was
no middle ground.
Approximately three months later I got a call back. It seems that the
junior tech writer they hired didn't meet their expectations.
Unfortunately, I was very settled into a new job by then.
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