18 ms·

Ok yes this guide is fine, a lot of things are up for negotiation, and I think it’s a lot more widely known these days to negotiate for stuff. But man, a lot o

by chomp 2y ago

Ok yes this guide is fine, a lot of things are up for negotiation, and I think it’s a lot more widely known these days to negotiate for stuff. But man, a lot of the people out there absolutely still do not grok negotiating. They know it’s something you’re supposed to do, but they will try and negotiate things that are not negotiable (like making it a hard ask for extra contributions per paycheck for healthcare to match their former employer, rather than just ask for more money to cover the difference) or they’ll make demands for things we already offer if they had just paid attention and read the benefits packet we emailed them, and it takes a bunch of back and forth to figure out what they’re asking for (nothing, in the end). Or they’ll ask for weird PTO accrual and cash out schemes that just leaves us asking “why didn’t you just ask for more cash and more PTO up front because now HR is pulling people into meetings to try and figure out this demand”. People need more than knowing to negotiate, they need to know how to negotiate, and that means partially knowing what is negotiable. (We’ll change a lot actually in negotiations, but not everything)

Aeolun 2y ago
> People need more than knowing to negotiate, they need to know how to negotiate, and that means partially knowing what is negotiable. Everything is negotiable. Some things are just easier than others. Besides, did you tell them up front what was negotiable, or did you just kinda expect them to figure it out?
- bkandel 2y ago
  I suppose this is true in some abstract sense, but not in companies of any reasonable size when it comes to hiring. There are lots of things that are firmly set company-wide, like the type of health plans offered and the company contribution, that are pretty much non-negotiable. Not knowing this makes you look naive or runs the risk of just confusing the hiring manager/HR.
  - ghshephard 2y ago
    A good example of non-negotiable, while traveling overseas, for one particular company, I was just randomly doing an expense report - and noticed there was a "medical" line-item in my expense report, that I figured I would use for cough-drops that I had purchased. Finance of course went ballistic, because the policy against expensing anything with that line item was absolutely forbidden (which begs the question as to why it was available in the first place). Here is the thing - the company would have zero difficulty with me asking for a $100/day per diem while traveling for months on end, instead of doing expenses - that was negotiable. But there was absolutely zero chance of getting a $7 bag of cough-drops allowed as a medical-expense. Non-negotiable.
    - Terretta 2y ago
      That medical line is not in air quotes. Not "medical", but medical, generally for emergency out-of-pocket expenses associated with urgent medical treatment occurring as a result of the business trip, immediate care due to travel-related or trip-related incidents. Not for pre-existing health, and not for cough-drops.
      - ghshephard 2y ago
        Trust me very much not for cough drops. (The thing is - when doing expense reports - it usually was pretty random which line-item you grabbed for some things - there were two or three categories that might make sense. Not so with that medical line item).
- doe_eyes 2y ago
  If you're joining a company of 15 people? Probably. If you're joining a company of 50,000? Absolutely not, because they're not going to vastly increase the complexity of their HR or payroll just to close a single hire. Money and equity are easy to negotiate because there's no management overhead. But if you want your 401k to be at a different brokerage, or have other "process" request like that? Probably not gonna happen - not for a line employee.
- tomrod 2y ago
  While this feels true, it isn't in the fundamental sense. Yes, paying taxes is negotiable, but the consequences may not be.
encoderer 2y ago
I think the modern advice that you should always negotiate and ask for more is deeply distressing for many people. They do not want to feel like they are being taken advantage of but they also don’t really want to engage in a negotiation.
- justin_oaks 2y ago
  And that's perfectly fine. Such people will get less favorable terms. Patrick's guide explicitly talks about how a lot of people don't want to negotiate. His argument is that if doing something distasteful for a short period of time will get you a significant salary boost, you should try to do it anyway. Ultimately, if it's distressing to someone to be assertive and negotiate, my first reaction isnt "That's fine! Let's all work together to make things nice and easy for them!" My reaction is "It's sad that it's so distressing, but one way or another they need this important life skill. Let's help them acquire it, even if it's difficult."
  - pdimitar 2y ago
    Your second phrase is more accurately translated to "Let's take advantage of their meek nature and low-ball them". At least be honest.
derefr 2y ago
> Or they’ll ask for weird PTO accrual and cash out schemes that just leaves us asking “why didn’t you just ask for more cash and more PTO up front because now HR is pulling people into meetings to try and figure out this demand”. They're trying to get your help in decreasing their tax burden, without explicitly saying that that's what they're doing. (Dunno why people are so coy about this; tax minimization is not illegal, and companies are totally willing to work with you on it.)
- nemomarx 2y ago
  more money solves that in the end doesn't it? Just ask for enough to cover the tax burden
  - gruez 2y ago
    But isn't it better to find a tax avoidance strategy that's mutually beneficial to both sides? Sure, you can ask for an extra $10k that gets taxed down to $5k, but if you can find a creative workaround to get $8k instead for the same $10k, isn't that better than trying to ask them for a $16k raise to make up for the taxes?
    - srockets 2y ago
      That $8k may cost another $5k to implement: current systems used by the would be employer may not be geared up to handle that non-standard asks.
      - pdimitar 2y ago
        Valuable counter-point, thanks. Still their problem though, and they should make it a bit more transparent: "It would cost us extra to implement this, are you OK with a final offer that's yours minus $3k to offset our costs?".
    - setr 2y ago
      I think the best thing is to ask for $10k or equivalent, and then let the HR team come up with a sane way to construct that value that works under their system. It's kind of like getting requirements where the customer tries to tell you the exact logic to program, but since it's not their codebase/background, they end up coming up with convoluted solutions. Just tell me what you want, and let me as SME figure out how to get you there.
ryandrake 2y ago
> But man, a lot of the people out there absolutely still do not grok negotiating. Unless you have some kind of very unique skill or you have other offers and the company really, really wants you, how exactly are you supposed to negotiate? Every comp negotiation I've ever had with a company has gone kind of like this: [Company]: Here's your offer for $X. [Me]: I'd like $Y. [Company]: Your offer is for $X. [Me]: Well, I think I bring skill A, B, and C to the table, and here is some data showing someone with my experience tends to make $Y. [Company]: We don't care. Your offer is for $X. Are you interested or not? [Me]: How about vacation time or benefits? Or maybe salary vs. equity? Can these be adjusted? [Company]: <yawn> if you don't want $X, there's the door. We have 35 other candidates in the hiring pipeline. What magical incantations are you guys speaking that allow you to make any progress against these brick walls? I've never once, in my 25 year career history, ever gotten a company to offer more than their initial offer.
- yladiz 2y ago
  The crass answer is maybe you’re not able to negotiate well enough to get more than the initial offer. The less crass answer: In almost every company, you’re being hired on a salary band, so unless you’re at the top of that band in the initial offer there is room to go up, so you can typically push a bit higher. The trick is to make a request that’s higher than what they initially offer but not so high that they outright reject it without additional conversation, and if they are play hardball, and don’t budge on anything, you just reject their offer. It does mean you have to be comfortable rejecting an otherwise decent or good offer, but presumably most companies are willing to negotiate with a good candidate so this shouldn’t be a problem in practice if the negotiation is done in a considered way.
  - pdimitar 2y ago
    Not in Europe. I have successfully raised my paycheck during negotiations, likely two, maybe three times, over 23 years of career (I mean I sucked at anything business-related throughout 95% of it but hey), and it was done begrudgingly and I burned some bridges and was then first on the chopping block when the company started struggling. As mentioned upthread in another comment: all the negotiation advice boils down to "start looking for a job while you have a job". Nobody is ever giving good advice how to get a good salary when your arse is on the wall (i.e. you have no option but to find a job in the next 2-3 months).
wodenokoto 2y ago
Thank you for sharing the other side of the table. But how are we supposed to know what is negotiable? HRs main negotiation tactic is to say “not negotiable”
Suppafly 2y ago
But also, some companies are not willing to negotiate on anything and attempting to negotiate often screws you over.
- pdimitar 2y ago
  The fact that this comment was very gray should tell us all about HN main demographic i.e. privileged SV engineers who never had to negotiate once in their lives, and could land a job the next day if they were let go.
pdimitar 2y ago
Yeah, sure, because most of the world "emails the benefits package" to candidates. Maybe HN should mandate comments in these threads to be prefixed with: "[USA resident that never struggled to find a job]" How do you think? I think it will help not skew the discussions so severely in the direction of privileged SV engineers. Truth is, most of the programmers out there face terrible HRs and the deal is binary -- you either accept all of it (with very rare exceptions with super small wiggle rooms) or just go look for a job elsewhere.

by chomp 2y ago

Aeolun 2y ago

> People need more than knowing to negotiate, they need to know how to negotiate, and that means partially knowing what is negotiable. Everything is negotiable. Some things are just easier than others. Besides, did you tell them up front what was negotiable, or did you just kinda expect them to figure it out?

bkandel 2y ago
I suppose this is true in some abstract sense, but not in companies of any reasonable size when it comes to hiring. There are lots of things that are firmly set company-wide, like the type of health plans offered and the company contribution, that are pretty much non-negotiable. Not knowing this makes you look naive or runs the risk of just confusing the hiring manager/HR.
- ghshephard 2y ago
  A good example of non-negotiable, while traveling overseas, for one particular company, I was just randomly doing an expense report - and noticed there was a "medical" line-item in my expense report, that I figured I would use for cough-drops that I had purchased. Finance of course went ballistic, because the policy against expensing anything with that line item was absolutely forbidden (which begs the question as to why it was available in the first place). Here is the thing - the company would have zero difficulty with me asking for a $100/day per diem while traveling for months on end, instead of doing expenses - that was negotiable. But there was absolutely zero chance of getting a $7 bag of cough-drops allowed as a medical-expense. Non-negotiable.
  - Terretta 2y ago
    That medical line is not in air quotes. Not "medical", but medical, generally for emergency out-of-pocket expenses associated with urgent medical treatment occurring as a result of the business trip, immediate care due to travel-related or trip-related incidents. Not for pre-existing health, and not for cough-drops.
    - ghshephard 2y ago
      Trust me very much not for cough drops. (The thing is - when doing expense reports - it usually was pretty random which line-item you grabbed for some things - there were two or three categories that might make sense. Not so with that medical line item).
doe_eyes 2y ago
If you're joining a company of 15 people? Probably. If you're joining a company of 50,000? Absolutely not, because they're not going to vastly increase the complexity of their HR or payroll just to close a single hire. Money and equity are easy to negotiate because there's no management overhead. But if you want your 401k to be at a different brokerage, or have other "process" request like that? Probably not gonna happen - not for a line employee.
tomrod 2y ago
While this feels true, it isn't in the fundamental sense. Yes, paying taxes is negotiable, but the consequences may not be.

encoderer 2y ago

I think the modern advice that you should always negotiate and ask for more is deeply distressing for many people. They do not want to feel like they are being taken advantage of but they also don’t really want to engage in a negotiation.

justin_oaks 2y ago
And that's perfectly fine. Such people will get less favorable terms. Patrick's guide explicitly talks about how a lot of people don't want to negotiate. His argument is that if doing something distasteful for a short period of time will get you a significant salary boost, you should try to do it anyway. Ultimately, if it's distressing to someone to be assertive and negotiate, my first reaction isnt "That's fine! Let's all work together to make things nice and easy for them!" My reaction is "It's sad that it's so distressing, but one way or another they need this important life skill. Let's help them acquire it, even if it's difficult."
- pdimitar 2y ago
  Your second phrase is more accurately translated to "Let's take advantage of their meek nature and low-ball them". At least be honest.

derefr 2y ago

> Or they’ll ask for weird PTO accrual and cash out schemes that just leaves us asking “why didn’t you just ask for more cash and more PTO up front because now HR is pulling people into meetings to try and figure out this demand”. They're trying to get your help in decreasing their tax burden, without explicitly saying that that's what they're doing. (Dunno why people are so coy about this; tax minimization is not illegal, and companies are totally willing to work with you on it.)

nemomarx 2y ago
more money solves that in the end doesn't it? Just ask for enough to cover the tax burden
- gruez 2y ago
  But isn't it better to find a tax avoidance strategy that's mutually beneficial to both sides? Sure, you can ask for an extra $10k that gets taxed down to $5k, but if you can find a creative workaround to get $8k instead for the same $10k, isn't that better than trying to ask them for a $16k raise to make up for the taxes?
  - srockets 2y ago
    That $8k may cost another $5k to implement: current systems used by the would be employer may not be geared up to handle that non-standard asks.
    - pdimitar 2y ago
      Valuable counter-point, thanks. Still their problem though, and they should make it a bit more transparent: "It would cost us extra to implement this, are you OK with a final offer that's yours minus $3k to offset our costs?".
  - setr 2y ago
    I think the best thing is to ask for $10k or equivalent, and then let the HR team come up with a sane way to construct that value that works under their system. It's kind of like getting requirements where the customer tries to tell you the exact logic to program, but since it's not their codebase/background, they end up coming up with convoluted solutions. Just tell me what you want, and let me as SME figure out how to get you there.

ryandrake 2y ago

> But man, a lot of the people out there absolutely still do not grok negotiating. Unless you have some kind of very unique skill or you have other offers and the company really, really wants you, how exactly are you supposed to negotiate? Every comp negotiation I've ever had with a company has gone kind of like this: [Company]: Here's your offer for $X. [Me]: I'd like $Y. [Company]: Your offer is for $X. [Me]: Well, I think I bring skill A, B, and C to the table, and here is some data showing someone with my experience tends to make $Y. [Company]: We don't care. Your offer is for $X. Are you interested or not? [Me]: How about vacation time or benefits? Or maybe salary vs. equity? Can these be adjusted? [Company]: <yawn> if you don't want $X, there's the door. We have 35 other candidates in the hiring pipeline. What magical incantations are you guys speaking that allow you to make any progress against these brick walls? I've never once, in my 25 year career history, ever gotten a company to offer more than their initial offer.

yladiz 2y ago
The crass answer is maybe you’re not able to negotiate well enough to get more than the initial offer. The less crass answer: In almost every company, you’re being hired on a salary band, so unless you’re at the top of that band in the initial offer there is room to go up, so you can typically push a bit higher. The trick is to make a request that’s higher than what they initially offer but not so high that they outright reject it without additional conversation, and if they are play hardball, and don’t budge on anything, you just reject their offer. It does mean you have to be comfortable rejecting an otherwise decent or good offer, but presumably most companies are willing to negotiate with a good candidate so this shouldn’t be a problem in practice if the negotiation is done in a considered way.
- pdimitar 2y ago
  Not in Europe. I have successfully raised my paycheck during negotiations, likely two, maybe three times, over 23 years of career (I mean I sucked at anything business-related throughout 95% of it but hey), and it was done begrudgingly and I burned some bridges and was then first on the chopping block when the company started struggling. As mentioned upthread in another comment: all the negotiation advice boils down to "start looking for a job while you have a job". Nobody is ever giving good advice how to get a good salary when your arse is on the wall (i.e. you have no option but to find a job in the next 2-3 months).

wodenokoto 2y ago

Thank you for sharing the other side of the table. But how are we supposed to know what is negotiable? HRs main negotiation tactic is to say “not negotiable”

Suppafly 2y ago

But also, some companies are not willing to negotiate on anything and attempting to negotiate often screws you over.

pdimitar 2y ago
The fact that this comment was very gray should tell us all about HN main demographic i.e. privileged SV engineers who never had to negotiate once in their lives, and could land a job the next day if they were let go.

pdimitar 2y ago

Yeah, sure, because most of the world "emails the benefits package" to candidates. Maybe HN should mandate comments in these threads to be prefixed with: "[USA resident that never struggled to find a job]" How do you think? I think it will help not skew the discussions so severely in the direction of privileged SV engineers. Truth is, most of the programmers out there face terrible HRs and the deal is binary -- you either accept all of it (with very rare exceptions with super small wiggle rooms) or just go look for a job elsewhere.