For starters, compensation is almost entirely location-based now. Situations where a person lives in cheap city / country but paid close to US rates were never common, but in last 5 years or so they disappeared almost entirely. Moreover, every company seems to know about local rates, they all source this data from the same sources, so if you're job hunting they all give you the same offer. And, since there are so much competition for positions companies are very reluctant to bid on candidates, and most offers do not allow negotiations. Even if paying you slightly above market would still save the company quite a lot of money they don't do it. So, situations where you receive the same offer from multiple companies, and all of them are "take it or leave it", became pretty common.
I haven't been on a job market for a long time, but this is what I hear from people around me.
How so?
For starters, compensation is almost entirely location-based now. Situations where a person lives in cheap city / country but paid close to US rates were never common, but in last 5 years or so they disappeared almost entirely. Moreover, every company seems to know about local rates, they all source this data from the same sources, so if you're job hunting they all give you the same offer. And, since there are so much competition for positions companies are very reluctant to bid on candidates, and most offers do not allow negotiations. Even if paying you slightly above market would still save the company quite a lot of money they don't do it. So, situations where you receive the same offer from multiple companies, and all of them are "take it or leave it", became pretty common.
I haven't been on a job market for a long time, but this is what I hear from people around me.