Common mistakes in salary negotiation • Hacker News Board

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#191

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 10:15 PM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #189

pdonis wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

[deleted]

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#192

Post by quickthrower2 » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 10:17 PM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #163

s0rce wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine almost always goes like this: Recruiter: How much are looking for? Me: Could you please provide a range for the role? Recruiter: no, please let us know what you want Me: relatively high but not crazy number Recruiter: No, that's too high Me (in my head): why did you ask me then Me: Ok, please let me know what is reasonable Recruiter: some number that may or may not be acceptable Me: asks for a bit more if number…

Personally, I just wouldn't work with a recruiter who did that. That sort of behavior is a red flag to me.

That negotiation sounds like the estimation process at some companies I have worked for.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#193

Post by avereveard » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 10:17 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #160

nunez wrote: 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…

> 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

Then do better research before going into the meeting instead of playing games after multiple interviews rounds.

Also companies don't have a lot of incentive to pay too much under market rate anyway, especially for higher end jobs where they provide some training, or churn from people getting pushed constantly for a dollar more will kill their business.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#194

Post by ryandrake » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 10:18 PM UTC

pjot wrote: post #177

pdonis wrote: 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

If pressed, I'd just say: "I would immediately say yes to the job for $1 million/year."

Who cares if they laugh? Why negotiate against yourself and hand them your actual min value on a silver platter? They're not going to tell you their max value.

EDIT: Oops, looks like another commenter already spelled out this strategy[1]

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37241739

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#195

Post by sn9 » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 10:18 PM UTC

I keep seeing these salary negotiation posts, but aren't the recruiters and people hiring also reading them?

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#196

Post by pdonis » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 10:19 PM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #189

pdonis wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

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

This is common in the US as well and makes your filtering job easier when it happens.

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

Are those employers you would want to work for? My heuristic is, probably not. In which case it costs you nothing to pass on them as well. But see further comment below.

> more offers is more leverage

Not necessarily. They're only leverage if you are actually interested in them. Otherwise they're not an actual alternative.

If there is an employer you really want to work for who literally won't give you an offer unless you tell them a number first, then you're in a buyer's market. But for anyone who has good tech skills it is rarely a buyer's market; you are a scarce resource and should value yourself accordingly.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#197

Post by quickthrower2 » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 10:20 PM UTC

vsareto wrote: post #79

mm263 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that your aspirational number may be way, way off. Not saying the aspirational number is how I got twice the salary I planned to ask for as a junior while interviewing for my first job years ago.

There's no consistent and transparent pricing for individual skills on a resume, so you can't sum them up, adjusted by years of experience, and reach a rational number. Job titles can be similarly vague. Plus there's no premium for having a useful bundle of skills as a single hire (companies charge us for convenience and bundling all the time though!) This seems hard, but plenty of analytical brain power could be app…

Yes. Ask a company what they would rather have on a public github: their source code or their payroll file. I bet they’d say source code!

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#198

Post by cyanydeez » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 10:22 PM UTC

j1elo wrote: post #158

xyzelement wrote: post #111

I used to work in trading and I think some of the principles I learned there apply directly to salary negotiations. Two key things I think about all the time are price discovery and competition. Price discovery means that in some illiquid markets, you don't really know what a thing will trade at unless you try to trade it (which itself reveals some information to the counterparty but that's not important in the job c…

> You can always tell job X "I'd love to work with you but it's hard to accept a lower offer, can you match?" It's of course very dependant on each country and the jobs market, but in my experience the issue would be even getting to have multiple offers in a short enough period of time. To the point that it happening could be called a coincidence, more than anything. Unless you are fiercely hunting for a job (aka. do…

These seem like old times or a very narrow band of. High salaries.

The only general purpose advice here is the price discovery. If you want to know, you need offers.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#199

Post by pdonis » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 10:23 PM UTC

avereveard wrote: post #193

pdonis wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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 Then do better research before going into the meeting instead of playing games after multiple interviews rounds. Also companies don't have a lot of incentive to pay too much under market rate anyway, especially for higher end jobs where they provid…

> do better research before going into the meeting

Research in the sense of information you can find without having detailed inside information about the company will tell you general salary ranges, which, as I said, will tell you whether it's worth your while to be talking to this company at all. But it won't give you a solid enough number that it's worth risking shooting yourself in the foot by giving it.

> companies don't have a lot of incentive to pay too much under market rate anyway

This means you are likely to get an offer that's at least market rate (so, as above, you know whether it's worth your while to talk to this company at all). It doesn't mean you should tell them first what you think "market rate" is, instead of them telling you what they are willing to pay in the form of an offer.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#200

Post by legohead » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 10:25 PM UTC

I am expecting raises to come soon and I am trying to think through how to ask for a higher raise. Any input would be appreciated.

My company does this thing where they buy some kind of market research salary analysis and use it to gauge what they should be paying us. They tell us as much, and it feels like a trap: "We can't give you more because it's not industry standard" etc. Since I'm at the top of the ceiling according to this list, my raises have been pretty much crap the last couple of years.

The other thing is our growth has slowed. We had a few years of over 20% growth, but we rely on the ad market, and it hit us hard with the Apple/Google changes. But, we still have positive growth, just not the 20% the CEO desires.