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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)

#61

Post by throwarayes »

I spent several years underpaid at a lifestyle company as a specialist. I didn't want the golden handcuffs, I didn't want the pressure.

I've learned this was a big mistake

If you're paid at market value for your particular set of skills, your employer is making a commitment to use them. When they underpay you, you won't get to do the awesome thing that you do as much.

So by being paid more there's incentive for the employer to waste less of your time. This can include up to letting you go when they decide they don't want to do what's in your wheelhouse (a feature not a bug from my POV).

And none of that's to mention the long term financial downside. And the fact that the "lifestyle company" really wasn't fewer hours at the end of the day

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

#62

Post by SPBS »

Forget about letting employers come up with a number first, in Singapore it's a common practice for HR/Recruiters to directly ask for your last drawn salary (so that they can match it/bump it up by a fixed amount). It's not illegal to refuse to answer, but it's also not illegal for them to ask in the first place. Companies legitimately view last drawn salary as a way to assess a candidate's market value here.

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

#64

Post by ed25519FUUU »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #57
shuckles wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That post really doesn’t make sense to me. It’s always in your interest to shop around. The author calls them “collectors”, sounds like he’s upset he loses good candidates over money and wants to rationalize his loss.

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

#65

Post by refurb »

sokoloff wrote: post #7
jaaron wrote: post #5

Speaking as a hiring manager for 10+ years: If I've done my job right, I've sourced engineers experienced, confident and smart enough to negotiate and ask good questions around compensation. I want to make sure that we have an open conversation so that both sides can move forward to the actual job at hand. Tip: California based firms are required to give you a salary range if you ask for it and they can't ask you for…

Is there anything to prevent that range from being given as "$30K to $999K/yr"?

This is a valid point. Some salary bands are very wide. For my former employer, it was $140k to $245k. The mid-point is a good starting point, but it’s such a wide band it doesn’t give you much to anchor to.

And this is not just “HR told me this”. It’s the actual number in the compensation scheme visible to hiring managers.

And there is significant overlap between levels. The next level up is something like $170k to $260k.

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

#66

Post by refurb »

skj wrote: post #53
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 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.

Oh I see. He meant “better for the employer”.

I read it as “better for the employee”.

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

#67

Post by theptip »

awinder wrote: post #30
quicklime wrote: post #17

> We’ve been talking about your employer as an abstraction, but in the instant case you’re talking to an actual person. Let’s call him Bob. It is Bob’s job to get you signed with the company as cheaply as possible, but Bob is not super motivated to do so, because Bob is not spending Bob’s money to hire you. Bob is spending Bob’s budget. Bob generally does not get large performance incentives for shaving money off of…

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.

The argument I was given by my mentor on this subject is:

If you allow candidates to negotiate, then the employees of equal caliber who don’t negotiate will earn less, and this will cause angst when (not if) they compare their comp bands.

Allow candidates to tweak their package by moving value around between the buckets for cash comp, equity, vacation, etc., but keep the total comp determined narrowly by your assessment of their level.

I don’t fully buy into this principle for startups (since leveling is really difficult without a large population to compare across) but I think this is a less cynical explanation for why a hiring manager might not negotiate at all. It’s a slippery slope.

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

#68

Post by ydlr »

jghn wrote: post #48
quicklime wrote: post #17

> We’ve been talking about your employer as an abstraction, but in the instant case you’re talking to an actual person. Let’s call him Bob. It is Bob’s job to get you signed with the company as cheaply as possible, but Bob is not super motivated to do so, because Bob is not spending Bob’s money to hire you. Bob is spending Bob’s budget. Bob generally does not get large performance incentives for shaving money off of…

At my company I get headcount based on level, not raw dollars. Once I +1 a candidate at a level, it moves to HR and they are the ones doing the negotiation. At that point I become an advocate for them to get more compensation. It behooves me to have HR not play hardball and to max out their comp at the level I've specified as that makes it more likely the candidate signs. Once in a while HR will ask me "Are you sure?…

Just out of curiosity, if a candidate asks what the salary range is for the position, do you tell them?

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

#69

Post by ponker »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #56
awinder wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 addition…

The prevalence of this behavior makes negotiating more important... the company is lowballing you so you have to take what’s on the table.

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

#70

Post by quickthrower2 »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #64
lotsofpulp wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That post really doesn’t make sense to me. It’s always in your interest to shop around. The author calls them “collectors”, sounds like he’s upset he loses good candidates over money and wants to rationalize his loss.

Yep it makes no sense. In fact, normally if they can pay your more it's a good sign. The place with more money is more likely to have a better career, all else unknown, because they probably make more money (or are well funded) and therefore they desperately need the best people so are willing to stump up for it. There is a bigger causal link between your work and the impact on the company. In such places, expect to work with other good people.

The only reason it is a bad sign is if they are paying more money simply to compensate for insane working hours or bad culture. That should be sniffable on glassdoor, or with a few well placed questions. Or look for the warning signs. E.g. "We have an onsite gym because we don't want people to leave the building all day".

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