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Common mistakes in salary negotiation

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Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#241

Post by pdonis »

pandaman wrote: post #227
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…

You argument is essentially hanging on the assertion that the first number an employer would offer is also the maximum number it could offer. I know exactly one company that operated like that: they'd make the maximum offer and if you did not like it there was no further negotiation. Most companies don't do that (neither does that one any more, the CEO who had this policy had retired a while ago). What I've observed…

> You argument is essentially hanging on the assertion that the first number an employer would offer is also the maximum number it could offer.

Not at all. You should expect to negotiate once they have made an offer. But your negotiating position will be better if you don't give a number first.

> in reality the hiring manager had the range like 200-250 and you asked for 210. Why would he bother to try to push you down to 200?

Because you've now anchored the negotiation at 210 as the max, and he's going to try to get you for less because this is business. He's not going to just take your first number any more than you would just accept his first offer.

Whereas if you hadn't anchored the negotiation there wouldn't be a ceiling at 210.

> On the other hand, why would he offer anything other than 200 if you did not ask?

He might not. But if he offers 200 and you have not given any number at all, you can negotiate and possibly get more than 210. Whereas if you'd given 210 first you would never get more.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#242

Post by saagarjha »

Manuel_D wrote: post #201
jrockway wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, which FAANG hires junior engineers for $450k?

Perhaps people who joined shortly before a stock rally. I was pulling ~$270k TC at 2 YoE, but it was really ~$175k TC at the time I actually joined the company. Equity is so variable, that's why it's better to compare TC at time of offer. Of course, when I negotiate I always cite the highest stock value in the last several months.

TC numbers are typically not meant to include stock variations.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#243

Post by bulatb »

JohnFen wrote: post #151
deckard1 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would a software dev have a portfolio? The comparison to design or writing doesn't make sense. A graphic designer can point to logos or marketing material that is publicly available. I'm not going to put proprietary code on a portfolio nor am I going to spend multiple years building some open source project when I already have a full time job. Software engineering must be the only profession where employment hist…

> why would a software dev have a portfolio? For the same reason artists do -- to show a potential employer what you're capable of and what your style is. Look at it from the employer's point of view -- they have very little to go on when judging ability. If you can provide examples of your work, then you're reducing their uncertainty and giving yourself an edge for the position. > I'm not going to put proprietary co…

>> why would a software dev have a portfolio?

> For the same reason artists do

They're asking more how it would happen, less for what purpose.

Artists automatically accumulate portfolios by doing work that gets displayed in public. Programmers who work on closed-source programs don't—unless they supplement their work-for-pay in ways that artists aren't expected to. The artist's history of work itself is how they get more work; the programmer's isn't.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#244

Post by somsak2 »

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…

This stuff only works if market participants abide by the law, which we know they don't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

The other issue you run into is cost of getting to competing offers. In your example, you can just ask a dealer for a quote and they'll give it to you, with little to no work on your part. In tech, you have to go through multiple hours of interviews to get this information.

It's no wonder that people are resistant to go interview. Especially when you can get most of this information much more easily through levels.fyi.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#245

Post by pdonis »

pempem wrote: post #213
pdonis wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 off…

Leverage is not defined as something you're interested in. That would be more like a BATNA. Leverage is what someone else believes you're interested in. In the US many jobs post a salary range, which can be not accurate or updated and apply to several levels of roles, "based on your experience" which puts you back at the negotiation table. I've always found it odd american culture does not always embrace negotiating…

> Leverage is what someone else believes you're interested in.

If you're good enough at dissimulation to make a recruiter (who has a lot more experience at this than you do) believe you're interested in another offer when you're actually not, you probably don't need any of the advice in either the article or this discussion thread.

But if you're not that good at dissimulation, attempting it is shooting yourself in the foot. You're much better off being honest and only talking about other offers you have if you actually are interested in them.

> In the US many jobs post a salary range, which can be not accurate or updated and apply to several levels of roles, "based on your experience" which puts you back at the negotiation table.

Yes, posted salary ranges should not be taken as absolute. But they give you an idea of whether a company is worth your time to look at.

> I've always found it odd american culture does not always embrace negotiating despite many of our core actions being based on it.

I don't think it's "American culture" in general that doesn't embrace negotiating. It's more a certain segment of American middle class culture. I agree that it's both odd and a disadvantage to those who grow up in that culture.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#246

Post by pandaman »

saagarjha wrote: post #235
pandaman wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You argument is essentially hanging on the assertion that the first number an employer would offer is also the maximum number it could offer. I know exactly one company that operated like that: they'd make the maximum offer and if you did not like it there was no further negotiation. Most companies don't do that (neither does that one any more, the CEO who had this policy had retired a while ago). What I've observed…

Why wouldn’t he offer you 225 or 230 if he thought you were an important hire?

Because if you were an important hire you'd be impressed more when the comp was eventually pushed all the way to 250 from 200 than to 250 from 230. There is no advantage in offering you 225 or 230 at all.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#247

Post by saagarjha »

yieldcrv wrote: post #125
irrational wrote: post #90

I work for a Fortune 100 company. Years ago they wanted to make sure that everyone in the same job was making the same amount of money (they were especially trying to make sure women were making as much as men). So they had an outside consulting group look at everyone’s salaries and adjusted them as needed to make sure they were all the same within $1. I ended up getting a $15k bump. They review it again every year t…

that’s nice but not holistic enough people are overly assuming ingrained bias from a shadowy cabal of hiring managers and not looking at different gendered funnels, attrition, and personal contribution to the outcomes all within the same roles HIRED’s recruitment report, for example, found very gendered compensations asks to begin with similarly, people discount the risk many men take to skew it. for everyone worried…

Nobody was talking about gender here until you used it as an excuse to reiterate talking points about how pay disparity is actually explained by women not asking for enough money or how men actually have it hard.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#248

Post by sarchertech »

owenmarshall wrote: post #215
dudul wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The usual recommendation is to go get another offer at the salary you want and use that to make your case. Now, I use to think that the "spiteful boss" was a myth, ie the boss that is going to be all pissy because they feel blackmailed and give you a hard time. I actually did encounter it for the first time in 2 decades a few years ago. I was VP of eng at the time and one of my reports used this technique to show tha…

> Most managers understand that it's business, you're showing them the data and they don't want to lose someone who's doing a good job. Yeah, exactly. If a 150k engineer brings me an offer for 175 and asks me to match, my options are to either: * match * let them go, lose 25k of company productivity while my team interviews & hire & pinch hit for someone who left, then lose 40k in time training a new candidate & wait…

If the guy can regularly get offers that much higher than what they are paying him, that's what he's worth, and they can meet it or he'll walk. Maybe just actually pay the guy his market rate and he won't bother wasting time job searching.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#249

Post by pandaman »

pdonis wrote: post #241
pandaman wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You argument is essentially hanging on the assertion that the first number an employer would offer is also the maximum number it could offer. I know exactly one company that operated like that: they'd make the maximum offer and if you did not like it there was no further negotiation. Most companies don't do that (neither does that one any more, the CEO who had this policy had retired a while ago). What I've observed…

> You argument is essentially hanging on the assertion that the first number an employer would offer is also the maximum number it could offer. Not at all. You should expect to negotiate once they have made an offer. But your negotiating position will be better if you don't give a number first. > in reality the hiring manager had the range like 200-250 and you asked for 210. Why would he bother to try to push you dow…

>Because you've now anchored the negotiation at 210 as the max, and he's going to try to get you for less because this is business.

Why though? The manager has a budget, you are within the budget, getting into negotiation when the condition is already satisfied can, at most, win 10K per year and lose the whole placement, which will cost much more in the additional search.

>But if he offers 200 and you have not given any number at all, you can negotiate and possibly get more than 210.

You also might get less.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#250

Post by saagarjha »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #121
spaceywilly wrote: post #34

“The key is to get multiple 400k offers in the same week” Wow why didn’t I think of that!

There's a FAANG company on 1 Hacker Way. There's one on 1 Infinite Loop, Apple. There's on on Sand Hill Road, Ampitheatre Parkway actually, that's Google. Netflix, 100 Winchester Circle, that's a good one. You know, I think they're all in the same place, the FAANG District. Seriously though, I can only imagine how much I'd be laughed out of the room if I was some little shit 22 year old trying to negotiate a salary a…

The big companies prey on 22 year olds who have mindsets like yours. It’s the wrong one to have.
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