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Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued

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

#31

Post by KnobbleMcKnees »

emerongi wrote: post #11
htss2013 wrote: 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.

Employees aren't investments who owe you something. Employment is a contractual agreement of work for pay and that's it. Anything beyond that is corporate blackmail for the naive.

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

#32

Post by smodo »

TheBigSalad wrote: post #15
mrandish wrote: 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?

When the buck stops with you, yes you either get it done or step back

Are execs the most productive people at the company? They can be. They have a whole org attached to them so they can multiply their efforts through others. That’s one thing. Then there is the fact they I see execs consistently putting in way more hours to deliver on promises and responsibilities.

I realize this isn’t always the case but high performers in top positions do exist. It’s seeing the required levels of dedication that actually made me decide not to pursue a career like that. It would exhaust me. I’m fine playing second fiddle. Not third, maybe, but second is fine.

.

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

#33

Post by fenier »

z3t4 wrote: post #27

This is the crucial, but also most difficult part: > Have a hiring manager talk with you, specifically, about an opening that they want you, specifically, to fill. How do you get into that position, should you constantly market yourself, or how did you do it ?

Write a blog (history is valuable here, speak on Podcasts, Present at Conferences, be active on social media.

This can lead to people offering you positions that aren't publicly posted, because via your engagement they feel they understand you enough that you should be able to fill the role they have in mind.

For example - I write 20 blog posts going in depth on some topic - there's a decent chance I may actually know that topic. When that skill set becomes critical to someone - the odds are higher they'll contact me for that skill set because chances are, I'll be top of mind through sheer volume or quality of information I have written about that skill.

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

#34

Post by BoorishBears »

orderedtree wrote: post #14
mrandish wrote: 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.

You're confusing two unrelated situations.

Companies that dramatically underpay are often out of touch. So naturally they expect more effort than their already out of touch compensation would indicate.

But in companies with competitive comp, you almost certainly will be expected to meet a higher bar after negotiating a higher salary.

Once you argue for a higher salary than "the other guy" the implication is you can deliver more value. People don't just forget that on your start date.

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

#35

Post by sys_64738 »

ljiljana wrote: post #22

anyone care to share experiences where their negotiation efforts failed, and why?

Banking industry where I had four or five offers and one of them wouldn't meet the final $2k of difference. That would have been the most interesting opportunity but I followed the money and was young and foolish.

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

#36

Post by sys_64738 »

latency-guy2 wrote: post #21
mrandish wrote: 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…

God forbid people get value of the money they pay you

There's also opportunity which can quickly bring more money and promotion at IC level. Some big companies just have budgets for the hiring role and can't step outside it no matter how the hiring manager fights for you. You need to weigh up the pros/cons in such a scenario if the role is about more than just money to you. Sometimes it's pure $$$.

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

#37

Post by nazka »

flarg wrote: post #7
Patrol8394 wrote: post #5

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.

No you have to do the total opposite. Blitz search and pursue 20 job offers at the same time all packed in a month. Then start to pick and chose the few best ones and make them compete against each other on salary, stock options, career opportunities, perks…

That’s how you get the leverage back at the table.

And if you like your current company you talk to your employer about the oh so much better job offers you got. With real job offers, or they come with a better offer or in the worst case you will end up in a better company with a better salary, perks, tech stack, etc…

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

#38

Post by nazka »

intelVISA wrote: post #13
flarg wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Ya our first job should be to find jobs and make ourselves the most employable we can be. Our second job is our current job.

If you have to work on many bugs or some not so critical tasks instead of working on some hard tech stuff. It’s bad. Or you see it as an investment and hope that the managers will like it and (truly :)) reward it down the road. Or else it’s a waste of your time and ressources because after X amont of time you will become a lot less valuable that what you could have been. And that will hurt you for your next job and the next and the next..

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

#39

Post by throw9away6 »

k__ wrote: post #4
mrandish wrote: 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…

But: Overdelivering on expectations often just means be better than the rest of the company. Most companies don't operate on global skill levels.

Means you failed to keep some back and now you rebaselined to that comp to work ratio

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

#40

Post by doktorhladnjak »

ath0 wrote: post #25
orderedtree wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

“Position in band” is often a factor in performance reviews. Consider a common process - say you’re “senior level” and in your review you’ll be rated on six categories, then given a raise based on where you are overall relative to “meets expectations.” If you’re senior but at the bottom of the senior band, and you’re mostly “at expectations” for your level but maybe “slightly below” in 1-2 categories, you’ll probably…

Such systems do exist in smaller companies where leadership knows everyone and their contributions, but I’ve never seen it work this way in big companies.
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