Common mistakes in salary negotiation • Hacker News Board

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#411

Post by kwanbix » Thu, Aug 24, 2023, 4:13 PM UTC

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…

I don't think is a good idea to negotiate a raise with an offer.

Either leave or stay.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#412

Post by HDThoreaun » Thu, Aug 24, 2023, 4:14 PM UTC

deckard1 wrote: post #127

t0mas88 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes no sense at all for the company or recruiter to hide the range for you. Because they would be wasting their timing doing all kinds of meetings if your expected number is far above that range.

Some companies seem to lie about their top range number as well. If you pass the interview and ask you for a figure and you come back with their top range number, suddenly there are reasons you shouldn't be making that. I strongly suspect they have no intention of giving out that amount but are instead using it to entice people that are willing to accept less than they are worth. It plants the idea that one day you w…

Or maybe the top of the range is for candidates that get 5 star ratings from every interviewer and you got some 4s?

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#413

Post by lelanthran » Thu, Aug 24, 2023, 4:23 PM UTC

woobar wrote: post #408

lelanthran wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>Look at highly paid surgeons: the ones making the most money are the ones filling every single one of their slots. They know - bedside manners matter. If you are picking a surgeons based on this criteria, you are paying way too much for a 10 minutes conversation aka bedside manners. I personally will go with the rudest mf-er that will fix me right the first time.

> I personally will go with the rudest mf-er that will fix me right the first time.

But that's you personally. The clear majority of people prefer the friendliest mf-er that fixes them right the first time.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#414

Post by HDThoreaun » Thu, Aug 24, 2023, 4:23 PM UTC

epups wrote: post #410

HDThoreaun wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I capture only a fraction of the value I generate for my employer. I think this is a misunderstanding of how companies perceive value. You could be making your company a billion dollars a year, but if any schmuck off the street could do the same you're not actually providing much value at all. Your value is the difference between what you provide and what a similar replacement worker would provide.

Clearly they can't find a "random schmuck" willing to do it for less than 600k.

Right, Mr. Meat's value to their company is at least $600k otherwise they wouldn't be making that much. We have no idea how high above that it is though even though the company is extremely profitable because they might be easy to replace for 700k

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#415

Post by SVMachiavelli » Thu, Aug 24, 2023, 4:28 PM UTC

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…

> And that is - always be ready to walk out.

No, it's to crush your competition. And we all know it. Employment is largely out of an individual's ability to negotiate—we're all getting fucked and we know it.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#416

Post by xyzelement » Thu, Aug 24, 2023, 4:30 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #407

xyzelement wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

// I make around 600k ... Still, I capture only a fraction of the value I generate for my employer. There seems to be a two way street here. Presumably if you could make 600K or more by yourself, you'd be doing that rather than working for your employer. Your employer, likely way before you got there, created an environment where you could come in and earn this much. If they and companies of that profile didn't exist…

The other people working for my employer created that environment. The shareholders who own pieces of it didn't do that.

Would you agree at least that the founders and initial employees took on the most risk and did the bulk of the heavy lift to get the company to that place? EG does the proverbial guy who ran the company out of his garage for 5 years funding it on his credit card deserve outsized reward for the risk and work he put in?

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#417

Post by vkou » Thu, Aug 24, 2023, 5:45 PM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #214

vkou wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was also told my FAANG offer was non-negotiable. After declining it, for reasons of pay and location, I got a call back 5 minutes later, with a better location, and ~12% more money on the table. (Junior position in 2012)

That worked in 2012, but I highly doubt it would work in 2023.

It might work in 2024, or 2025, if the market improves, though.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#418

Post by OJFord » Thu, Aug 24, 2023, 5:56 PM UTC

aiisjustanif wrote: post #311

OJFord wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

18k on a 600k house. Not anything to shrug at.

I'm not shrugging at it, I'm saying it's within the range of typical offers, e.g. that someone will offer 20k more to get it done.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#419

Post by emodendroket » Thu, Aug 24, 2023, 6:05 PM UTC

umeshunni wrote: post #309

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the two traits are just randomly assorted, then sure, they'll rarely overlap at what is a statistically random rate. But, if we can assume that the "rare talent" is anything other than straight out of college, they will have discovered that they are a rare talent, be aware of it themselves, and barring some sort of crippling neurosis, want to cash in on it. They might not even be skilled at negotiating... they'll…

There's an old Dilbert comic that said something like "We want to hire engineers who are really good at what they do, but cannot compare two salary numbers and identify which one is larger"

The problem isn't that; it's all the information you don't have such as "how much are they theoretically willing to pay me," "who else would hire me," "how hard can I push before they just pull the offer," "do they have other candidates they liked," and so on. On top of that, lots of people in this career are not smooth talkers and they're risk-averse.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#420

Post by RhodesianHunter » Thu, Aug 24, 2023, 6:20 PM UTC

abwizz wrote: post #349

bomewish wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of strategy seems a bizarre one for a company. "Let's figure out how to systematically pay our employees less than they're really worth." How is that any kind of long-term plan? To really move the needle you'd have to do it a LOT -- but then you've selected on employees who lack knowledge about their own power. Those are going to be systematically different (probably not in a good way?) from employees who a…

> This kind of strategy seems a bizarre one for a company. "Let's figure out how to systematically pay our employees less than they're really worth." so we established that the revenue of the company belongs to the employees that worked for it, but the company has to skimm at least the operating costs before payout as otherwise it would make a loss. but most companies have an obligation to make profit, so there is no…

In this world employee value would be set by the market for their skills, not how their output translates into revenue when pushed through the context of the business' products.