How does one work how much their skills are "worth"?

PaulStat

PaulStat

PaulStat

Soldato
Joined
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Posts
5,508
Location
Cotham, Bristol
So I'm potentially getting a little ahead of myself, but I'm due a final stage interview as a "Staff Software Engineer". The company has in house recruitment, and the guy did ask me what my salary expectations were back at the start, to which I replied I'd like to do a little more research before I answered that which he seemed fine with.

So a little background

- Location Bristol
- Working about 16 years
- Currently work as a consultant in Identity and Access Management, with a heavy lean towards doing apps integration with cloud identity. So I completed a big project 6 months or so ago with Okta, Java microservices, kubernetes, react js apps. All using SAML 1.1/2.0 and OIDC\OAuth 2.0
- Also have experience with some IAM products such as Sailpoint

Job would be helping to develop one of the market leader products in IAM. Looking around gives me mixed results ranging from anywhere between 50-70k. I don't want to undervalue myself, but also don't want to scare them off by asking for too much. My gut is saying low 60's but I'm not sure if I'm being unrealistic.
 
I hate this question (not yours, the one the company posed to you) as it's so ambiguous that you'll never guess "correctly" as to what their wage brackets are if they haven't listed them on the advert or/and you don't already know someone at the company in that role. If you say it too low, you might lose a lot of money, and if you say a price too high people think you might scare the employer off.

I've been on both sides that table when that question's been asked, and I'd advise just telling them what you think you're worth, not what you want them to hear. If you're gut is saying 60k, then I'd go with that. The only time I'd think about compromising is if I badly needed that job for some reason, such as I was out of work. From the employer perspective also, I've had people me say they'd take much less than what we expected to pay, and we ended up giving them higher and more towards what we expected to pay anyway. This was because we wanted that person to stay at the company as they were good enough to get through the interview and selection process, and not to jump ship and move away to another employer as we're keeping them on a wage that is under-par for their skills.
 
flibby said:
I've had people me say they'd take much less than what we expected to pay, and we ended up giving them higher and more towards what we expected to pay anyway. This was because we wanted that person to stay at the company as they were good enough to get through the interview and selection process, and not to jump ship and move away to another employer as we're keeping them on a wage that is under-par for their skills.
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Agreed underpaying people can backfire especially if you are at an organisation where giving people payrises significantly above inflation without a promotion is difficult.
 
Put it back on them.

Say you've seen similar roles advertised in that range you've described and that, while it's a wide range, so are the non salary aspects.

Tell them you're interested in the less tangible benefits such as training and job satisfaction and flexibility or further potential.

That way you give them the rope to hang themselves in terms of over offering while also showing that you're flexible.
 
If your at final stage, then they are obviously fairly happy with you as a potential employee. If you "overshoot" what you expect, unless they have other candidates they want, then they will pay you generally what you ask for.

Be bold, say £70k. If not, say £60k but you would like £10k pension employer payment (this is tax deductible for them as a business) on top.

They aren't going to get you to a final interview and then fall apart over £5-10k generally.
 
Ah, the good old "how little can we get away with paying you?" question.

Does my head in, I've declined to continue an interview before because of it (and definitely not because they put a technical proficiency test in front of me which I knew I would make an absolute tart of).

Well, it was my excuse anyway. "My apologies, I must stop you there but if you don't know what the market value is for a technical supervisor then I'm afraid it doesn't bode well for our employment prospects" and politely left.
 
Yeah that's obviously their tactic and I suspect it works well as it's quite common.

Can feel myself going into stalker mode, resisting though thankfully. This last interview is meant to be a review of how I tackled their technical task, was told on Tuesday

That's great, thank you!

I'll begin scheduling the final video interview ASAP. Could you please let me know your availability for this week?
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Come on! It can't have been so bad to just go quiet on me! (I did respond to the above) And breath! :p
 
PaulStat said:
So I'm potentially getting a little ahead of myself, but I'm due a final stage interview as a "Staff Software Engineer". The company has in house recruitment, and the guy did ask me what my salary expectations were back at the start, to which I replied I'd like to do a little more research before I answered that which he seemed fine with.

So a little background

- Location Bristol
- Working about 16 years
- Currently work as a consultant in Identity and Access Management, with a heavy lean towards doing apps integration with cloud identity. So I completed a big project 6 months or so ago with Okta, Java microservices, kubernetes, react js apps. All using SAML 1.1/2.0 and OIDC\OAuth 2.0
- Also have experience with some IAM products such as Sailpoint

Job would be helping to develop one of the market leader products in IAM. Looking around gives me mixed results ranging from anywhere between 50-70k. I don't want to undervalue myself, but also don't want to scare them off by asking for too much. My gut is saying low 60's but I'm not sure if I'm being unrealistic.
Click to expand...

IAM is a good place to be in right now. I actually work for Okta and previously at a partner delivering Okta among other solutions.

At a partner or consultancy style business in the IAM space, the market values are around:
  • Entry/Junior Role - £30k-40k
  • 1-2 Years Experience - £50-60k.
  • 3-5 Years Experience (Senior Role) - £70k-£90k.
  • 5 Years + Experience (Architect or Principal Role) - £100k-£300k.
Working at one of the more premium vendors like Okta, add a 30% premium on to that.

Feel free to reach out if you want a chat, I know some good partners and vendors that I can loop you in too if interested.

Who are you applying too out of curiosity?
 
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Did you take a look at glassdoor that can be helpful for company specific salaries even if it's not the exact job you are going for it can afford least give an idea where they stand in the industry for pay

Also when dealing with pay ranges never throw out a pay range with a lower range you wont accept. If you say I'm looking for 50-70k and they come back with 55 and you say no its annoying for the manager make the bottom range the minimum you would accept. I would phase it as 60-70k base depending on overall benefits package. That still gives a bit of wiggle room
 
kitkat9933 said:
IAM is a good place to be in right now. I actually work for Okta and previously at a partner delivering Okta among other solutions.

At a partner or consultancy style business in the IAM space, the market values are around:
  • Entry/Junior Role - £30k-40k
  • 1-2 Years Experience - £50-60k.
  • 3-5 Years Experience (Senior Role) - £70k-£90k.
  • 5 Years + Experience (Architect or Principal Role) - £100k-£300k.
Working at one of the more premium vendors like Okta, add a 30% premium on to that.

Feel free to reach out if you want a chat, I know some good partners and vendors that I can loop you in too if interested.

Who are you applying too out of curiosity?
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Might just do that thanks!
 
mattx2 said:
Did you take a look at glassdoor that can be helpful for company specific salaries even if it's not the exact job you are going for it can afford least give an idea where they stand in the industry for pay

Also when dealing with pay ranges never throw out a pay range with a lower range you wont accept. If you say I'm looking for 50-70k and they come back with 55 and you say no its annoying for the manager make the bottom range the minimum you would accept. I would phase it as 60-70k base depending on overall benefits package. That still gives a bit of wiggle room
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Another thing I'm unsure of, if I state a range say 60-70k surely they'll just go with 60
 
PaulStat said:
Another thing I'm unsure of, if I state a range say 60-70k surely they'll just go with 60
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Which is why the bottom figure is one you would be ok to accept. Not all companies will offer the bottom range a candidate gives out and you can always ask for a bit more once you've had a chance to look at the package in full. You can also phase it something along the lines of

"similar jobs I have seen are paying between 60-70k and I would expect to be towards the top end of that range because of my x years of experience and my skills in xyz"
 
I take it this follows on from the programming test question you posted about in the html, graphics & programming forum. Was there no salary range posted for the job ?

The "be bold" advice is best. Getting a decent increment generally only happens when moving jobs, once you're in - most do the bare minimum to keep you.
 
peterwalkley said:
I take it this follows on from the programming test question you posted about in the html, graphics & programming forum. Was there no salary range posted for the job ?

The "be bold" advice is best. Getting a decent increment generally only happens when moving jobs, once you're in - most do the bare minimum to keep you.
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That'll be the one yup, thanks for your input on that. And no no range advertised

The be bold advice is good I think, given the sector and what I've found seem to correlate. We'll see
 
So I didn't get the Dev role as my interpretation of their task obviously didn't match what was in their minds. Bit annoying but heyho, however they have suggested I look at their consultancy role......
 
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