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Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

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Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#241

Post by mytailorisrich »

namdnay wrote: post #235
mytailorisrich wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At engineer level (who are 'cadres' in French) there's always individual salary negotiation unless perhaps you work for the government. Now, your manager might try to convince you that's this is not the case so as not to give you a raise but they obviously do have adjustment margins.

Not true for most of the big French companies. Try negotiating your salary as an engineer at SNCF or EDF or Air France :)

You can negotiate your salary in big French companies. State-owned ones like SNCF are may not exactly good examples...

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#242

Post by TA1337 »

tasuki wrote: post #133
TA1337 wrote: post #93

One thing that happened to me a few years ago that pretty surprised me, went something like this: I applied to 2 FAANGs, got offers from both. The recruiter from the first company to give me an offer, told me it is pretty much non negotiable, "we have a little wiggle room but don't expect much, it's an amazing offer". It was higher than my then salary, but not by a huge margin. Then company B got back to me with a si…

I think companies deserve to be publicly called out on outright lying.

I think you just need to realize you should never believe anything a recruiter tells you that is not legally binding. They outright lie, embellish the truth and manipulate you. That's their job.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#243

Post by grandmczeb »

the_gipsy wrote: post #135
grandmczeb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you consider government benefits too, there are "cliffs"[1] at low incomes where an increase in income can result in less take home. But probably not at the salaries a typical developer would get. [1] http://i.imgur.com/kM6yxab.png

The problem seems to be the cliff of those welfare programs, no? I'm sure they don't make much sense.

Policy makers are smart enough to not intentionally design welfare cliffs (usually). Most of the time it’s the result of complicated eligibility criteria, multiple benefits stacking together, and the program designers not anticipating large increases in the value of the benefit (e.g. housing subsidies).

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#244

Post by cashsterling »

lealanko wrote: post #114
quicklime wrote: post #17

> We’ve been talking about your employer as an abstraction, but in the instant case you’re talking to an actual person. Let’s call him Bob. It is Bob’s job to get you signed with the company as cheaply as possible, but Bob is not super motivated to do so, because Bob is not spending Bob’s money to hire you. Bob is spending Bob’s budget. Bob generally does not get large performance incentives for shaving money off of…

You (and the article) are ignoring smaller companies. In those, you often have the salary negotiations with the owner, or a partner. Your salary comes (effectively) out of their own pocket, and recruiting you is quite possibly a significant and risky investment for the entire company. In these sorts of situations, negotiation is much harder on a personal level, since the company is not a faceless entity. The company…

The corollary of working for smaller companies is once you are working there for a while and are contributing significant value... it is easier to get significant raises because your owner is thinking about "life without you" if they don't pay you well. IF you are really valuable to the company, you have a great chance of getting paid well, in proportion to your value.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#245

Post by ISL »

tasuki wrote: post #131
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My job is to fill the headcount that I've got, so as long as it fits within budget, whatever. Exactly, but the budget isn't infinite. Assuming equal talent, I'd much rather hire 5 people at market rate rather than 4 people at 25% over market rate. The net cost is roughly the same, but we can get much more accomplished with 1 more person on the team. Even better, on-call demands are spread out over more people and v…

> but we can get much more accomplished with 1 more person on the team Are you sure of that? Two people can usually accomplish much more than one person, but how much more do you achieve with 5 people rather than 4? My guess would be that adding the fifth person to a team increases productivity between 5-15%.

It would depend upon the work.

If the work is embarrassingly parallel, then 25% more. (5/4 = 1.25, of course)

If there is too much work for four people to function effectively, perhaps more than 25%.

If the work requires a lot of inter-process communication, perhaps less than 25%.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#246

Post by throwaway250 »

user5994461 wrote: post #158
reedf1 wrote: post #153

As a UK based engineer these FAANG salaries seem huge. In some cases these salaries are 10x my own salary and I'm considered to be paid well. My UK cohort seem to think this is due to some difference in the cost of living but I don't think it adds up. I'm interested to know what you guys would do if the main thing limiting your salary was geography. Would you start your own company? Move to the US? I'm early on in my…

>>> Move to the US? Moving to the US is almost never an option, because of VISA. Even if you manage to get a VISA and find work there, you won't have the same career prospects as a local (culture, network, education, visa issues, etc...). Few companies sponsor VISA and when they do they know they got you by the balls because you can't change jobs without losing the VISA.

That’s not accurate. It’s easy to change jobs on an H1B visa. I did it 6 months ago, the processing took only two weeks.

Also it’s wrong to say that you wouldn’t have the same prospects as the local people. I’m a foreigner on an H1B visa but I make $400K/year and never felt disadvantaged in the slightest compared to Americans.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#247

Post by callahad »

reedf1 wrote: post #153

As a UK based engineer these FAANG salaries seem huge. In some cases these salaries are 10x my own salary and I'm considered to be paid well. My UK cohort seem to think this is due to some difference in the cost of living but I don't think it adds up. I'm interested to know what you guys would do if the main thing limiting your salary was geography. Would you start your own company? Move to the US? I'm early on in my…

I moved US->UK almost three years ago, and I took a 30% hit on compensation in the process (same job, new regional pay tables).

What I lost in raw compensation I more than made up for in:

- Holiday (29 days vs ~20 days)

- Sick time (unlimited vs coming out of holiday balance)

- Healthcare (I was just made redundant... but I still have the NHS, unlike my American colleagues)

- Employee Rights (e.g., "At will" employment versus a 3 month notice period, which would usually be paid out upon redundancy)

So while the compensation is higher in America, you also end up working quite a bit more and taking on more risk. Especially around notice periods and access to healthcare should things go poorly.

It's entirely possible to make a six figure base salary in remote areas of the UK. Personally, that's more than sufficient for the lifestyle my family and I want, so we're not champing at the bit to go back.

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#248

Post by TehShrike »

user5994461 wrote: post #159
TehShrike wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BATNA is king. If you have a great alternative, you're not being difficult, you're just being honest. My second-most-linked negotiation post, after the OP, is https://haseebq.com/how-not-to-bomb-your-offer-negotiation/

I have troubles taking your article seriously. These whole paragraphs of text, nobody would say that over the phone (wouldn't even write that in an email). I can't imagine the person on the other side NOT dropping you when you're being this incredibly difficult. I certainly would have. Maybe you're in the valley and they're really struggling to get candidates?

I live in Nebraska and I've never interviewed with any of the companies you named.

Having alternatives when negotiating is not unusual

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#249

Post by TehShrike »

SPBS wrote: post #62

Forget about letting employers come up with a number first, in Singapore it's a common practice for HR/Recruiters to directly ask for your last drawn salary (so that they can match it/bump it up by a fixed amount). It's not illegal to refuse to answer, but it's also not illegal for them to ask in the first place. Companies legitimately view last drawn salary as a way to assess a candidate's market value here.

I got my favorite response from https://www.kalzumeus.com/2016/06/03/kalzumeus-podcast-episo... – variations on "It sounds like you’re trying to qualify me for a range, and if that’s the case, then I’m happy to let you know if your range is in the ballpark"

Re: Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012)

#250

Post by doopy1 »

skrebbel wrote: post #161
delinquenz wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small companies with smart hiring managers or owners should know that if they pay candidates, especially highly skilled ones, not enough, they will probably jump ship after one or two years which is exactly the period after which employees reach a level of productivity that brings enough value for companies to justify the hiring.

In all the places I've worked, every engineer knew there was another place where they'd likely earn significantly more. Yet, they didn't jump ship. These were not high turnaround places. Either my experience is exceptional, or your implication that money is the only thing that matters about a job is wrong.

Maybe you have worked at decent companies, but if someone is "meh" about their job, they will bounce before long.
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