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Salary Negotiation

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Re: Salary Negotiation

#211

Post by alain94040 »

whack wrote: post #139

I've heard this "don't name a number first" advice so many times, but personally, it never seems to work. My current comp is significantly higher compared to others with my level of experience. So when I refuse to give a number, the recruiter ends up guessing a number that is significantly lower, and making a lowball offer. I've also had many other experiences where after many hours of interviews, I find out that the…

The problem is that advice you read on Internet is geared toward the average person, not you. It's true that the #1 mistake people make is to sell themselves short by giving away a (low) salary upfront. So it makes sense for the Internet to emphasize that advice: it helps the most people and therefore has the most impact. On average.

Why can't "the Internet" know that I'm not average? Based on my web browsing history alone, the Internet should know that I have reached expert level in resume and salary compensation discussions. So don't show me the stuff for beginners.

There has to be some startup idea in there somewhere. All the raw data is there. Deep learning is hot. Who will come up with the first usable "Internet persona" or "Custom Internet" concept that actually works?

Re: Salary Negotiation

#212

Post by swombat »

thomnottom wrote: post #112
runT1ME wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>we have no interest in trying to sucker someone into working with us if money is their primary motivation. If money is not your primary motivator, why can't you pay more?

A company still has to have money in order to operate. I would assume that even without money being the primary focus, they have to be careful about paying out too much or they will be out of business.

Indeed. We are in a highly competitive market, and have a number of interesting projects going on to disrupt that market that won't pay off immediately. If we don't manage our costs reasonably well we won't stay in business.

Money is like rocket fuel. If you're accumulating it for its own sake, rather than to get somewhere, I'd say you're doing it wrong - but that's just my opinion...

Re: Salary Negotiation

#213

Post by weaksauce »

chefkoch wrote: post #174
potatolicious wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in a similar boat - and definitely not naming a number first has caused friction when the initial offer ends up coming in way below my existing comp. But I'm sticking with the strategy. Ultimately the jobs where, in a vacuum and asked to value the job themselves, they come up with a number a sad fraction of your current comp, there was simply no scenario in which you would have been happy with comp at that place.…

>personally I wouldn't even bother interviewing at places where I know for certain the comp won't hit my expectations Why would anyone do that?

some people want interview practice for instance, or if they think that they can talk them up to their desired salary once the interviewer sees how good they are and have time invested into the process.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#214

Post by pillowkusis »

jknz wrote: post #83
pillowkusis wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you still have a strong incentive to lie, do you not? Since the final salary is the average of the two numbers, employers want to go as low as they can and prospects want to go as high as they can. in fact, this system punishes honesty even more than the current one -- if I am honest and the other person is dishonest, the dishonest person wins because they will pull the average in the direction they want and I get a…

Say the candidate is honest, wants 120k and writes down 120k. Say the company honestly wants candidate ufo 130k or less. Company plays is dishonest card and writes down 110k. Then the candidate leaves and there is no hire. If company had been honest she would have hired a fitting candidate for 125k, less than the most that company was willing to offer (130k).

say the candidate wants 150 but would take as low as 120. so she writes down 120. she's actually worth 150.

the company is willing to hire her at up to 150. But instead, they say 130.

She gets hired at 125 as a result. If they had negotiated, they certainly would have settled closer to 150. Her honesty cost her 12k/yr. The company profits immensely from its dishonesty as long as they say a number just above the candidate's lowest.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#215

Post by 15155 »

potatolicious wrote: post #203
chefkoch wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>personally I wouldn't even bother interviewing at places where I know for certain the comp won't hit my expectations Why would anyone do that?

I dunno, yet people do. More commonly though I think people just aren't aware of the market situation, and comp ranges for specific jobs at specific companies. Knowing the lay of the compensation land in your area is pretty critical to negotiating well - from both sides of the table. And this goes beyond generalities like "market salary" but to specific recent offers made for specific jobs at specific companies.

> I dunno, yet people do.

Honing the skill to determine whether or not a company is going to be able to pay you what you're worth is hinged on a few (apparently tricky) soft-skill-based assumptions:

- You can assess the company (quality, tier of engineer, etc.)

- You can assess your own market value, apparent worth accurately.

I like to give companies that I believe won't pay correctly the benefit of the doubt: I give a blowout number, xx% more than I believe I am worth. If I'm not met with resistance: I'm wrong and it hurts.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#216

Post by jboydyhacker »

I disagree with the advice on avoiding the "what is your target comp" in current market conditions. Unless the market gets a lot worse- give the number that would make you happy and expect to get it.

Generally, in a startup the last thing I want to spend time on is replacing good engineers because their salary was below market.

In short- If I want to hire the person - I just give them the number they ask for. Recruiting is the worst time sink and better to spend time on retaining the folks you have and improving your business.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#217

Post by jkempe11 »

whack wrote: post #139

I've heard this "don't name a number first" advice so many times, but personally, it never seems to work. My current comp is significantly higher compared to others with my level of experience. So when I refuse to give a number, the recruiter ends up guessing a number that is significantly lower, and making a lowball offer. I've also had many other experiences where after many hours of interviews, I find out that the…

I am a recruiter and I will tell you this: you should abandon this advice, for certain.

It's funny - probably the best advice anyone ever gives on negotiation is exactly the opposite of "don't name a number first." It's "anchor high." You should be anchoring to a number that is high but realistic, and negotiating from a position of strength. This is especially true for senior- and late-career individuals who have some experience under their belt.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#218

Post by fsloth »

whack wrote: post #139

I've heard this "don't name a number first" advice so many times, but personally, it never seems to work. My current comp is significantly higher compared to others with my level of experience. So when I refuse to give a number, the recruiter ends up guessing a number that is significantly lower, and making a lowball offer. I've also had many other experiences where after many hours of interviews, I find out that the…

I suppose it's a good rule of thumb while figuring out the dynamics and the influence game of the negotiations.

The best thing I did for my negotiation skill was to read up popular psychology books on influence. It may not make me a negotiations pro but just being able to name some of the dynamics and recognize some of the tactics puts me (or so I feel) at a far better position at the discussions.

E.g. it's easier to play football if someone explains the rules, especially if the opposing team is used to playing against players whoa are completely clueless of the game.

In this context "don't name a number" is analogous to "be aware of the leverage at play, and don't yield leverage to the other side unless you know where the game is".

Re: Salary Negotiation

#219

Post by designtofly »

brazzledazzle wrote: post #202
designtofly wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your argument. I never said any value is fixed. Of course a person's value changes from role to role and from company to company. Part of doing your research is understanding the pain points for the company and the value you bring by fixing those pain points. If you disagree with "a professional knows their value," what are you arguing? That "a professional doesn't know their value?"

I think they're arguing that you can't really be sure how valuable you are to a company since there's a significant amount of information disparity. Given your typical company that doesn't discuss much about internal issues or pain points publicly how do you do that research needed to understand those things?

Fair point--you have no idea what happens behind closed doors and what the available budgets are. And you never will. Perhaps the hiring manager decided they are willing to pay 2x the market rate because their pain is quite high. But how likely is it, due to your refusal to name a number, that the company is going to reveal the top of their range? So, yes, there is an information disparity.

But I still think that refusing to name a number shouldn't be the number one point in all of these discussions and blog posts about salary negotiation. You're right, when there are huge amounts of information disparity, either because a company's pain point is significantly higher than market rates would imply, or because a candidate has a rare and unique skill that cannot be easily found, then all of the entry-level negotiating tactics go out the window. But for fair-market jobs and candidates, I think you should be able to know your value well and refusing to name a number is a waste of time and energy.

Re: Salary Negotiation

#220

Post by swombat »

xviia wrote: post #195
pyoung wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The employer isn't magically immune to market forces simply because they move to a transparent salary system. If they are significantly under-paying their employees, and they are not making up the difference via other benefits (shorter working hours, bonuses, etc...) then they are going to run into a lot of trouble hiring and holding onto employees. And just because a company has defined salary ranges doesn't mean em…

Except when they overcome those market forces through collusion. See: wage lawsuit against Apple, Google, and other tech Titans

In this discussion you're assuming the "employer" as a separate entity from the "employees". This was an enormously hard dichotomy for us to overcome, because it required me and my cofounder to let go of control over the salary structure and hand that over to the company as a whole. That requires a huge amount of trust that "the employees" care about the company as much as we do, really want it to be a success, are capable of informing themselves to make good decisions on behalf of the company.

It is a very worthwhile path, but it certainly is not easy for the founders (and is probably impossible in a large traditional, top down, public company where "the owners" are a faceless group of shareholders who definitely want to believe they are in control - even though they definitely are not).

At this point, we (my cofounder and I) have pretty much zero control over how much people are paid in the company. We provide advice to people making those decisions but we are not the decision-makers. And the conclusion of that experiment is that people actually seem to care far more about getting the arbitrary salary formula right than we do, so I believe it was very much the right choice to let go of this lever and let the company design its own salary structure.

Thanks to this situation (however difficult it was to get there), the problem you outline is not there because there is no "employer" entity separate from the employees that could collude or have incentives different from the employees.

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