This happens to my friend here in Singapore. I am not sure about all the labour laws of the country, but what happened did strike me, well, strange.
My friend went down for this interview, and was accepted. The next meeting was to discuss the salary. In the office, boss got a sealed envelope ready. He told my friend that he had wrote on a piece of paper a figure and had sealed it within the envelope. Then he asked my friend to quote his expected salary. If it is higher thanthe pre-written amount, then he would be rejected from the job.
I found this kind of strange. Is it a psychological test? A way to dock your pay later on if the company runs into finanical trouble? (“Why have you reduced my pay to $1?” “That’s the figure you quoted that day, remember?”)
Is this practise common? Anyone have any thoughts or revelations on this practice?
WTF? Is there a clearer way to say, “Greetings, Qualified Applicant. This company is a complete and utter horrorshow on wheels! Run, run now, and do not look back.”
If the salary you have quoted is lower, you will then get the amount listed in the enevlope.
I am still wondering why the boss can’t just say “We are going to pay you $1400” instead of messing around with you. Or is it just a tactic to cut the salary negoitation?
I wouldn’t want to work someplace that played that game. Basically they’re saying ‘We have an amount we’re going to offer you and now you have to guess what it is. Guess wrong and you go home with nothing.’ Hope they have good parting gifts.
I can just see it later ‘We have a new project we’re going to assign you to that will really help you and the company, but you have to guess what it is. Guess wrong and you’re fired.’
OK, so this removes any possible penalty for underbidding, as well as any advantage in bidding higher. So every candidate could just say $0 confident that they would receive the maximum possible compensation? What good is this?
Basically, the employer is forgoing the opportunity to negotiate for a lower salary and gaining the opportunity to weed out candidates too stupid to name a figure of $0. The other possibility is that we’ve gotten a garbled version of the story, because this just sounds way too elaborately screwed up to be true.
As others have pointed out, if you are going to agree to play the game as presented, there are only two strategies that make any sense. If the most important thing to you is to get the job, then reply ‘$1’. If you have a minimum salary below which you will not work, then state that salary and be prepared to discover that the company hasn’t got a job for you after all.
However, I think the best reply would be to take out your own piece of paper, write the salary you want on it, and keep it concealed. Then say, ‘Okay, open your envelope’. See the salary the company has stipulated. Then offer a choice, saying, ‘You can either hire me at that stipulated salary, or at the salary I have written on my piece of paper… which you haven’t seen yet. Which do you choose?’ (If they refuse to play the game this way, why should they expect you to play it their way?) There are four possible outcomes (your bid lower / higher; they choose their figure / your figure). Two of these are in your favour, two aren’t. So it’s a 50:50 shot. But at least you’ve shown that you have some initiative, imagination and negotiating savvy.
Two more things to offer in reply: check that you are not dealing with a magician. My species (magicians) are found everywhere, including Singapore, and including offices. And a magician could make the figure inside the envelope be anything he wants it to be after he has heard the interviewee’s figure. Caution advised.
I don’t think this interviewing process would be legal in Singapore (or many other places). It’s a very follow-the-rules sort of orderly society, and I would expect anyone interviewed for a job to know what the salary is before they decide to apply. Could be wrong, but there you go.
This sounds like a complete bullshit proposition, and the only way to win the game (in terms of finding a job you can live with) is to thank the interviewer for his time, tell him you’re not interested in games, and walk out.
North American companies do this to; it’s called “What’s your expected salary?” If your expected salary is above what they want to pay, goodbye. If it’s below, they pay you what you quoted, and keep the difference. Every time you answer that question in an interview or on an application you’re playing this game. It’s not as formal and honest as the Singapore version, but it’s the same game.
In his 1967 children’s book “Der kleine Mann und die kleine Miss” Erich Kästner describes basically the same idea except that the roles are reversed. A character enters negotiations with a sealed envelope containing his demands. IIRC that character credits Goethe the idea, but I have no idea whether that’s accurate.
“I see… I see… a hundred billion dollars. … Oh, you mean the number in here is lower? And that means I don’t get a job at a company that likes to play juvenile power games with its incoming staff? Wow, what a heartbreaker.”
I’ve not found that to be the case. I’ve interviewed at places that I was asking for more than they paid and we found a happy middle ground. Not at all the same thing.
That’s not true, though. If your expectactions are far out of line with what they want to pay, they may say so and move on. However, it’s most often a flexible arrangement. As I was being hired for my current position, I was able to state that I wanted a salary somewhere within a $10,000 range. They offered within that range. Same thing at my last position (where I stupidly named the lowest I would accept, which they of course offered). I know several people who stated desired salaries above what was being offered, and were politely informed of that and given the opportunity to accept the positions anyway. If you’re a qualified candidate who is getting offered a job, only an idiot would summarily dismiss you based on your request being higher than they’re willing to pay.
I’d say this “game” is a HUGE red flag about how the company is managed. If they’re playing guessing games about something as basic as pay, your friend will be in for a world of hurt when it comes to actual work expectations. Yikes.