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Common mistakes in salary negotiation

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Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#231

Post by pcthrowaway »

pdonis wrote: post #160
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,…

> If you want $200,000, $400,000, whatever, just say so. BEFORE you start any interviews. Unless the number you give is significantly higher than any of your potential employers are ever going to offer you, you are shortchanging yourself by giving that number--it means that you have now foreclosed potential higher offers that otherwise might have come your way. That is the basis of the advice given in the article. I…

Just give a wide range that sets the floor and gives room for growth.

When I was interviewing last time I told people I was hoping for somewhere in the range of 100K-200K (I'm not in the U.S.)

The lowest offer I got was 115K which I then negotiated up to 135K (the most they could pay).

Several companies bowed out because they weren't even able to offer 100K, and I was glad to have saved us both the time.

If you want 240K, say you want 200K-400K.

If you're looking beyond 300K, say your range is between 300K-600K.

I realize that, yes, you're putting an upper limit on that range and in theory you might get offered less (but you can mitigate this by adjusting that upper bound to be the top of the range for the next level beyond the position you're interviewing for)

E.g. when I interviewed at facebook I told them 150K - 300K

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#232

Post by saagarjha »

j1elo wrote: post #158
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…

> You can always tell job X "I'd love to work with you but it's hard to accept a lower offer, can you match?" It's of course very dependant on each country and the jobs market, but in my experience the issue would be even getting to have multiple offers in a short enough period of time. To the point that it happening could be called a coincidence, more than anything. Unless you are fiercely hunting for a job (aka. do…

The article says to not do it but I’ve had pretty good results with “I’m on a short timeline due to competing offers” to speed things up.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#233

Post by siliconc0w »

Strong disagree sharing expectations is sabotage. Many companies will waste your time with lowball offers and you can easily find a top-of-range number through comps at other companies if there isn't already a published range. Netflix generally pays top-of-market and pays cash they're usually a good comp. Also you might not value equity the same way or they may be unwilling to give you the information you need to value their equity (which means it's probably worthless).

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#234

Post by rconti »

sn9 wrote: post #195

I keep seeing these salary negotiation posts, but aren't the recruiters and people hiring also reading them?

Right, but if the average recruiter already knows most this stuff, and the average candidate doesn't, it still brings the candidate closer to parity, even if both parties learn something.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#235

Post by saagarjha »

pandaman wrote: post #227
pdonis wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want $200,000, $400,000, whatever, just say so. BEFORE you start any interviews. Unless the number you give is significantly higher than any of your potential employers are ever going to offer you, you are shortchanging yourself by giving that number--it means that you have now foreclosed potential higher offers that otherwise might have come your way. That is the basis of the advice given in the article. I…

You argument is essentially hanging on the assertion that the first number an employer would offer is also the maximum number it could offer. I know exactly one company that operated like that: they'd make the maximum offer and if you did not like it there was no further negotiation. Most companies don't do that (neither does that one any more, the CEO who had this policy had retired a while ago). What I've observed…

Why wouldn’t he offer you 225 or 230 if he thought you were an important hire?

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#236

Post by lylejantzi3rd »

CaveTech wrote: post #229
lylejantzi3rd wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like if you always get offers at the low end of a range - or if you always fail interviews - is very good signal that you can act on. Can you elaborate on that? I'm not seeing why these are good signals to act on.

The signal is that you don’t present well and need to work on that.

That's a signal you can more easily get from a practice interview. In a real interview, you have no idea why you were rejected.

Maybe you don't present well. Maybe you present perfectly well, but somebody else had slightly more experience dealing with a specific problem the company needs solved. Maybe they already decided to hire somebody, but needed to conduct interviews anyway to satisfy the lawyers.

Is there a good way to extract that information out of an interview? I always ask for feedback, but I rarely get it.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#237

Post by saagarjha »

pdonis wrote: post #196
quickthrower2 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be different in the US but in Australia the way it works is: 60% of jobs will tell you a salary range either on the ad or via the recruiter. The rest wont play the “you tell me first” game and just pass on you. Since more offers is more leverage it might be better to play their game individually to have a better overall position (more offers)

> 60% of jobs will tell you a salary range either on the ad or via the recruiter. This is common in the US as well and makes your filtering job easier when it happens. > The rest wont play the “you tell me first” game and just pass on you. Are those employers you would want to work for? My heuristic is, probably not. In which case it costs you nothing to pass on them as well. But see further comment below. > more off…

Salary bands in the US do not typically include equity, so they’re pretty useless for many roles.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#238

Post by saagarjha »

avereveard wrote: post #193
pdonis wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want $200,000, $400,000, whatever, just say so. BEFORE you start any interviews. Unless the number you give is significantly higher than any of your potential employers are ever going to offer you, you are shortchanging yourself by giving that number--it means that you have now foreclosed potential higher offers that otherwise might have come your way. That is the basis of the advice given in the article. I…

> Unless the number you give is significantly higher than any of your potential employers are ever going to offer you, you are shortchanging yourself by giving that number Then do better research before going into the meeting instead of playing games after multiple interviews rounds. Also companies don't have a lot of incentive to pay too much under market rate anyway, especially for higher end jobs where they provid…

People who work for lower rates typically do not interview around a lot. Many of them will work for very low pay for years on end.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#239

Post by saagarjha »

ryandrake wrote: post #210
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,…

> I DO agree with OP that you _shouldn't_ state what your current salary/comp is (unless you don't care about negotiating on comp but want to ensure you maintain what you're making). I wonder how much of this information the companies already have access to. Like, they probably use ADP or Paychex as their payroll service, and I wouldn't be surprised if they can ask the payroll company or just look up what you current…

They probably do have access to that in some circumstances, but then you can start plying them about other benefits. Just because two jobs pay the same doesn’t mean I value them the same.

Re: Common mistakes in salary negotiation

#240

Post by saagarjha »

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.

Why not? If you’re truly willing to walk away from an offer, non-negotiable ones often turn out to be malleable.
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