Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Common mistakes in salary negotiation

interviewing.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 467 posts

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#371

Post by [deleted] »

Rapzid wrote: post #367
nitwit005 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing a popular app is hardly the same as being the top authority in a field. I guarantee when Google hires someone like Ken Thompson, they do not get the normal Google hiring experience.

Let me just preface that inverting a binary tree.. Maybe they wanted a particular answer and it was an off day. That said, the author of Homebrew would be the top authority in the field of OSX package management yeah? I mean, Apple hasn't even bothered to create a competitor and yet every tech bro at Google using a MBP is going to need to install and use it..

[deleted]

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#372

Post by isomorphic- »

leeny wrote: post #71
user_7832 wrote: post #41

Slightly meta (relating to the website) and not this specific article, I got a popup toast saying > Secret Zebra just left feedback for their FAANG interviewer: I really enjoyed the interview, you did really well in giving me the right level of assistance to keep under the time constraints. It was also pretty useful that you had prepared some extra code for testing. Apart from such toasts being unusual, I doubted tha…

We're actually testing those popups right now. Cycling through a few preexisting ones to see if engagement moves at all, and then we'll make them realtime.

Those pop-ups are annoying and distracting.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#373

Post by adrianmsmith »

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 can be terrifically difficult to line up multiple simultaneous offers

I've found that too. It seems like even if you apply at the same time, companies move at a variety of speeds. But there are things you can do to help align the offers temporally, at least a bit.

- At the start of each process, ask how long the process will take (how many interviews, number of weeks from start to offer). They'll generally tell you. If you do this for every company, you have an idea of which companies are fast and which companies are slow.

- The fast companies can be slowed down, a least a bit. It's Thursday and they want to schedule an interview for Monday? Say "Unfortunately I'm not available Monday to Wednesday next week, would Thursday next week work for you?" Answer emails the next day, or if they sent you one in the morning answer in the evening "after work".

- The slow companies can be sped up a bit. Firstly, ask for interviews sooner, they might go for it, who knows. If you get an offer from one company, send an email to all the other companies that you have an offer but you'd like to get their offer as well, that might speed them up.

None of this is guaranteed to work but it's worth trying.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#374

Post by tasuki »

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…

> when it comes to jobs, always look for a job while employed

I have never done this. Sure, I might have missed out on summer cash, but I enjoyed the breaks between the jobs immensely.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#375

Post by al_be_back »

recruiters are basically agents, similar to realtors in real estate market - don't reveal your budget, you're not buying the 'PRICE', you're buying property (with it's features, relationships to area, market etc).

Likewise, your salary is the 'PRICE', but they're getting YOU - so you focus on selling YOU: your experience, your abilities, your 'value add' etc, right to the end. then place your SALARY (your price, plus other perks [training etc]).

Sadly, but true enough, the process is mostly about perception of value, and perception (emphasis on interpretation) is 'workable/pliable' thus hackable (not trivial):

- directly via training/brokers [books, OP etc]

- via networks such as referrals/clubs/accreditation/alumni/nepotism [happens]

- indirectly via social/personal/political/weather factors

Worth reading books on Negotiation, the field is as old as humanity.

p.s. for the avoidance of doubt, i'm neither saying 'workers are like buildings', nor mean 'hack' pejoratively :)

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#376

Post by pcthrowaway »

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…

You forgot option 3:

* Offer them 250K to let them know you really want them to stay while also ensuring they feel properly valued by the company, which also exceeds the external offer by high enough that the other company probably won't counter counter. If you can't offer 250K, but, say, 200K is in your budget, then also throw in some more vacation days. Also throw in a mandatory minimum severance guarantee for good measure, so they don't have to worry about layoffs.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#377

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

tasuki wrote: post #374
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…

> when it comes to jobs, always look for a job while employed I have never done this. Sure, I might have missed out on summer cash, but I enjoyed the breaks between the jobs immensely.

I don’t think it’s a requirement. A well timed interview loop and having 6+ offers on the table where you pit them all against each other does wonders for your negotiating position as well

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#378

Post by intelVISA »

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…

Depending on skill and experience that salary request's an incredible feat of self-sabotage.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#379

Post by johnnyanmac »

deckard1 wrote: post #136
ghaff wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Portfolios" in some form are often necessary. (In my space, writing samples.) If you have those ready to go, easier for everyone! But if you don't have a relevant portfolio, you'll need to either put something together or I'll pass. (I'm not really looking for a specific assignment but just something that's representative of the type of work.)

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…

>Software engineering must be the only profession where employment history means nothing

Nah, Artists have it the worst when it comes to that. Especially early on.

SWE's for the most part leverage titles and company names a bit too much IMO. No licenses + very little way to verify actual contributions = tons of potential false positives.

> interviewers always want salary history to knock you down.

That's pretty much every single job in the history of ever. if it's not a minimum wage job, they are trying to minimize your compensation somehow.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#380

Post by johnnyanmac »

bulatb wrote: post #243
JohnFen wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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

open source projects in a relevant industry. IME it's never been required to have sample work to show off, but many agree that having some OS contributions or even small pet projects is one of the most valuable things to leverage, outside of actual work experience.

>The artist's history of work itself is how they get more work; the programmer's isn't.

No one is really going to care behind closed doors, but _technically_ there's plenty of concept/scrapped art owned by the company that they can't directly point to on their public portfolio. It's not quite as easy for artists either to show off what may have been their best work.

Post reply on HN