Don't take an interview without talking money first

Do not waste your time going through rounds of interviews only to get to the discussion about money to find out your potential employer is not paying what you are looking for. This is a complete and total waste of your time. I have found that employers who will not talk about money before an interview generally do not pay that well. My standards for paying well are very high. The vast majority of companies that contact me about jobs do not get passed my alias email responding with what is the rate/salary and either not getting a response or something that is too low.

Talking about money first does not guarantee you that the company will not waste your time in a long series of interviews and then come back with a "lets talk about your salary requirements" or "are you flexible"? No I am not flexible. I am not here because your run of the mill company is fascinating. I am here because I want the money. Companies that don't pay well typically use the line "we want someone interested in more than money". Well of course they do. They don't pay that well. They want you to invest your time and effort to make them money for less than you can get elsewhere. I work for money. If you like to code, then use your spare time to code things you enjoy and possibly use that as a spring to start your own company.

Make no mistake about it. Hiring and firing you is about money. When executives look at the company they are review financial statements. They don't care about you. They are looking at profit and loss statements and looking at how to increase stock value. They will move your job to another country if they think they can save money. They will not tell you about this or mislead you to keep you from quitting. They will sell the company and make alot of money, while the new company comes in and closes your division. I actually heard an executive call this "dissipating the staff".

So go for the money. Please see my blog about being Ruthless, but not Bitter. You want to be ruthless without appearing to be ruthless. Have a positive attitude, be friendly, do a good job, but don't waste your time if you can get more money elsewhere and do not waste your time taking an interview if they don't talk about money up front.

I have to admit I have been bitter in the past. A few months ago I talked to a recruiter about a long term contract at $90/hour with 45 hours/week schedule. I don't take vacation when I contract so this is north of $200k. Well with in my current range. The client refused to give me a phone screen first(which I hate), but since the rate was good I took a chance on the face to face interview. They really liked me. However, they were a contract company also. So they had to sell my resume to someone else. The end client refused to pay that much for my resume so the counter offer was $70/hour for 4 months, but this was really expensive to them so they wanted me to go "salaried employee" after 4 months at $110,000/year. To alot of people this is alot of money. 5 years ago this would be great. Now its a waste of my time. Plus I don't want an employee job switch on my resume. I have too many of those. At the time my last contract was ending so I was going to take the contract, then continue to look for another job and quit as soon as I got my next job. This means I would have quit the first week if I got a new job. After 4 months, if I had not found anything I would have unilaterally refused to go employee and either continue the contract or go unemployed. I make enough money where I can afford to not work. I will make a future blog on what I call my "Fuck You Fund". I decided that it was better to be unemployed than have yet another "employee"(though an employee to a contract company) job switch to explain on my resume. So I went through the 3-4 week background check with them. While this was going on I had another interview and got another offer that was better. Instead of telling them right away that I was not taking a job, I waited until the background check finished. I had actually already started the job. Part of the reason I did not tell them is that if the new job completely and totally sucked I would just quit and take the first offer. Then we talked about a start date. Just before I was to start I passed on the job by email. Probably should not have done that, but I really do hate bait and switch interviews. Especially the "we want you as an employee so we can pay you less money" lines. I would still be a temp. If the client did not like me I could still be fired immediately.

When someone contacts your alias email about a job. Do not call them. Respond back with what is the rate and possibly attach your resume with your fake name on it. Do not talk to them on the phone without talking money first. If they won't tell you by email it is almost always a low rate/salary. This is typically just a recruiter trying to waste your time to see if you know anyone willing to work for his rate. All of the higher paying positions that I have seen will tell you by email what the job pays. Not sure if Google or Microsoft work this way. However, neither Google(not gambling on $500/share stock options) or Microsoft can afford me.

Never forget. You are paid for a service. You are a business man. Your job is about money. This also means that you should do as good of a job as you can for that money. Your motive should be to improve your skills so you can get more money. Again if you really like programming or an IT profession and it is more about money to you, I suggest you start your own company or do work at home for fun. I know alot of people who do that. I know alot of people who put in there 40 hours, then go home and hack away for fun. They make applications and games for their families. That is your fun time. Work is about money.