How to avoid negotiating a salary.

[reddragdiva]

My lovely new HR department appear to be muppets. I presume the paperwork will arrive before my actual start date.

Here is how to avoid salary negotiations at the interview itself, when the only thing you should be discussing is your suitability to the job and the job's suitability to you, not your status as this week's supermarket special. You can gain nothing from discussing salary at this stage. They tried to bring up the pay discussion three times - initial talk to HR person, first interview with boss' boss and second interview with head of personnel and boss' boss' boss. The last of these went something like this:

"Salary. What are you after in the way of salary?"
"I have no idea. Australian salaries and cost of living really do not translate to London at all."
"Hmm ..."
"I was paid AUD$50k at my last job. Which converts as £18k. Which is not the same thing at all, obviously. In terms of living standard, it's something like £30-35k in London terms."
"Ah."
"I've been applying for jobs in the £25-45k range."
"Ah ..."
"I'm sure the pay will of course be commensurate with the position."

I think it would actually translate in pay-for-the-same-job terms as more like £25-30k. Regardless, although I know the boss' boss' salary budget is squeezed (the contractor presently doing the job is eating half of it), I suspect I could have named a slightly higher number and gotten it. But £30k+4k is really not too bad a score.

(Another useful phrase: "I'm leaving salary negotiations entirely to the agency. Now, about the job itself and me ...")

In other news, an official Mozilla 1.0 CD dropped through the letter slot this morning. A lovely souvenir, complete with big red lizard on the label. 1.0.1 (ultra-stable) and 1.1 (fancy new features) should be out soon, and hopefully someone will have at least papered over the bug that causes recent test builds to crash reliably on streetmap.co.uk if they want anyone in the UK to be able to put the thing to normal daily use ...

Update, 6:10pm: Mozilla 1.0 Party London pics up. I look profoundly antiphotogenic.

Comments

[diffrentcolours]

I'm almost at the stage of resolving streetmap.co.uk to my intranet web server in /etc/hosts and sticking up a VHost with a page saying "Use Konqueror" if the User-Agent is Mozilla...

[reddragdiva]

The 1.0.0 final release (20020530) has no problems with it, and is still eminently usable.

[oddlystrange.livejournal.com]

My lovely new HR department appear to be muppets. I presume the paperwork will arrive before my actual start date.

Wow, you get to actually get all your HR paperwork done before your first day? I've never had that happen. Around here you do all that on your first day, it's kinda like a "get paid to check boxes" kind of day.

[reddragdiva]

I mean paperwork like the paper version of the job offer. Despite what my professional paranoia wants to tell me, I will assume stupidity rather than malice in the first instance. And should nothing show by Tuesday (as Monday is a holiday here), I'll be giving them another polite "please to kindly get at least basic shit together" call.

[oddlystrange.livejournal.com]

Hey look on the bright side. For the job I'm at now the first "offer letter" that they sent me was *wrong* by just about everything -- pay rate, salary/hourly classification and all that. Nothing quite as funny as getting the offer letter in e-mail and getting a phone call at the same time that went "Ooops! Wrong offer letter!"

[elixxir.livejournal.com]

Australian salaries and cost of living really do not translate to London at all.

Speaking of which...are you ever gonna throw us a bone (heh...I said bone) and spill something of an explanation on the hows and whys of you being in London? Enquiring minds need to know... :)

[reddragdiva]

Well, I went to London/Whitby/Glasgow on holiday in October 2001. Was there for three hours and realised I wanted to move there. By the end of the holiday, was absolutely determined to. (As it happens, my mother is English, so they're not actually allowed to keep me out. Ha.) Moved here in early March 2002, and FINALLY have a job. I assume.

Basically, I got the same feeling about Melbourne I had about Perth seven years before: "This is my home, I love it, my friends are here, and it's time to go."

There's other wacky and complicated stuff in there, but that's not going on LJ. It was on Usenet at the time, for what it's worth.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Basically, I got the same feeling about Melbourne I had about Perth seven years before: "This is my home, I love it, my friends are here, and it's time to go."

Been there, done that. More than once.

Jodi

[mikz.livejournal.com]

Ugh... yeah, good point. I need to work out how San Francisco wages compare to Amsterdam wages. Rent's cheaper here, but rent pretty much everywhere is cheaper than in San Francsico!

And I would have gone to the Mozilla launch party in said city if they hadn't put it on the same night as a They Might Be Giants concert! Fools!

[redcountess]

Update, 6:10pm: Mozilla 1.0 Party London pics up. I look profoundly antiphotogenic.

Well, I still think you're purty *smooch*