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Common mistakes in salary negotiation

interviewing.io

181–190 of 467 posts

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#181

How do you avoid wasting your time doing interviews with companies that have no intention of paying you what you expect without disclosing some form of salary range upfront? I've generally taken what I want to make in the role and added 20% to it as a starting point. While this might limit me, it also keeps me from doing 100 onsite interviews only to discover their max is 2/3 of my expected comp.

Precisely. The article misses a third bullet point: 3) Many recruiters will say yes to everything and anything to get you into the interview seat And if you're juggling multiple FAANG offers in the same week, you probably don't need salary negotiation tips.

I had 3 FAANG offers. There are so many ways to screw this up. IMHO, the article’s advice is spot-on.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#182

How do you avoid wasting your time doing interviews with companies that have no intention of paying you what you expect without disclosing some form of salary range upfront? I've generally taken what I want to make in the role and added 20% to it as a starting point. While this might limit me, it also keeps me from doing 100 onsite interviews only to discover their max is 2/3 of my expected comp.

You refuse to do any unpaid "interview project" jobs. I'm not doing any "test projects" that are longer than 4h.

Been there, done that, never again.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#183
post #147

> My general policy with third-party recruiters is to not tell them ANYTHING and to always deal directly with the companies they introduce you, once you establish a point of contact there. You should assume that anything you tell your recruiter is going to get back to every company you’re working with. Why? Because their primary objective is to place your butt in the seat of one of the companies they’re working with,…

> If you want $200,000, whatever, just say so. BEFORE you start any interviews.

This article isn't about getting an amount that makes you happy, it's about getting as much as possible.

If you say $200,000, you've taken $300,000 off the table, which may have been on the table before you opened your mouth.

For many people, leaving money on the table is bad, and they want to get as much as possible.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#184
post #42

> Preparation and leverage means doing the work to make sure that you have multiple offers, that all your offers come in at the same time, and that you don’t tip your hand too early. Laying this foundation is 80% of the work. You’ll need to slow some companies down, speed some companies up, and hold off questions from recruiters until you’re ready to negotiate, and not before. Laying this foundation is largely unachi…

I did it (3 FAANGs). I also did it once before with my then-current employer and two other companies.

You have to stall the urgent folks and push the slow ones.

It did take a lot of burning vacation time.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#185
Oh yeah recruiters.

If they ask how long I have been looking I say 2 weeks: shows I am seriously looking so worth investing in but not on the shelf too long.

If they ask if I have applied to other companies: yes a couple, if at interview stage “yes I have another company I am interviewing with”. Too many it looks like they wont be able to snag. Too few and it looks like you don’t have leverage to negotiate.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#186
post #177
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You left out: 4. Don't give a number at all. If you are interested in Company X, and you've gone far enough in the process to know they are interested in you, tell the recruiter that you would be interested in seeing a competitive offer from Company X, or something along those lines. At the end of the day, the best negotiating leverage you have is that if Company X actually does want to hire you, at some point they h…

> Don't give a number at all Can you give an example of how this plays out in real conversation? Answering “I’m not telling you” or similar to the recruiters question “what’s your expected compensation” seems like bogus advice

The article gives explicit examples of what to say in this exact situation.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#187
This is mostly wrong advice mutated from trading and that mostly doesn't apply for the highly asymmetrical power balance that exist in salary negotiation, but which still get repeated ad libitum in blogspam sites.

Instead of trading like you're in a bazaar in middle east, focus on doing your research. Know your worth, and how to substantiate your worth during an interview.

Tell the numbers openly when asked, bodily and proudly, and have it confirmed that falls into their budget, and back up your worth with an adequate interview.

Can you imagine doing five rounds only to discover your ask would have never be met, that's madness, how can people suggest that?

Absolutely unprofessional, wastes everyone time, and put all the chances into a single, high stake rounds of wage roulette. And who has the most to lose there?

Especially in countries with limited PTO, just tell that number, and filter out interviews that would have lead to inadequate offers.

Instead of taking the problem with random adhesiveness, just put all that effort upfront and go in the meeting with a number that is well researched both in terms of matching or beating the market and in terms of allowing you to earn your living.

You can always tune the ask down if you're not getting enough interviews, or up if your getting too many. If you get a job too easy, pass and look for a better one, use the job market signal about your performances against itself.

Your ask and the demand will put passing interview on a Gaussian curve. From there is just a repetition game. Ask too much and you'll need infinite time to get a job, but knowing the variance you can establish an ask that matches your time horizon.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#188

It's mostly a waste of time, trying to negotiate with the big tech companies. I tried this with one, and they offered me a larger signing bonus. What I didn't realize was that they just ended up deducting that from my year end bonus.

I got 2/3 FAANGs to double their total comp. One was 2.8x. It is indeed a worthy exercise.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#189
post #160
post #147

> My general policy with third-party recruiters is to not tell them ANYTHING and to always deal directly with the companies they introduce you, once you establish a point of contact there. You should assume that anything you tell your recruiter is going to get back to every company you’re working with. Why? Because their primary objective is to place your butt in the seat of one of the companies they’re working with,…

> If you want $200,000, $400,000, whatever, just say so. BEFORE you start any interviews. Unless the number you give is significantly higher than any of your potential employers are ever going to offer you, you are shortchanging yourself by giving that number--it means that you have now foreclosed potential higher offers that otherwise might have come your way. That is the basis of the advice given in the article. I…

It might be different in the US but in Australia the way it works is:

60% of jobs will tell you a salary range either on the ad or via the recruiter.

The rest wont play the “you tell me first” game and just pass on you.

Since more offers is more leverage it might be better to play their game individually to have a better overall position (more offers)

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely. The article misses a third bullet point: 3) Many recruiters will say yes to everything and anything to get you into the interview seat And if you're juggling multiple FAANG offers in the same week, you probably don't need salary negotiation tips.

> And if you're juggling multiple FAANG offers in the same week, you probably don't need salary negotiation tips. If they are remote jobs, you just accept them all, buy as many computers as the offers you accepted and multitask for n x the pay.

I thought the next step was hire N people in india to do the work, collect the difference between your salary and theirs, and apply for more jobs.
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