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Common mistakes in salary negotiation

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Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#271

Post by OJFord »

CaveTech wrote: post #229
lylejantzi3rd wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like if you always get offers at the low end of a range - or if you always fail interviews - is very good signal that you can act on. Can you elaborate on that? I'm not seeing why these are good signals to act on.

The signal is that you don’t present well and need to work on that.

Is it though? Surely it could equally show progression - edging in to the next range up, so always offered the lower end (not the upper end of the range for the more junior role you've moved out of). Just a thought.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#272

Post by atomicnumber3 »

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…

"the best negotiating advice is to have multiple offers"

This is borderline "get in the job cannon and blast off to jobland" territory.

Also - it can be terrifically difficult to line up multiple simultaneous offers because companies would rather explode their offer than generally let people get a better leverage. I know multiple companies who do this on purpose for this explicit reason. Is it inefficient from a market perspective? Of course. But since when has that ever stopped the owner class from oppressing the workers?

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#273

Post by unmole »

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

Saying "I don't have a specific figure in mind", worked for me in the past.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#274

Post by xyzelement »

somsak2 wrote: post #244
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 infor…

I follow your logic but I am not sure it really works.

Agree levels.fyi is a great resource under the right conditions. EG, if Facebook wants to interview you as an E5 engineer, it's great to look up the range for that.

But if you are say a "senior developer" working outside of FAANG, what does it mean for you to know the E5 comp when you have no idea how that lines up against your profile? How would you know if FB would consider you for an E5 or even an E3 unless you interview and see how close you can get? The only other way is if you're already in a FAANG with very comparable levels. Otherwise, what's a "senior engineer" in one place may not pass the resume screen for a "junior" in another.

I agree with you that it obviously takes multiple hours to go through an interview, I am calling out that it's often well worth it, because: you may actually get an offer at the end, which you may take or use to negotiate with another company, and even if you constantly fail interviews there's a very actionable signal in that too. So the return on investment for those hours - ultimately being able to get a better/more lucrative job, seems like a good use of time.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#275

Post by OJFord »

jgeada wrote: post #162
Nemi wrote: post #73

So this is the exact same problem with Realtors. They will say that they have a fiducial responsibility to represent you and that they will try to get you the best price (either the most or least, depending on whether they are on the selling or buying side, respectfully). And they will do that, to some limited extent. But really their incentive is to close the deal . And that means telling you that this is the best p…

According to Freaknomics, realtors get about 3% higher average closing prices on their own properties than when they're representing you as a customer. That is the delta when it is their money on the line vs yours.

3%? That's like a minor 'I want this to be done now' or someone else is coming for a second viewing tomorrow type bump, if that's even statistically significant, frankly that seems fine?

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#276

Post by xyzelement »

lylejantzi3rd wrote: post #228
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…

> Like if you always get offers at the low end of a range - or if you always fail interviews - is very good signal that you can act on. Can you elaborate on that? I'm not seeing why these are good signals to act on.

The signal varies and I think you need to calmly reflect on the data points which is hard. But I can imagine a few scenarios:

Let's say you recognize that you "underperform" versus your capability because you get insanely nervous. At some point you have to realize that your ability to grow depends on your ability to get your nerves under control. How you do that is the next question but that could be one observation.

You can seek patterns of what kind of interviews you tend to fail out on. Eg, is it coding, algorithmic, problem solving, behavioral, whatever. Once you have that zeroed in, you can ask yourself (and the internet): how can I get better at X type of interview.

More generally, you can seek for patterns of what kinds of questions surprised you and you had to make shit up on the spot, but could have been better prepped? EG if you go "hmm let's see" if you are asked about the coolest thing you've worked on or whatever, maybe that's the kind of topic you can pregame and have a story for.

Another maybe subtler thing is reading the interviewer. What are the things you were saying/doing where the interviewer was visibly happy/impressed vs confused, where did they say "that's great, go on" and where did they go "hmm.. but what about.." In the moment you may have just taken the "what about" as a prompt but in reality they may have seen you struggle and tried to help you - what can you do to prep for that type of questions next time?

I can go on - but the conclusion is something like this - I know a bunch of people who every interview they had, they think they nailed it and then they are totally shocked to not advance. And I know people who can reflect on what went poorly and adjust for next time. I don't know how to teach someone to recognize all the signals like this but it's definitely there to be perceived if one looks.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#277

Post by dudul »

bruce511 wrote: post #223
dudul wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much this. It is actually a real scandal that realtors make a share of the sale as opposed to a flat fee. The paperwork and all is the same regardless of if it's a condo or a mansion.

Paperwork is the same, but other work is not. The time, and marketing, costs of a property tend to go up with price. If I'm buying a 12 bedroom mansion, I'm going to expect a lot more photos, better staging, and so on in the marketing compared to a 1 bed apartment. Equally small, cheap, properties are likely to sell faster (bigger buying pool) than more expensive ones. That $20m mansion is going to take a lot more vi…

Damn! Having to take 36 photos instead of 24! Totally worth the difference for the trouble.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#278

Post by LouisSayers »

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)

I've found either they tell you up front, or you have to go through the entire process and then at the end they fit you into their predefined bands and give you an offer somewhere in the middle of the band. The bands are not always about how well you interviewed, but can be about how good a story you make based on your previous experience (which probably won't be verified, so go for gold).

> Since more offers is more leverage

Also my experience. You get a number of offers, then go back to the company you like best and tell them what the market is paying.

Either they like you and will bump it up, or they're indifferent and will hold.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#279

Post by klipt »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #272
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…

"the best negotiating advice is to have multiple offers" This is borderline "get in the job cannon and blast off to jobland" territory. Also - it can be terrifically difficult to line up multiple simultaneous offers because companies would rather explode their offer than generally let people get a better leverage. I know multiple companies who do this on purpose for this explicit reason. Is it inefficient from a mark…

It's generally easy to line up the interviews, at least at big companies you can pretty much pick your interview date.

Then if you've done say 5 interviews (1 per day for a week), you can just wait for the first offer and use that as leverage to get the others to hurry up. Since they already have all the data they need.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#280

Post by bruce511 »

dudul wrote: post #277
bruce511 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paperwork is the same, but other work is not. The time, and marketing, costs of a property tend to go up with price. If I'm buying a 12 bedroom mansion, I'm going to expect a lot more photos, better staging, and so on in the marketing compared to a 1 bed apartment. Equally small, cheap, properties are likely to sell faster (bigger buying pool) than more expensive ones. That $20m mansion is going to take a lot more vi…

Damn! Having to take 36 photos instead of 24! Totally worth the difference for the trouble.

It's not the number of photos, as much as the quality. Not just of the photo itself (any phone can take good pics) but in terms of how the shot is framed, how the room is styled, and so on. Basically you need a better photographer, to spend more time, and you also need to dress the room in the best way.
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