How many programmers negotiate when a recruiter contacts them with a lowball offer, and how many just move it to the circular file? When I'm looking for people, I don't want to scare away good candidates with an offer that might offend them; I ask "What are you looking for?".
-- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי נֵ֣צַח יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לֹ֥א יְשַׁקֵּ֖ר ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> on behalf of Bob Bridges <robhbrid...@gmail.com> Sent: Saturday, December 2, 2023 12:01 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Assembler programmer wanted What I actually meant is "high for this recruiter". Enterprise Solutions has mostly Indians working their phones, and I expect they hire mostly Indian contractors for low rates. I've never worked for them so I may be doing them an injustice. But the few times I've talked to one of theirs on the phone, I heard plenty of other voices on other phones in the background, so I picture a large collection of desks in an open room with no cubicle walls. And usually they're talking lower rates, although it's mostly for COBOL developers. On the other hand maybe it's just a negotiating tactic. There are several differences in the way Indian and Yankee recruiters approach me (and I assume everyone else too); maybe lowballing is just one of the ways they're used to doing business, with the assumption that they'll have to go higher to actually close the deal. ...$125/hr, really? I should maybe pay more attention to the advice a fellow contractor gave me a couple decades ago. I was working for ... well, apparently you would regard it as peanuts although it's always been adequate for me. But Joe said I should demand $250/hr. I'd work only about a third of the time, but since that's about three times what I typically was getting, it would come out even - and in the slack periods I could work on some saleable project. I understood what he was saying; I just couldn't find a way to say "$250/hr" with a straight face. Maybe that's a common foible. My ex made really high-end decorated cakes, the sort that we saw going for $150 and up at state fairs; but she couldn't bring herself to ask more for her work than the cost of materials. She just couldn't believe her work was worth it. --- Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313 /* Important safety note: If you are explosively decompressed to vacuum, open your mouth and exhale immediately. (Fortunately, screaming in terror has just this effect.) -Geoffrey Landis and S J Van Sickle on sci.space.tech */ -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Tony Harminc Sent: Friday, December 1, 2023 17:37 I interpreted Bob's comment "...I think the rate is unusual; I'm guessing they don't think they can get one of their regulars to do it." as meaning he thought it (60-65 $/hr) was high. But I agree that finding someone with serious assembler chops for that price isn't going to be easy. $65/hour sounds much more like an all-in employee-with-benefits kind of rate back-calculated from a salary. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Farley, Peter Sent: Friday, December 1, 2023 16:31 Agreed, very low. I asked for and received $125/hr back in 1999 for a complex assembler consulting job (BTAM / BDAM / multitasking / etc). With inflation and time passing the starting rate for that kind of work has to go over $200/hr at the very least to attract anyone with the talent and experience. If it is a truly junior position though, say maintaining and perhaps documenting old single-function utility ASM subroutines, that might not be a terrible starting point to negotiate upwards. Anything more complicated than that, start the negotiation higher, or much higher depending on the actual work to be done. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Mike Shaw Sent: Friday, December 1, 2023 16:15 Gotta be low... -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Gord Tomlin Sent: Friday, December 1, 2023 15:24 --- On 2023-12-01 14:14 PM, Bob Bridges wrote: Pure curiosity: unusually low or unusually high? -----Original Message----- From: robhbrid...@gmail.com <robhbrid...@gmail.com> Sent: Friday, December 1, 2023 14:14 I have a req here from Enterprise solutions for an assembler programmer, paying "60-65 $/hr" on corp-to-corp. Anyone wanted a copy, let me know and I'll pass it on. I've never done business with this recruiter but I think the rate is unusual; I'm guessing they don't think they can get one of their regulars to do it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
