So.....how do I go about getting a more diverse team?

[Berkut]

WEll, to be fair, a lot of times it is just a short cut to avoid wasting everyones time.

I was interviewing someone last month, and she was freaking awesome. Great experience, lots of skills we desperately needed. My peer interviewed her, my boss interviewed her, then I interviewed her. At the end of my interview, the salary issue came up, and she said what she would like, and what she would need to consider the position.

That number was nearly double my own salary.

Kind of wish we had gotten that deal breaker out of the way a lot earlier.

Why didn't your company publish as part of the job description the salary that the position would offer? If she had known from the beginning she wouldn't have even applied, saving everyone plenty of time. I never knew why the onus is always put on the potential employee to offer the initial number and then barter from that starting point.

Got me, but that is very, very rarely done.

In this case, she was referred to us by someone else anyway, not in response to a specific job posting.

Ok, if it was not a job posting and a referal instead then I can see it how it proceeded that way, but maybe the subject should have been touched upon earlier in the process then.

That is what I said!

[The Larch]

WEll, to be fair, a lot of times it is just a short cut to avoid wasting everyones time.

I was interviewing someone last month, and she was freaking awesome. Great experience, lots of skills we desperately needed. My peer interviewed her, my boss interviewed her, then I interviewed her. At the end of my interview, the salary issue came up, and she said what she would like, and what she would need to consider the position.

That number was nearly double my own salary.

Kind of wish we had gotten that deal breaker out of the way a lot earlier.

Why didn't your company publish as part of the job description the salary that the position would offer? If she had known from the beginning she wouldn't have even applied, saving everyone plenty of time. I never knew why the onus is always put on the potential employee to offer the initial number and then barter from that starting point.

Got me, but that is very, very rarely done.

In this case, she was referred to us by someone else anyway, not in response to a specific job posting.

Ok, if it was not a job posting and a referal instead then I can see it how it proceeded that way, but maybe the subject should have been touched upon earlier in the process then.

That is what I said!

And I agreed with you on that. 

[crazy canuck]

I don't think it's right for a programmer who's a better negotiator to be paid more.  Their job is programming, not negotiating.  Negotiation is often a wasteful zero-sum activity that takes up time and goodwill, at the end one person's win is another person's loss.

I don't understand how you can be against negotiation in practical terms.

You are the best cook in town. The restaurant you work for is paying you $35k. The other restaurant in town realizes how awesome you are, and offers $45k. So you decide to take that job and you give your employer notice and tell him why. However, the restaurant you are at is willing to offer you $50k to stay. Are they allowed to give you that raise? If so, isn't that negotiation (I'm walking if you don't pay me more)?

If not, are they allowed to make you an offer of $50k after you quit? What sense does that make?

The awesome cook should be in a different job grade.  Maybe he should be Senior Cook or Principal Cook, and be compensated according to that job grade.  Yes, I realize that there is still some room for negotiation over what your job grade is, but that's far less opaque than private salary negotiations.

Sounds like a huge administrative burden try to put all possible tasks and skill sets into a grid and then try to plug someone into that grid.  It can work for a rigid organization like the public sector but not so well in the private sector where flexibility is key.

For example you are hiring for position x but someone comes along with that skill set and more.  A lot of organizations will take that person in and expand the things she can do for them.  In those circumstances salary negotiation is unavoidable.  The reverse also happens, you can't find the skills for the position you had in mind but a it is possible to get by with a candidate with lesser skills in another lesser role.

Your scenario only works in a Brazil (the movie) like environment of excessive red tape.