Arseny Hoffmann, an Aitivka resident with 18 years of experience, conducted an experiment: he logged into Djinni every week and lowered his expected income level by $1,000, raising his profile. Having downgraded to $2,000, he shared the results.
Arseny Hoffmann, an Aitivka resident with 18 years of experience, conducted an experiment: he logged into Djinni every week and lowered his expected income level by $1,000, raising his profile. Having downgraded to $2,000, he shared the results.
«I started with $8,000 and got four offers. I got to $2,000 and got 1 offer. It was a small experiment. I was curious what would happen if I didn’t change the title and description, but only changed the salary,» Arseny wrote on LinkedIn.
Aitivets states that his experiment confirms that lower salary expectations do not mean greater interest among employers. He illustrated his experience with a table.
«And even vice versa — in many cases, employers will not try to initiate communication in cases where the candidate asks for, in their opinion, not enough money,» he noted.
According to Arseny, this is actually sad. «There are many people who are willing to work for relatively little money, provided that they like the team and the project. That is, work-life balance and mental health are more important to a person than a high salary. But employers are biased towards this and believe that there is something wrong with a person if they are willing to accept a salary below the average for their level of qualification,» the specialist explains his position.
He advises: if you are looking for a job, take this into account. If you offer a lower salary, you may be able to gain some more market share. But you could potentially lose some as well.
«And the question is which part is larger and which part is smaller. It may also be that there will be more employers who will consider only those who have indicated a high remuneration for certain vacancies,» the IT expert suggests.
The community is reacting to the experiment by expressing themselves in the comments.
«On the one hand, it’s sad, on the other hand, it’s gratifying that the market itself „doesn’t let“ people work „for pennies“. That is, if a person has already gone through junior hell, has become at least a mid-level professional and above, then there’s no going back, whether you want it or not, and you will only be considered for vacancies with an income of 100k UAH per month and above,» notes Senior Python Developer Oleksandr Viter. In his opinion, while some (non-AIT people) complain about the low salary ceiling in their field and that it is very difficult to earn more than 40,000-50,000 UAH per month in their specialty, others (AIT people) on the contrary have found themselves in a situation where it is difficult to earn less than 100,000 UAH per month. «That’s how we live, in different worlds,» Viter states.
«From experience, the lower the salary, the worse the work/life balance,» says Unity3d team lead Mikhail Khadzhinov.
Serhiy Atamanenko, Team Lead of the Sales Department, notes: «A very interesting observation, and, to be honest, I often see this from companies. When a candidate writes too low a figure, managers do not always interpret it as „profitable“, and sometimes as „risky“, especially when it comes to management or senior roles. I think this is another marker of how poorly formed our understanding of value is in the market, not only in terms of money.»
