Reading through the thread and saw your comment. Just wanted to say hi, I'm glad you had a good experience, and say thanks for the kind words. Hope you are doing well!
I have a unique perspective on this as my job is coaching Software Engineers (and others) through salary negotiations when they change jobs.
I would describe the current SWE market as "stuck". I'll start with what I've observed over the past year, then I'll opine on why I think I'm seeing that.
In 2021 and early 2022, there was basically a hiring boom in tech, and particularly Big Tech. This was superficially obvious, but I personally saw it in my business as Jan 2021–August-ish 2022 being the best stretch my business has had _by far_ (and I've been doing this full time since 2016).
Then the macro economy saw some significant changes (maybe the most in-your-face data point being interest rates going up in the US). Big Tech slowed the hiring, froze it, then starting laying folks off in pretty big numbers.
I saw _this_ in my business via a pretty rapid cratering of applications to work with me. People overuse the term "fell off a cliff", but the inbound web traffic to the pages that drove my coaching business ... fell off a cliff. (For screenshots, you can check out this writeup I did earlier this year: https://www.joshdoody.com/2023/06/focus-on-high-earners/)
Traffic to those pages dropped like 90% in 6–8 weeks. It was a dramatic, sudden shift.
Those are pages that one would find if one were searching for, eg, "How to negotiate [big tech company] job offer". So, at least from my business' vantage, interest in negotiating job offers with Big Tech companies cratered around September/October 2021.
Why is that relevant? By now, we all know that happened because there were layoffs brewing, etc. But at the time, that was not widely known and, much to my chagrin, inbound interest in my business was a leading indicator of what was happening with hiring at Big Tech companies.
Fast forward to today: Traffic to those pages is still more or less down 90% from where it was in mid-2022. I believe if there were to be a spike in hiring in Big Tech, I would see it pretty quickly. So, for now, I don't think there's much of a change there.
Why is the overall market for SWEs still "stuck"?
My guess is a lot of those layoffs were mid-level and junior engineers—not the experienced Senior Engineers, who were probably spared. So the market was suddenly flooded with mid-level and junior Software Engineers with Big Tech experience and Big Tech-level salary expectations.
Since those folks couldn't go to another Big Tech company, they just sort of sat on the sidelines (pay in Big Tech firms is very, very good, and even a little fiscal responsibility would net someone a nice cash cushion to live on while sitting on the workforce sidelines).
Meanwhile, the normal attrition in Big Tech SWE jobs that typically happens ground to a halt either because those folks were not working at all (laid off and on the sidelines) _or_ because they were Senior Engineers—who would normally have been looking to hop to their next Big Tech job—deciding to just hunker down and see how things shook out. When there are layoffs happening all around you and you wonder whether you're next, it's easy to just sort of switch to survival mode, lay low, and see how long you can keep your job (I speak from experience here).
So, for several months, everyone was frozen: Either sitting at home waiting for hiring to ramp back up _or_ holding on to their Senior Level job. Eventually, the folks on the sidelines realized this might be a longer-term adjustment, and they needed to get back to work, so they started looking and applying for jobs. Unfortunately, Big Tech still wasn't hiring, so they had to look elsewhere. The good news is "elsewhere" needs SWEs, the bad news is the pay they're offering doesn't look nearly as attractive as what Big Tech was paying during the boom. They also aren't "Senior" level in their experience, so they can't just apply for Senior-level roles at other tech companies (where they might be able to get comp approaching their mid-level Big Tech comp from before).
Or they _can_ apply to Senior-level roles, but they're under-qualified for what that firm needs. A lot of firms saw lots of inbound applications from mid-level Engineers with Big Tech experience and salary expectations applying for Senior-level roles that they just weren't ready for. So those firms are getting inundated with candidates and just trying to figure out how to find qualified candidates among the deluge of applicants.
Meanwhile, you (OP) are applying for jobs at those firms along with all of those folks who are migrating from Big Tech, which means you're not landing interviews.
How does this resolve?
Unclear. But _eventually_ Big Tech has to start hiring again. Not at the rate they were hiring during the boom, but at a normal rate to support normal levels of business growth. When they do, the Senior Engineers will start moving again, and things will start to unstick. All of those sidelined Engineers from the layoffs will start to mix back in with normal Big Tech hiring, easing the pressure on non-Big Tech firms' recruiters, and opening up more interview slots.
I could be totally wrong here. I'm only going off of what I've seen. I can say that when I _do_ coach folks through salary negotiations, the process is the same as it always has been. There are just fewer negotiations happening because fewer people are getting jobs. I have no idea when the market will come back, but it _feels_ like things are slowly unsticking right now.
I know this probably isn't much comfort to you, OP, and I'm sorry you're not getting any traction. I hope you find something great soon.
I had never seen Fakespot - that's... interesting. I appreciate you mentioning it. I need to see why it thinks those Amazon reviews are fake.
The good news is you don't have to buy it on Amazon to read it - there's a link to the online version of Fearless Salary Negotiation in another comment on this post - so you can read it for free and see what you think :)
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Another response to your comment says that salary negotiation is different than asking for a raise - I totally agree. I treat them as separate things that require unique processes.
Specifically, check out Chapters 1 & 2 (they're pretty short) to get a sense of how companies decide what to pay you and then jump to Chapter 7 for specific steps to take as you prep for your meeting.
(Thanks for the pointer @f_allwein, I appreciate it!)
I don't dislike recruiters at all. They're making a living helping place people in jobs - that's a useful thing to do. But it's important to distinguish "placing people in jobs" from "looking at for the best interests of those people by getting them the best compensation package possible".
It's important to take agency of the salary conversation because it can be so valuable for the candidate to handle that and maximize salary. Unfortunately, maximizing salary often conflicts with the recruiters' goal of placing as many people as possible as fast as possible.
Thanks for the question and for giving me a chance to clarify!
In principle, I agree. Execution is vastly different, though. Recruiters I've
met up to now are mostly bunch of people not understanding the thing they
recruit for in the slightest, so they just move documents from pile A to pile
B, rejecting them at random in the process.
I met a few recruiters that understood the industry they operated on. They
just were outliers, not the norm.
> They're making a living helping place people in jobs - that's a useful thing to do.
Wrong. Helping people land in a job is an unimportant side effect. They mainly
help companies fill the roles with bodies. It's irrelevant if the candidate
likes the role, is a good fit, and would grow professionally. The only part
that is important is that the company finds the candidate competent enough,
not the other way around.
Unless you're a special snowflake and you know your market, how much of a salary negotiating is there? I ask for X which I believe is in the middle of the range, I work with 7-8 recruiting companies and they send me jobs offering X. I don't believe I've ever been that much off the mark from my market value.
Especially since I was always looking for a job with the next job in my mind it was always some combination of pay and new skills I could learn.
If my market value got to out of whack with my salary I start interviewing again.
I'm currently a salary negotiation coach, and most of my clients are in tech (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, some smaller tech companies). In my previous life, I was a project manager and consultant in the HR Software industry. I live in Florida, but have worked for companies based in Florida, California, Indiana.
The reason why I ask is because in Washington, D.C, at least in tech, it's almost impossible to get a job in this area without going through a recruiter. So how would you go about dealing with them in an unable to avoid situation?
If you MUST work with a recruiter (staffing firm, for example), I think it's important to be firm that you're excited for good opportunities, but that your salary history and expectations are your private business. I also recommend going around the recruiters whenever possible by using your own network (people who work at the company or in the industry who can make phone calls to put you in touch with the company directly).
I recently interviewed someone for the new company I just started working for. This candidate was recommended by someone already in the company for a position we're trying to fill. The company reached out to their staffing firm, and contacted him through them. So, that's what I mean by D.C. tech companies, they seems to LOVE using recruiters.
Thank you for the article. To actually get to the point, I'm not sure how helpful it is to me. It seems to me like a game: if you're sure you have a strong hand, it makes sense to not disclose your salary. But if you have a weak one, disclosing early/knowing the salary range makes it worthwhile to disclose the range that you're looking for.
I think a big part of the issue is why do you need to tell them your salary? why doesn't the recruiter tell you the expected salary range. The same questions can be answered...
In D.C., the place where I've spent most of my adult career, that is the case. If your recruiter doesn't tell you the salary range, it's because they (75%) honestly don't know themselves. Either because it may be based on experience of the candidate, or because there are multiple roles which you as a candidate could fill and the company doesn't want to throw out numbers to confuse/hide things.
In fact, it's usually the opposite situation here. It's weird to NOT know the salary range, and how much wiggle room there is. (It honestly helps that salary range is usually defined in the proposal for contract companies to the government, and they've already built in profit before they even begin to hire employees.)
Why should salary history be a secret? I know my market value. I make X, I won't consider jobs less than Y. No negotiation necessary. If the company will pay me Y. I accept. I might leave a little money on the table, but not enough to make a difference, when my salary gets too far out of line with the market, I move on.
