3 ms·

Unless you're already extremely out of band and are pretty sure your range will be higher than 95% of your incoming offers, I do not recommend doing this. Neve

by d23 5y ago

Unless you're already extremely out of band and are pretty sure your range will be higher than 95% of your incoming offers, I do not recommend doing this. Never give first numbers, and if you're in software and haven't gotten past the middling, typical startup salary numbers and onto the mind-blowingly high numbers, you will not feel confident enough to handle a negotiation where you've already given away too much information.

DebtDeflation 5y ago
I have >20 years of experience and my comp is absolutely >95% of inbound offers. So yes, I definitely want to not waste time with those and instead focus on the 5%.
- d23 5y ago
  That's great, and I'm in a similar situation myself. But your intro mentioned this being early career advice, which could mislead people into making pretty big negotiation mistakes.
  - pojzon 5y ago
    I would consider that a good advice for anyone who is half-decent in current market. Good Engineers are at the value of gold. Can save you a lot of money down the road. I have like 8y of experience and salary requirement is the first thing I negotiate. Easy 30-50% jump each time in past few years.
    - teawrecks 5y ago
      Definitely negotiate, but the first rule of negotiation is to never be the first to give a number. And the 2nd rule is to always have multiple options that you'd consider.
vincentmarle 5y ago
> Never give first numbers I disagree: the first one who gives a number is able to anchor the negotiation around their preferred outcome; it's much harder to negotiate up from a lowball number than the other way around.
- jedberg 5y ago
  The preferred outcome of the company is making a successful hire, so they will go high enough to make sure they get a great candidate, or if they can't afford that, will go to their max budget. And if they don't then you don't want to work there anyway. There is no situation where you will say a high number and they will move up to meet you if that number was greater than their max budget to begin with.
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    > There is no situation where you will say a high number and they will move up to meet you if that number was greater than their max budget to begin with. Yes, and since it's quite common to have companies where their max budget is not acceptable (probably because they are the ones who can't fill their vacancies and thus have recruiters spam everyone all the time), it's important to filter them out by saying the high number before you've wasted many hours on worthless interviews.
    - shimon 5y ago
      The point is the tactic of giving the first number, though successful in ending many unappealing recruitment attempts, also has the unintended side effect of making it impossible that you'll ever get an offer SIGNIFICANTLY ABOVE your target range. Because comp boosts in the 50-100% range are possible, and you actually want to see those, you should let the recruiting org offer the first number.
      - cercatrova 5y ago
        You can simply quote a much higher amount instead. Boost your own salary by 100% and ask for that. When I was still working, that's what I used to do, and lo and behold, I 8x'ed my salary within 5 years.
scarface74 5y ago
In corp dev where I worked until 2020. The compensation range is small enough that you know when you’re asking for top of range and you are at most leaving a couple of thousand on the table.

by d23 5y ago

DebtDeflation 5y ago

I have >20 years of experience and my comp is absolutely >95% of inbound offers. So yes, I definitely want to not waste time with those and instead focus on the 5%.

d23 5y ago
That's great, and I'm in a similar situation myself. But your intro mentioned this being early career advice, which could mislead people into making pretty big negotiation mistakes.
- pojzon 5y ago
  I would consider that a good advice for anyone who is half-decent in current market. Good Engineers are at the value of gold. Can save you a lot of money down the road. I have like 8y of experience and salary requirement is the first thing I negotiate. Easy 30-50% jump each time in past few years.
  - teawrecks 5y ago
    Definitely negotiate, but the first rule of negotiation is to never be the first to give a number. And the 2nd rule is to always have multiple options that you'd consider.

vincentmarle 5y ago

> Never give first numbers I disagree: the first one who gives a number is able to anchor the negotiation around their preferred outcome; it's much harder to negotiate up from a lowball number than the other way around.

jedberg 5y ago
The preferred outcome of the company is making a successful hire, so they will go high enough to make sure they get a great candidate, or if they can't afford that, will go to their max budget. And if they don't then you don't want to work there anyway. There is no situation where you will say a high number and they will move up to meet you if that number was greater than their max budget to begin with.
- PeterisP 5y ago
  > There is no situation where you will say a high number and they will move up to meet you if that number was greater than their max budget to begin with. Yes, and since it's quite common to have companies where their max budget is not acceptable (probably because they are the ones who can't fill their vacancies and thus have recruiters spam everyone all the time), it's important to filter them out by saying the high number before you've wasted many hours on worthless interviews.
  - shimon 5y ago
    The point is the tactic of giving the first number, though successful in ending many unappealing recruitment attempts, also has the unintended side effect of making it impossible that you'll ever get an offer SIGNIFICANTLY ABOVE your target range. Because comp boosts in the 50-100% range are possible, and you actually want to see those, you should let the recruiting org offer the first number.
    - cercatrova 5y ago
      You can simply quote a much higher amount instead. Boost your own salary by 100% and ask for that. When I was still working, that's what I used to do, and lo and behold, I 8x'ed my salary within 5 years.

scarface74 5y ago

In corp dev where I worked until 2020. The compensation range is small enough that you know when you’re asking for top of range and you are at most leaving a couple of thousand on the table.