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Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

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Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#51

Post by awinder »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #39
awinder wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amounts of money never made any sense to me that some hiring managers will die on a hill over. In time I came to the realization that it’s very important for some people to have that “win” / upper hand in the new relationship, as like a tone setting sort of thing.

That's an incredibly cynical take. As a hiring manager, I want to stack my team with the best employees we can convince to join our company. Obviously, throwing more money at the candidate is the easiest way to convince someone to come on board. However, the company doesn't have infinite money to pay candidates. Compensation comes out of our budgets. The more we pay each person, the fewer people we can hire overall.…

I think we are talking about vastly different things on re-reading your post. I’m keying in, along with the parent, on offers being negotiated at figures like less than 5% on base salary (sometimes far less. talking 5-10k range)

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#52

Post by smnrchrds »

grandmczeb wrote: post #40
jiofih wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I"ve seen a lot of employers minimize wages and hours to get as much of their budget into workers pockets as possible. How would that work? The tax bands are progressive, so you will never get less money from a higher salary and tax rate. That would be pretty dumb.

If you consider government benefits too, there are "cliffs"[1] at low incomes where an increase in income can result in less take home. But probably not at the salaries a typical developer would get. [1] http://i.imgur.com/kM6yxab.png

That's a fascinating chart. I would like to reference it in the future, but I cannot find a source for the data. Did you compile it yourself? Have you written your data and methodology somewhere?

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#53

Post by skj »

jiofih wrote: post #35
ddgcdgdfg wrote: post #32

Ot: I've been wondering... are lower taxes for lower salaries actually a good approach? If you imagine they are fines or punishments we should punish low salaries more. I"ve seen a lot of employers minimize wages and hours to get as much of their budget into workers pockets as possible. It converts into productivity more efficiently like that. (Tax here in NL is 39% with a discount over the first 8k or so)

> I"ve seen a lot of employers minimize wages and hours to get as much of their budget into workers pockets as possible. How would that work? The tax bands are progressive, so you will never get less money from a higher salary and tax rate. That would be pretty dumb.

If the tax brackets are 0% for the first $5, and 50% for the second $5, then if you pay one person $10, $7.5 goes into worker pockets. If you pay two people $5, then $10 goes into worker pockets.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#54

Post by shuckles »

legerdemain wrote: post #43

> Virtually any amount of money available to you personally is > mouse droppings to your prospective employer. > They will not feel offended if you ask for it. Two comments. (a) I interviewed with Wealthfront last year. They offered $160K, which was lower cash comp than any of my other offers. I tried to open the door to negotiation. The recruiter and the dev lead then got on the phone with me to awkwardly explain th…

In the case of Wealthfront, it may be a cultural matter as their CEO specifically believes that negotiating your offer is a negative indicator: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20130708151000-56725-offer-co...

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#55

Post by Infinitesimus »

ddlutz wrote: post #24
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #3

most of my bosses have made me feel petty when asking for an extra $10k/yr i've found that when working for corporations, it's all about the number you ask for up front. after that, it takes quite a bit to get more than the average 3-5% merit pay bump. how FANG companies work with the $500k/yr total comp for average engineers, i have no clue... i think from what i've seen from levels.fyi the most common salaries are…

Is $500k really "average" engineer compensation at top tech companies? That's the average compensation for an L6 at Google, which has an average tenure of 13.2 years https://www.levels.fyi/charts.html . Many people will max-out at L5 in there careers. Compensation is really good in tech, but I don't think saying "$500k/yr total comp for average engineers" is helping anybody.

Not even close to it. Anecdotally, most are between low $100k to $400k depending on level, luck and tenure. However stacking RSU appreciation and refreshers can skew those numbers a lot.

The $500k plus is L6+ or Netflix-like companies

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#56

Post by PragmaticPulp »

awinder wrote: post #51
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an incredibly cynical take. As a hiring manager, I want to stack my team with the best employees we can convince to join our company. Obviously, throwing more money at the candidate is the easiest way to convince someone to come on board. However, the company doesn't have infinite money to pay candidates. Compensation comes out of our budgets. The more we pay each person, the fewer people we can hire overall.…

I think we are talking about vastly different things on re-reading your post. I’m keying in, along with the parent, on offers being negotiated at figures like less than 5% on base salary (sometimes far less. talking 5-10k range)

> I’m keying in, along with the parent, on offers being negotiated at figures like less than 5% on base salary (sometimes far less. talking 5-10k range)

Right, but remember that you're not pivoting around the initial offer number.

The hiring manager is pivoting around their budgeted range for the position. If they already offered 20% more than expected to hire someone and that person comes back requesting an additional 5-10K bump, that could put them 25% higher than expected.

Generally speaking, the people playing hardball to get an extra 5-10K are the same people aggressively negotiating the base salary number. I've given people offers for the exact salary they requested, only to have them come back and request another 5-10K just because they're intent on negotiating more at every step.

Candidly, it starts to become easy to spot the aggressive salary negotiators. Many of us current managers grew up reading things like patio11's negotiation guide back in 2012, and we're basically experts at spotting people using it against us now. When aggressive negotiators come along without an obvious BATNA, the easy method is to offer them 5-10K lower than your final offer and let them "negotiate" back up to your target number. The hiring manager wins the negotiation, but the candidate gets to feel like they succeeded in the negotiation. Happens more than you might expect.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#57

Post by lotsofpulp »

shuckles wrote: post #54
legerdemain wrote: post #43

> Virtually any amount of money available to you personally is > mouse droppings to your prospective employer. > They will not feel offended if you ask for it. Two comments. (a) I interviewed with Wealthfront last year. They offered $160K, which was lower cash comp than any of my other offers. I tried to open the door to negotiation. The recruiter and the dev lead then got on the phone with me to awkwardly explain th…

In the case of Wealthfront, it may be a cultural matter as their CEO specifically believes that negotiating your offer is a negative indicator: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20130708151000-56725-offer-co...

Hilarious, a buyer telling sellers that the it’s in the seller’s best interest to not research their market price. In the finance sector nonetheless.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#59

Post by TehShrike »

Brushfire wrote: post #2

This is all generally very good advice but I’m equally amused at the ridiculous portrayal of “businessmen” throughout this post; most people do not see themselves this way and it’s sort of goofy to think they do. But that isn’t terribly important to the message. Oh, and one other thing, if you’re at a 10-person ish startup, definitely don’t act like a company that is 1000ish. You’ll lose. And so your hiring practices…

When I first read this post over 7 years ago, it led to me negotiating an extra 6k/year on my next job, for an employer with The portrayal of "businessmen" was also valuable to me. You're correct that most people don't think of themselves this way – but they should.

Reading this post was one of my first steps of many towards feeling like an active agent selling a service, rather than a passive agent looking for a corporation to glom on to.

There are plenty of companies who want to hire active agents, and they don't correlate perfectly with employee count.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#60

Post by TehShrike »

legerdemain wrote: post #43

> Virtually any amount of money available to you personally is > mouse droppings to your prospective employer. > They will not feel offended if you ask for it. Two comments. (a) I interviewed with Wealthfront last year. They offered $160K, which was lower cash comp than any of my other offers. I tried to open the door to negotiation. The recruiter and the dev lead then got on the phone with me to awkwardly explain th…

BATNA is king. If you have a great alternative, you're not being difficult, you're just being honest. My second-most-linked negotiation post, after the OP, is https://haseebq.com/how-not-to-bomb-your-offer-negotiation/
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