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Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued

kalzumeus.com

11–20 of 48 posts

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued

#11
post #8
post #3

Just to add an important caveat to the promise of the headline. When you reach a certain point, earning more money usually comes with increasing downsides. Managers at most well-run, larger companies will expect more than just your reasonable best efforts. As you move up the ladder they will demand consistent delivery of specific, tangible results. Sometimes you'll be required to achieve these results with insufficie…

Yes there's absolutely a sweet spot. The ratio of pay to stress was best like 5 years into my career. I'd absolutely go back to that level of pay and responsibility if I could. The problem is if that's your sweet spot, people perceive that and try to push you up. It's like making it look easy to do super well is unacceptable and you must be repositioned until you struggle more.

It's also because the employer has invested a fair bit of time/money into you and would like to see you take more responsibility after doing so. This is most obvious with juniors, where besides the salary cost, there are hidden costs of training. The expectation is that it will pay off in the future.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued

#12
post #3

Just to add an important caveat to the promise of the headline. When you reach a certain point, earning more money usually comes with increasing downsides. Managers at most well-run, larger companies will expect more than just your reasonable best efforts. As you move up the ladder they will demand consistent delivery of specific, tangible results. Sometimes you'll be required to achieve these results with insufficie…

I believe this is the idea in theory. I don't think it holds a lot of weight in reality.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued

#13
post #7

Negotiation is all about leverage. More often than not leverage is on the employer side. People look for a job because they most likely need one; unless they are in the fortunate position of working for fun and they don’t want to retire just yet. Negotiating means you should be ready to walk away: let’s be honest … how many with their first offer at their dream job (e.g: FAANG) would be ready to walk away from it? Un…

This is why one should never look for a job and just let the job find you; and where linkedin works so damn well. In my own case I just let jobs find me and I tripled my salary in 5 years.

One should always strive to become a valuable commodity - consistently solving hard problems is the best recruiter :)

of course, the issue then becomes why settle for only ~1% of the value you produce as a salary?

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued

#14
post #3

Just to add an important caveat to the promise of the headline. When you reach a certain point, earning more money usually comes with increasing downsides. Managers at most well-run, larger companies will expect more than just your reasonable best efforts. As you move up the ladder they will demand consistent delivery of specific, tangible results. Sometimes you'll be required to achieve these results with insufficie…

I don't think this is true. It has more to do with level rather than the absolute pay. Suppose you had two senior hires and one was able to negotiate more pay, the company won't necessarily expect more from the higher paid one.

On a slightly different note, from my experience, companies who pay less actually expect just as much if not more than companies who pay competitively.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued

#15
post #3

Just to add an important caveat to the promise of the headline. When you reach a certain point, earning more money usually comes with increasing downsides. Managers at most well-run, larger companies will expect more than just your reasonable best efforts. As you move up the ladder they will demand consistent delivery of specific, tangible results. Sometimes you'll be required to achieve these results with insufficie…

Honestly this sounds to me like a "you" problem. Tell your bosses what you can accomplish and do it. Do you really think your CEO is the most productive person at the whole company?

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued

#16
post #3

Just to add an important caveat to the promise of the headline. When you reach a certain point, earning more money usually comes with increasing downsides. Managers at most well-run, larger companies will expect more than just your reasonable best efforts. As you move up the ladder they will demand consistent delivery of specific, tangible results. Sometimes you'll be required to achieve these results with insufficie…

Honestly this sounds to me like a "you" problem. Tell your bosses what you can accomplish and do it. Do you really think your CEO is the most productive person at the whole company?

[dead]

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued

#17
post #3

Just to add an important caveat to the promise of the headline. When you reach a certain point, earning more money usually comes with increasing downsides. Managers at most well-run, larger companies will expect more than just your reasonable best efforts. As you move up the ladder they will demand consistent delivery of specific, tangible results. Sometimes you'll be required to achieve these results with insufficie…

The mantra to elaborate is "Up or Out" because at that salary level you have more options available to you as well. You actually know that you can, at any time, quit your job and find another one at a marginally lower or usually the same salary as you're currently making. So if you don't go up in salary, you get out. Generally you start to plan your exit with that salary increase in mine. Every recruiter wants to know they can make you more money, don't lie, tell them "Here's what I make now, and I'm currently employed at that level". Then bounce when the bullshit to money ratio reaches its limit for you.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued

#18
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there's absolutely a sweet spot. The ratio of pay to stress was best like 5 years into my career. I'd absolutely go back to that level of pay and responsibility if I could. The problem is if that's your sweet spot, people perceive that and try to push you up. It's like making it look easy to do super well is unacceptable and you must be repositioned until you struggle more.

It's also because the employer has invested a fair bit of time/money into you and would like to see you take more responsibility after doing so. This is most obvious with juniors, where besides the salary cost, there are hidden costs of training. The expectation is that it will pay off in the future.

My expectation as a performer is that you need to also increase my salary if you want me to keep performing at that level. I'm _not_ an investment, I'm a professional, if they want to keep me, they in turn, must keep me happy for them to remain happy.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued

#19
There's an infinite amount of words to be written on the topic about hypotheticals and techniques. The perspective change I can recommend is to set a new goal: I would like to find the highest quality agreement we can make.

Also, read some damn negotiation books. No, I'm not going to link them here for you because unless you decide this is something you want to learn about and track them down yourself, you don't value them. I learned by collecting the syllabi of a bunch of ivy league school courses on negotiation and then reading the common books. I like to say I didn't recieve an education in this so much as I stole it, so I don't have the prestige, but that's just the part that isn't worth anything. That's just the very beginning of the knowledge you are across the table from if you haven't read any books.

You can't collaborate, cooperate, align or choose freely in any situation unless you have done so with the knowledgable consent to what you are willing to do and not do. Further, you cannot be considered a peer or equal to anyone who you have not actively decided how to relate to based on a negotiation of your respective interests. I hear "but, X people aren't good negotiators because Y," to which I call bullshit. If their survival strategy has been based on acquiescing and being agreeable on the way in and then reneging or turning on people once they gain some leverage, the only thing they are not-good at is negotiating in good faith. It is the one thing that all people capable of language and cognition are almost equally equipped to do, and it divides people who take responsibility for themselves from the careless. It's a moral competence.

It also changes how you relate to the world. It can effect your relationships when suddenly you take your own health and interests into consideration and begin to express and satisfy them, so test slowly. That said, find some books and read them, they change peoples lives.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued

#20
Much easier way to negotiate, have someone else do it for you.

Seriously, get on linked in, splash your resume around to headhunters, post about stuff on the internet and get noticed. I call it "Job Fishing" because it's very similar to actual fishing. There are lots of ways to get a job, but if you can get someone else to negotiate for you, your chances of making more money than you would have on your own go up substantially.

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