Ask HN: Is patio11's salary negotiation guide relevant in today's market? • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by pdimitar » Sun, Nov 10, 2024, 10:46 AM UTC

justin_oaks wrote: post #103

encoderer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the modern advice that you should always negotiate and ask for more is deeply distressing for many people. They do not want to feel like they are being taken advantage of but they also don’t really want to engage in a negotiation.

And that's perfectly fine. Such people will get less favorable terms. Patrick's guide explicitly talks about how a lot of people don't want to negotiate. His argument is that if doing something distasteful for a short period of time will get you a significant salary boost, you should try to do it anyway. Ultimately, if it's distressing to someone to be assertive and negotiate, my first reaction isnt "That's fine! Let…

Your second phrase is more accurately translated to "Let's take advantage of their meek nature and low-ball them". At least be honest.

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

#192

Post by lwhi » Sun, Nov 10, 2024, 11:17 AM UTC

pdimitar wrote: post #183

lwhi wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It boils down to being able to walk away .. but you're totally right, most people are never able to be in that position. It's a luxury for most.

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

#193

Post by pdimitar » Sun, Nov 10, 2024, 11:25 AM UTC

lwhi wrote: post #192

pdimitar wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It boils down to being able to walk away .. but you're totally right, most people are never able to be in that position. It's a luxury for most.

True, and thanks for acknowledging it. I admit I am really tired of cookie-cutter advice lately and sometimes get triggered and call it out in less than a productive tone. Thanks for not reacting to it. :)

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

#194

Post by pdimitar » Sun, Nov 10, 2024, 11:33 AM UTC

srockets wrote: post #49

gruez wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn't it better to find a tax avoidance strategy that's mutually beneficial to both sides? Sure, you can ask for an extra $10k that gets taxed down to $5k, but if you can find a creative workaround to get $8k instead for the same $10k, isn't that better than trying to ask them for a $16k raise to make up for the taxes?

That $8k may cost another $5k to implement: current systems used by the would be employer may not be geared up to handle that non-standard asks.

Valuable counter-point, thanks. Still their problem though, and they should make it a bit more transparent: "It would cost us extra to implement this, are you OK with a final offer that's yours minus $3k to offset our costs?".

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

#195

Post by pdimitar » Sun, Nov 10, 2024, 1:23 PM UTC

Suppafly wrote: post #137

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 also, some companies are not willing to negotiate on anything and attempting to negotiate often screws you over.

The fact that this comment was very gray should tell us all about HN main demographic i.e. privileged SV engineers who never had to negotiate once in their lives, and could land a job the next day if they were let go.