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Common mistakes in salary negotiation

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Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#351

Post by knallfrosch »

Scarblac wrote: post #348

So weird to me to focus so much on the money. I care about what the company does and what I'll be contributing to that much more. Choosing based on salary offered seems like a recipe to always be in jobs you hate. Also, I usually have a job, and then nay apply to another when something interesting comes up. Isn't that more common than the situation of interviewing with four companies at the same time while not having…

If you don't care about money, there is no way an article called "Common mistakes in salary negotiation" will ever be helpful to you. This is not a fault in the article, though.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#352

Post by satvikpendem »

WalterBright wrote: post #323
atomicnumber3 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 hard to see how making $400k offers is exploiting the worker, rather than the worker exploiting the company.

They're talking about exploitation in the Marxist sense, that excess profit belongs to the workers. Of course, I don't believe in the Labor Theory of Value, as supply and demand is a much more useful model of the world, but that's what they mean by exploitation, not what it's seen as colloquially.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#353

Post by satvikpendem »

csaha wrote: post #325
WalterBright wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to see how making $400k offers is exploiting the worker, rather than the worker exploiting the company.

The first time I applied to work for a high frequency trading group in a hedge fund, my boss asked me what my desired comp would be? I replied 400k, to which he immediately responded saying that's extremely reasonable... So clearly, I f*** myself over in the negotiation. No company in our capitalist society pays any worker at any level. What the worker thinks they are worth- they pay the worker the absolute bare mini…

That is the same principle in any market, not just the labor market. It is based on the laws of supply and demand, not what the product's "worth" is (how would you even know that at a large scale without price discovery?).

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#354

Post by satvikpendem »

epups wrote: post #330
WalterBright wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to see how making $400k offers is exploiting the worker, rather than the worker exploiting the company.

Exploitation is not about whether each party is making a lot of money, it is whether one party makes a disproportionate amount of money over the value the other party produces.

No, they are talking about the Marxist theory of exploitation, where excess profits belong to the workers. It is however not a very useful model in the real world when market principles like supply and demand have much more predictive power.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#355

Post by shrimpx »

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,…

Yeah, the OP's advice makes sense only if you're looking to get the theoretically highest possible offer, to where you surprise yourself, like holy shit I didn't know it was possible for me to land this number! If you know what you want and have room to decline an offer below that, the OP's advice does not apply much. In fact, if you take the OP's advice, you're opening yourself up to wasting time with chumps who were never going to meet your internal number.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#356

Post by gambiting »

ryan_lane wrote: post #285
atomicnumber3 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

If a company gives you an exploding offer, it's a strong signal that the culture of that company isn't good, or that they can't afford to hire quality candidates (or both). In companies like this you can assume you'll probably also get poor raises. In practice, if you get an exploding offer, unless you already think it's an extraordinary offer and love the potential opportunity, you can tell them that you won't be ab…

>>If a company gives you an exploding offer, it's a strong signal that the culture of that company isn't good, or that they can't afford to hire quality candidates (or both).

I work in games - what happens for us quite often is that we'll interview ~10 candidates and 2-3 are actually good enough to hire. So the process is to give the top candidate the offer with a few days to accept it, if they don't then we move on to the next candidate because they also want to know whether we are proceeding or not - otherwise it's just rude(to the candidate). How does that indicate poor culture?

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#357

Post by toasted-subs »

killjoywashere wrote: post #346
hknmtt wrote: post #331

There is only one rule when talking about job, or essentially anything in life, if you wan to win. And that is - always be ready to walk out. This mostly means able, not just willing. Never put yourself in a position where you are cornered and have no way out. This is where "fuck you money" comes in, usually. If you know you will have food on the table, roof above your head and a bed to sleep in, your perspective wil…

He who cares the least controls the situation.

Similarly, not hitting a gift horse in the mouth is a good idea.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#358

Post by PUSH_AX »

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,…

faster and easier yes, as long as you're happy to leave money on the table.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#359

Post by linza »

lelanthran wrote: post #342
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…

> I used to work in trading and I think some of the principles I learned there apply directly to salary negotiations. I think exactly zero of those principles apply (assuming you are talking about stock exchange trades). All these types of "technical analysis" on price-discovery during negotiations is fairly pointless. There's only one rule that works when personally doing a trade with someone:(whether you're negotia…

Your main point was about salary negotiation (and I don't know much about that) but your example about interviewing is interesting to me:

> I spent a full day interview [...] and yet I thanked every single interviewer for their time, and told them how much I appreciate [...]

Where I work we became very sceptic about this trait in candidates, especially if someone is overdoing it. Then the suspicion rises whether they are overcomensating for another trait they believe about themselves.

I feel that being likable is table stakes and not something you would optimize for that much.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#360

Post by toasted-subs »

satvikpendem wrote: post #352
WalterBright wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to see how making $400k offers is exploiting the worker, rather than the worker exploiting the company.

They're talking about exploitation in the Marxist sense, that excess profit belongs to the workers. Of course, I don't believe in the Labor Theory of Value, as supply and demand is a much more useful model of the world, but that's what they mean by exploitation, not what it's seen as colloquially.

Depends, most companies paying that kind of money expects the employee to bring in enough money for additional hires.
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