Stop Playing Games: Know Your Value In The Job Market
A lawyer on TikTok said that anyone who answers the salary question in a job interview is an idiot. You should deflect. Check with your family first. Never put a number on yourself.
Justin answered the salary question in a job interview.
Justin has a lot to say about that.
This week on Thoughts Off The Stem it’s a fired up, unfiltered rant about knowing your value, the games employers play, and why the people at the bottom of the org chart — the ones actually keeping everything running — keep getting squeezed while the people at the top drink Scotch and wonder why nobody wants to work anymore.
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The Salary Question Trap
Here’s the scenario. You apply for a job. The posting says the salary range is $30 to $35 an hour. You have ten years of verified experience in exactly the function they’re hiring for. At the end of the interview they ask what you’re looking for in salary.
You say $35 an hour. Because that’s what you’re worth, it’s the industry standard for your level of experience. Because you have the skills, the resume, and the track record to back it up.
And then nothing. You don’t get the job.
According to a lawyer on TikTok you should have deflected. Said you needed to check with your family. Kept the number vague. Justin disagrees. Loudly. If you’ve spent 25 years building skills that an employer is actively looking for — you should be able to say what those skills are worth without being made to feel like a moron for knowing your own value.
Stop Posting Fake Salary Ranges
Here’s the part that actually makes Justin’s blood boil. If you post a job listing with a salary range of $30 to $35 an hour and you have no intention of paying $35 — don’t post $35. Just tell people what you’re paying. Stop wasting the time of people who are already dealing with enough.
The economy is tight. Gas prices are through the roof. A single dad with three kids and one in university does not have time for salary range fuckery. Nobody does. If you want quality you have to pay for quality. If you only want to pay $26 an hour just say $26 an hour and let the person decide if that works for them.
The games aren’t cute. They’re just cruel.
Blue Collar Workers Are Being Criminally Undervalued
This is the part of the episode that lands hardest. The people on the front line — the ones actually doing the physical, exhausting, relentless work that keeps companies functioning — are chronically underpaid while executives sit in boardrooms making decisions about golf holidays and quarterly bonuses.
Cannabis retail is a perfect example. Stores bringing in over $200,000 a month paying their managers $50,000 a year. In Canada. In 2026. You can’t live off that. So they hire younger, less experienced people and pay them less — and then wonder why the service is inconsistent and the turnover is brutal.
Justin’s theory — and it makes sense — is that paying experienced people properly would make you more profitable in the long run. Because experienced people don’t break. They show up, know what they’re doing, and keep your shit functioning without you having to babysit them.
Know Your Value. Say It Out Loud.
Here’s where the episode lands. In every other area of life you’re told to know your value. Know what you bring to the table. Know what you’re worth in relationships, in friendships, in every human interaction.
Then you walk into a job interview and suddenly saying what you’re worth makes you an idiot?
No. You are not an idiot for knowing what 25 years of experience is worth. You are not an idiot for expecting a company to pay the salary range they publicly posted. And you are definitely not an idiot for walking away from employers who play games with people who don’t have time for it.
Know your value. Say it out loud. And stop working for people who don’t.
Those are the thoughts off the stem this week. 🌿
Listen Now
Stop Playing Games: Know Your Value In The Job Market is available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and all major platforms.
New episodes of Thoughts Off The Stem drop every Friday at 4:20 PM.
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