I don't know why, but I get really frustrated at the negative sentiment around and apologetics for negotiation.
>I’m the first to admit that negotiation is stupid. It’s a practice that inherently benefits those who are good at it, and is an absurd axis on which to reward people. But it’s a reality of our economic system.
When incentives are opposed (like me wanting good wages, and companies wanting to pay me at little as possible, all else being equal), negotiation seems like the only way to decide how to reach an agreement. Of course it inherently benefits people who are good at it! Those benefits are the things they are negotiating!
Instead of calling it an absurd axis to use to reach mutually agreeable terms, why can't we accept that negotiation is how reach those terms?
I see where you're coming from, and I think there are things negotiation does well.
Negotiation allows a company to offer more (or less) than a standard wage when a candidate genuinely offers more or less value for the same position. Economically, that seems like a good thing, and I consider that the principal virtue of negotiation.
But the downside is that negotiation enables candidates who are better at negotiating to command stronger offers (because they're more charismatic, or courageous, or just better studied in the practice of negotiating). That's clearly arbitrary. Negotiating skill is an axis that's mostly orthogonal to the value a candidate brings to a company. Here the public sector's system of having fixed, publicly known wages for positions is a good one. Candidates who are good at negotiating make just as much as candidates who are bad at it.
The question then boils down to how much of the variation in negotiated offers can be attributed to variation value as opposed to variation in negotiating skills.
I suspect it's weighted toward the latter. But if you think it's mostly toward the former, then I think it's sensible to claim that negotiation is mostly a good thing.
>The question then boils down to how much of the variation in negotiated offers can be attributed to variation value as opposed to variation in negotiating skills.
I think this covers most of it, but it all feels like it's only one side of the supply-demand equation. All else equal, the value to the company doesn't change whether you are one of 100 people with your skill set or one of a gazillion. But the wages certainly will. I think that's totally fair thing, and we can't get it with your model of just value to the company and negotiating skill.
>Here the public sector's system of having fixed, publicly known wages for positions is a good one
Public sector wages are fixed, but those who are so inclined can generally get a nice (deterministic) salary bump in perpetuity by going to graduate school.
I'm not sure how the tech industry would provide an analogous opportunity to be rewarded better for higher skills, given that many here actually respect you less for having a Masters or PhD.
I understand it but still hate doing the dance. Negotiation doesn't end once you've started a job either. If you want good projects, promotions, higher compensation, you usually have to negotiate for those too. Sometimes managers recognize talent and take initiative, but it's easier to compensate the loudest voices or people who are credible flight risks. This can lead to a very toxic culture. It takes very mature and long-sighted management to pay for value before the employee complains.
I agree with the author's one point: The best possible thing you can have is an alternative. I remember reading through the leaked Sony emails where executives were discussing compensation packages for people making millions of dollars. They didn't care much about how much revenue a VP brought in, if they were a nice person, how many hours they worked, but they sure cared a lot about losing them to a competitor. Performance reviews, metrics, titles, etc. were just a pretext to pay whatever the boss decided was necessary to keep them.
FWIW, I think careers where you know your objective value and have a portable skill-set or book of business are the best in terms of employees capturing more of their surplus value. Google's revenue per employee is probably similar to a good trading firm, but no one Google engineer can recreate Search, so they take home much less of their value than a trader would. You see the same thing in sales roles, law partners, etc. where employees and management both know what they bring to the table, and know they could walk out the door to another company if compensation is unfair.
The thing you're ignoring is that there is no reason you have to negotiate by yourself. I want you to make more. You want me to make more. Why can't we team up and put our heads together? Why is there this assumption that if I can't negotiate for myself I don't deserve to get what I'm worth? Am I applying to be a lone negotiator?
I think that's fantastic. Sorry if it came out as if I was against the article. I think articles like these help everyone and that's a great thing. I was just frustrated at the (possibly perceived) tone in that paragraph (and other posts lately) that suggests negotiation is morally bad because it leads to unequal rewards for equal talent/skill/etc.
>I’m the first to admit that negotiation is stupid. It’s a practice that inherently benefits those who are good at it, and is an absurd axis on which to reward people. But it’s a reality of our economic system.
When incentives are opposed (like me wanting good wages, and companies wanting to pay me at little as possible, all else being equal), negotiation seems like the only way to decide how to reach an agreement. Of course it inherently benefits people who are good at it! Those benefits are the things they are negotiating!
Instead of calling it an absurd axis to use to reach mutually agreeable terms, why can't we accept that negotiation is how reach those terms?