I've always asked for better non-monetary things in writing: title, spot on the org chart, automatic promotion soon, which parts of the product and stack I will work on, even as trivial as whether my desk will have a window. I state with constant certainty that those things are more important to me than a bigger paycheck. Most of the time I was offered far more money (in one case, 2 years pay signing bonus) in return for my agreeing to accept an offer with none of those things in writing.
Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer (2016)
191–200 of 219 posts
Re: Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer (2016)
#192Unless you're in like the top 1% in your field, there is no negotiation. Must be nice I guess.
Yea, I kind of think a lot of these "Just negotiate, bro" posts are from people who are extremely strong candidates already, like they invented the entire field that the company plays in. Or their PhD thesis was on the exact thing the company is trying to do. For the rest of us, companies can take us or leave us--they aren't going to get into some bidding war for some generic, but strong senior skilled candidate.
What? No. If my team has gone to the effort of a full interview loop with you, and we think you’re a good candidate, we’re not going to start over to save $10k. This isn’t one of those periods when companies are having trouble hitting their hiring quotas; if you got that far then they must be serious.
(Note that if is one of those crazy periods, they still won’t quibble over the salary, but for an entirely different reason!)
Re: Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer (2016)
#193> If you must divulge what you’re making Never do that. > Companies will ask about your current compensation at different stages in the process This is not legal in many states, 44% of the US population lives in states where companies asking your salary is not legl. Also, the exploding offer advice is terrible. It won't work. The company will just drop the offer. The actual advice is to decide quickly. I also think t…
The equalization thing may be theoretically true, but in a cumulative 25 years of managing at big companies, I’ve never seen anyone get equalized down, just get slower raises. You’re definitely better off getting overpaid at the beginning. If the offer is 25% high, it might take five years to equalize. And the present-value premium of money isn’t zero anymore!
Re: Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer (2016)
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am a bit confused by not talking about the salary right away, I have seen advice like yours and in this article about not giving the number fisrt but the opposite in other articles saying to leverage the anchoring bias by giving a high number first. That would help raising the following offers. Both approaches seem to make sense so I am not sure what to choose.
are you a vc level with visibility of salaries in all the company orgs? if not, just stay silent or you will undercut yourself. working class never knows their value, by design.
You can get a lot of data points online though from levelsfyi or blind.
Re: Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer (2016)
#195I looked for resources a few years ago and found a post by a software engineer talking about "Fearless Salary Negotiation" [1]. The engineer said: "it's a small book, cost me around 40 bucks which were immediately compensated by the fact that I managed to negotiate a higher salary". I wanted to ask for a raise: I had been working in that startup for 4 years and had never had a raise. I thought "if that book helps me…
Just understanding how negotiations work removes the frustration. I read a book about negotiating. It had the usual breakdown of strategies, tactics and scenarios, and a lot of filler, but it was entertaining to read. Today I'm still not a good negotiator. Normally I just don't want to waste my time and just want to get something, or I don't want to "squeeze" the other side for little profit. But I know that on big k…
I've found that it's a good idea to practice such skills when buying things in $100 and above range, especially if you are directly talking to the seller. It almost never hurts to ask "hey, I see the price is X, I like your product, would you be able to squeeze in some discount?" with a smile on your face. Even if for a 2% discount.
Re: Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer (2016)
#196I looked for resources a few years ago and found a post by a software engineer talking about "Fearless Salary Negotiation" [1]. The engineer said: "it's a small book, cost me around 40 bucks which were immediately compensated by the fact that I managed to negotiate a higher salary". I wanted to ask for a raise: I had been working in that startup for 4 years and had never had a raise. I thought "if that book helps me…
While that has worked for me too, I find that negotiating by resignation isn't going to address other issues such as those that bolster the unfair salary. Yes. You got what you wanted, but now they know you played a wildcard and they want you gone on their terms. Or they want to extract the maximum work from you.
> Or they want to extract the maximum work from you
I think that if this strategy works and salary is increased, then the job is burned anyway and I'd be looking for a new one no matter what they say, while pocketing the extra cash for a few months. If management starts to ask for documenting processes or training someone, that's a dead giveway and, ethics aside, the best course of action is (unfortunately) to do bare minimum and focus on job search.
Re: Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer (2016)
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yea, I kind of think a lot of these "Just negotiate, bro" posts are from people who are extremely strong candidates already, like they invented the entire field that the company plays in. Or their PhD thesis was on the exact thing the company is trying to do. For the rest of us, companies can take us or leave us--they aren't going to get into some bidding war for some generic, but strong senior skilled candidate.
That’s scarcity mindset and it decimates your potential for negotiation. If you really truly believe you are a commodity and have nothing at all to offer compared to any other candidate, it’s worth either learning something new to get out of that commodity category and/or look at your experience + knowledge outside your core specialty and market that better. It sounds cliché but there is nobody like you. We all have…
The one time I tried to negotiate for a director position they responded along the lines of "Oh we're sorry if we implied that this was a negotiation. You can accept or decline the offer by the end of the week."
Re: Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer (2016)
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course most married people considering a job offer would discuss it, but that doesn't mean the person making the claim isn't actually just using a delaying tactic. (For example, maybe they already discussed it with their spouse. Or they're going to discuss it in the next hour, but they are saying this when their goal is to effectively delay for a week.) That's just one example of commonplace lying. A lot of people…
> Of course most married people considering a job offer would discuss it, but that doesn't mean the person making the claim isn't actually just using a delaying tactic. I'm a very bad negotiator, but perhaps because of this I understand that it often doesn't matter what they believe. What truly matter is whether your excuse is plausible enough. If they can make it seem like you are a bullshitter then they will win. T…
> it will be hard to find some of them and to impress them by your anti-corporate-politics stance in a way that leads to immediate hiring.
I think this might get at a cultural/values difference.
For some, an important goal is to be honest, and/or to be known as honest.
Maybe for its own sake, maybe for a more complicated reason (like they want to promote honesty by example so they can trust others, or want to avoid small dishonesty turning into big dishonesty).
But some others trying to fit that to immediate goals, will be, like: . o O ( OK, self, I can make this counterparty think I'm honest, for cost X, but how much will that advance my objective of getting them to take action Y, which is the goal, of course )
The elite schools and top-paying tech employers that encourage truth-bending and theatre, in getting in and then advancing, are promoting the latter kind of thinking about honesty.
We can debate which thinking is better, but we can inform that by understanding the other groups better.
Re: Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer (2016)
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s scarcity mindset and it decimates your potential for negotiation. If you really truly believe you are a commodity and have nothing at all to offer compared to any other candidate, it’s worth either learning something new to get out of that commodity category and/or look at your experience + knowledge outside your core specialty and market that better. It sounds cliché but there is nobody like you. We all have…
The one time I tried to negotiate for a director position they responded along the lines of "Oh we're sorry if we implied that this was a negotiation. You can accept or decline the offer by the end of the week."
I’m an average software engineer and I can’t remember a time where I took a job I didn’t negotiate the salary on. Companies that refused to negotiate were the last offers I’d consider and I end up not taking their offers. I was often better paid than my peers. And my professional accomplishments are far from exceptional, I’ve never worked for any companies you’d know, I have gaps in my CV.
Re: Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer (2016)
#200This was written in 2016. The job market in 2016 was basically "you can throw a stone and find somebody looking for a developer". These days, the market is so different that I'm not sure if the same advice is still relevant.
In addition, some of this kind of advice has always struck me as particularly US-centric and I doubt it all applies equally well in e.g. Europe. You don't get very far here by not sharing your initial salary expectations early on, I think.