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You left out: 4. Don't give a number at all. If you are interested in Company X, and you've gone far enough in the process to know they are interested in you,
by pdonis 3y ago
You left out:
4. Don't give a number at all. If you are interested in Company X, and you've gone far enough in the process to know they are interested in you, tell the recruiter that you would be interested in seeing a competitive offer from Company X, or something along those lines. At the end of the day, the best negotiating leverage you have is that if Company X actually does want to hire you, at some point they have to commit to an offer. You don't. You can always walk away and go talk to someone else.
- pjot 3y ago> Don't give a number at all Can you give an example of how this plays out in real conversation? Answering “I’m not telling you” or similar to the recruiters question “what’s your expected compensation” seems like bogus advice
- pdonis 3y agoThe article gives explicit examples of what to say in this exact situation.
- ryandrake 3y agoIf pressed, I'd just say: "I would immediately say yes to the job for $1 million/year." Who cares if they laugh? Why negotiate against yourself and hand them your actual min value on a silver platter? They're not going to tell you their max value. EDIT: Oops, looks like another commenter already spelled out this strategy[1] 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37241739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37241739
- unmole 3y agoSaying "I don't have a specific figure in mind", worked for me in the past.
- LouisSayers 3y agoIt's not as strange as you might think. What I tend to do is just play a bit dumb. Basically, "To be honest, it's been a while so I'm really not sure ... I'm applying at a number of companies so I'm really seeing what the market has to offer." If it's a recruiter, you can then ask them for advice on what offers they've seen recently, or what bands they're working with.
- moduspol 3y agoYou can just say, "I've been advised that it's in my interests to not share a number." And it's true. You have been advised that way by threads and comments like these. If you get any pushback, it'll be that they just want to ensure they're not wasting time, and you can always respond that if they'd share the compensation details of the position, you'll be happy to tell them if it's acceptable.
- nunez 3y agoI left it out because I don't agree that this works in the general sense. I think not specifying a number is very likely to leave money on the table.