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I recently went through a similar process of needing to guess what the range was for a position. However a much more important question to ask is "What do you

I recently went through a similar process of needing to guess what the range was for a position. However a much more important question to ask is "What do you honestly think you're worth?" I believe you'll get that amount. If you ask for a lot more than you personally think you're worth during negotiations people will probably read your lack of confidence. If however you ask for more than the employer originally wanted to pay, but express that amount in a confident way then you're much more likely to get it. A good company (ie one you want to work for) isn't going to offer you the job unless they really think you're the one they want, and they wouldn't lose that for a few K, unless they feel like you're full of it. Most importantly though YOU don't want to work for less than you honestly think you're worth. I once took a small pay cut when I really thought I was worth much more, the job was interesting but I knew there was a timer on how long I'd be there. Be honest with yourself and ask for what you need to feel comfortable with the position.

byoung2 16y ago
A good company (ie one you want to work for) isn't going to offer you the job unless they really think you're the one they want, and they wouldn't lose that for a few K Very true...at my current job I didn't even have to negotiate. I didn't provide a salary history, even though they asked. Instead they asked me to give them a reasonable number that was the minimum they could offer where I would accept the position. I picked a number that was 5% over my current salary (though they didn't know that). They gave me that number plus 15%.
mgkimsal 16y ago
"What you're worth" is totally dependent on the skills you bring with the needs the company has. Even in something as specialized as web development, there's huge room for variances. Couple of points... Soft skills - can I comfortably discuss a range of topics and ideas with people at all levels of an org, including their clients? What is it worth for you as an employer to know you can bring someone in to a meeting who is, not just presentable, but groks what's going on, says the right things, picks up what they need to know, and can act on it? Domain knowledge - even outside of your core org's focus - can be invaluable when trying to come up with solutions to some problems. If the knowledge is there with the right problems, there's value created. If not, no value. A friend works at a company which had some security problems based on some poor decisions that were made in the web services APIs. Someone with practical experience - like me - wouldn't have made those decisions. What 'value' do you place on the tens of thousands of dollars in man hours, customer relations issues and lost opportunity cost would you put on bringing someone like me in vs someone else with less experience? So... "what do you think you're worth?" is very hard to calculate before the fact, because you usually don't have much insight in to the inner working and problems. After you're hired, you can generally expect to be on the COL-raises and mild bonuses - usually computed based on the dept or team's collective efforts. If you can get some form of profit-sharing negotiated, you may be better off, but even that is still subject to the company's overall financial health, and you normally have little positive control over that.

byoung2 16y ago

A good company (ie one you want to work for) isn't going to offer you the job unless they really think you're the one they want, and they wouldn't lose that for a few K Very true...at my current job I didn't even have to negotiate. I didn't provide a salary history, even though they asked. Instead they asked me to give them a reasonable number that was the minimum they could offer where I would accept the position. I picked a number that was 5% over my current salary (though they didn't know that). They gave me that number plus 15%.

mgkimsal 16y ago

"What you're worth" is totally dependent on the skills you bring with the needs the company has. Even in something as specialized as web development, there's huge room for variances. Couple of points... Soft skills - can I comfortably discuss a range of topics and ideas with people at all levels of an org, including their clients? What is it worth for you as an employer to know you can bring someone in to a meeting who is, not just presentable, but groks what's going on, says the right things, picks up what they need to know, and can act on it? Domain knowledge - even outside of your core org's focus - can be invaluable when trying to come up with solutions to some problems. If the knowledge is there with the right problems, there's value created. If not, no value. A friend works at a company which had some security problems based on some poor decisions that were made in the web services APIs. Someone with practical experience - like me - wouldn't have made those decisions. What 'value' do you place on the tens of thousands of dollars in man hours, customer relations issues and lost opportunity cost would you put on bringing someone like me in vs someone else with less experience? So... "what do you think you're worth?" is very hard to calculate before the fact, because you usually don't have much insight in to the inner working and problems. After you're hired, you can generally expect to be on the COL-raises and mild bonuses - usually computed based on the dept or team's collective efforts. If you can get some form of profit-sharing negotiated, you may be better off, but even that is still subject to the company's overall financial health, and you normally have little positive control over that.