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Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

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Re: Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

#181

Post by pdimitar »

ryandrake wrote: post #51
chomp wrote: post #15

Ok yes this guide is fine, a lot of things are up for negotiation, and I think it’s a lot more widely known these days to negotiate for stuff. But man, a lot of the people out there absolutely still do not grok negotiating. They know it’s something you’re supposed to do, but they will try and negotiate things that are not negotiable (like making it a hard ask for extra contributions per paycheck for healthcare to mat…

> But man, a lot of the people out there absolutely still do not grok negotiating. Unless you have some kind of very unique skill or you have other offers and the company really, really wants you, how exactly are you supposed to negotiate? Every comp negotiation I've ever had with a company has gone kind of like this: [Company]: Here's your offer for $X. [Me]: I'd like $Y. [Company]: Your offer is for $X. [Me]: Well,…

Slight correction:

The last company's letter would be:

    [Company]: We have decided to move forward with another candidate. Thank you for your time and good luck on your search!
And I agree, these HN threads always shock me to no end. I keep finding apparently you can negotiate when you are in the demonstrably weaker position. I still haven't heard those magical incantations and I, like you, keep asking but nobody is telling.

Apparently they are secret.

Re: Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

#182

Post by pdimitar »

lazide wrote: post #157
hhdhdbdb wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friendly would be win win. We'll pay you so you dont worry about money, and we win because you are great. Batna (looks better as a word) is there but in the distance.

Win/win also has some teeth under it somewhere, or they’d just give you everything yes? In your scenario, why not give you a billion dollars vs a million vs 100k? BATNA (and I am every familiar with the term, as I’ve had to do a significant amount of negotiation) is the ‘plan B’ if there is no acceptable ‘good’ agreement. If someone has no acceptable BATNA, their negotiation is essentially ‘please don’t beat me up to…

Since you said you have a lot of negotiation experience, how do you negotiate if you were let go and have to quickly find a job?

Re: Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

#183

Post by pdimitar »

lwhi wrote: post #115
benji-york wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BATNA acronym helps people understand negotiating a bit better, but outside of education, I don't see that it has much use.

I would have thought the concept of 'leverage' is more useful.

I'll do you one even better: "Never land in a situation where you just got fired and have to find a job quickly. Easy, right?".

That's what 99.9% of all negotiation advice I ever saw boils down to. Basically beat the game before it beats you.

Really cute... until you remember most people don't live to "play the negotiation game". They want a stable paycheck and to raise their family.

But who's asking, right.

Re: Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

#184

Post by pdimitar »

yladiz wrote: post #56
ryandrake wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But man, a lot of the people out there absolutely still do not grok negotiating. Unless you have some kind of very unique skill or you have other offers and the company really, really wants you, how exactly are you supposed to negotiate? Every comp negotiation I've ever had with a company has gone kind of like this: [Company]: Here's your offer for $X. [Me]: I'd like $Y. [Company]: Your offer is for $X. [Me]: Well,…

The crass answer is maybe you’re not able to negotiate well enough to get more than the initial offer. The less crass answer: In almost every company, you’re being hired on a salary band, so unless you’re at the top of that band in the initial offer there is room to go up, so you can typically push a bit higher. The trick is to make a request that’s higher than what they initially offer but not so high that they outr…

Not in Europe. I have successfully raised my paycheck during negotiations, likely two, maybe three times, over 23 years of career (I mean I sucked at anything business-related throughout 95% of it but hey), and it was done begrudgingly and I burned some bridges and was then first on the chopping block when the company started struggling.

As mentioned upthread in another comment: all the negotiation advice boils down to "start looking for a job while you have a job". Nobody is ever giving good advice how to get a good salary when your arse is on the wall (i.e. you have no option but to find a job in the next 2-3 months).

Re: Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

#185

Post by pdimitar »

bradlys wrote: post #126
j0hnyl wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how this works in practice. This means that timing of the offers needs to align pretty closely. How long will a company let you sit on an offer before they move on? I've only ever interviewed or worked at companies that are at most a few hundred people. When I get an offer, I'm pressured for an answer within days. Once or twice I've been able to stretch that to like 2-3 weeks.

People just need to lie more often. In many cases, they will not verify anything. If they require proof, you can say everything was a verbal offer with no official documentation. That's often how it is because many recruiters don't want to go through the paperwork process before there's an agreement. That said, I've found the "competing offer" element to be of little to no value. Even when I had 7 competing offers, n…

> That said, I've found the "competing offer" element to be of little to no value. Even when I had 7 competing offers, not one of them negotiated more than maybe 10% on the amount.

Thank you, glad to see not everyone in this thread is a super-rich SV engineer that never had to even lift a finger to get the next job.

Re: Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

#186

Post by pdimitar »

pesfandiar wrote: post #156
Suppafly wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The magic incantation is competing offer. Depends on the company. If you were applying where I work and tried to use a competing offer to get a better offer, they'd just suggest you go with the other offer.

Depends on what an employer is looking for: A relatively better pool of candidates or those who don't know how to ask for things.

Ask all you like, you'll just get a generic "thanks, we decided to move forward with another candidate" response maximum at reply number three.

Wish more people on HN worked at least 5 years outside the USA. It would give them valuable insights.

Re: Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

#187

Post by pdimitar »

RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #76
ryandrake wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But man, a lot of the people out there absolutely still do not grok negotiating. Unless you have some kind of very unique skill or you have other offers and the company really, really wants you, how exactly are you supposed to negotiate? Every comp negotiation I've ever had with a company has gone kind of like this: [Company]: Here's your offer for $X. [Me]: I'd like $Y. [Company]: Your offer is for $X. [Me]: Well,…

> [Company]: if you don't want $X, there's the door. We have 35 other candidates in the hiring pipeline. That's partly bluff. Hiring a good candidate is costly. If they make you an offer, they have already sunk the costs of screening you. Having you exit at the negotiation stage is never free for them. You always have some wiggle room.

You are correct but here's the kicker: most companies are as blind as newborn kittens when it comes to the costs of hiring and firing people.

So they are shooting themselves in the foot repeatedly but why do you care, you still didn't get hired.

Re: Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

#188

Post by pdimitar »

j0hnyl wrote: post #94
ryandrake wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But man, a lot of the people out there absolutely still do not grok negotiating. Unless you have some kind of very unique skill or you have other offers and the company really, really wants you, how exactly are you supposed to negotiate? Every comp negotiation I've ever had with a company has gone kind of like this: [Company]: Here's your offer for $X. [Me]: I'd like $Y. [Company]: Your offer is for $X. [Me]: Well,…

Strange, I've never had a company not go up from their initial offer. It's almost like it's baked in.

You live and work in the USA?

Re: Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

#189

Post by pdimitar »

mikenereson wrote: post #154
ryandrake wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But man, a lot of the people out there absolutely still do not grok negotiating. Unless you have some kind of very unique skill or you have other offers and the company really, really wants you, how exactly are you supposed to negotiate? Every comp negotiation I've ever had with a company has gone kind of like this: [Company]: Here's your offer for $X. [Me]: I'd like $Y. [Company]: Your offer is for $X. [Me]: Well,…

> We have 35 other candidates in the hiring pipeline Sounds like low skill, or entry-level work. or nah?

It's a combination of the current market and the area of work. One Elixir position I want had their hiring guy say on Slack they now have 900+ applications and that's some short 2 weeks after the job ad was posted. Crazy.

Re: Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market?

#190

Post by pdimitar »

singleshot_ wrote: post #148
ryandrake wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But man, a lot of the people out there absolutely still do not grok negotiating. Unless you have some kind of very unique skill or you have other offers and the company really, really wants you, how exactly are you supposed to negotiate? Every comp negotiation I've ever had with a company has gone kind of like this: [Company]: Here's your offer for $X. [Me]: I'd like $Y. [Company]: Your offer is for $X. [Me]: Well,…

“Thank you; have a nice day and good luck in your search!”

90% of the time it's the companies saying that.
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