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It seems to me that making the first offer is sort of an "advanced technique". Ie, it's probably optimal, but you have to be decently skilled at negotiation to

by akavi 12y ago

It seems to me that making the first offer is sort of an "advanced technique". Ie, it's probably optimal, but you have to be decently skilled at negotiation to pull it off. I think the reason "Let them make the first offer" is such common advice is because most people, when faced with the prospect of choosing a number, usually go too low, perhaps out of discomfort with appearing arrogant or for fear of losing an offer entirely. The former's probably the bigger concern for engineers, given how notoriously bad at appropriately valuing their own skills they are. The latter is rare in tech, but is occasionally a legitimate concern for other fields with worse job markets. Also, generally speaking the hiring party is at a strong advantage by virtue of both information (They know how much they're paying other people, and how much they've offered to people who've turned them down) and practice (They've carried out salary negotiations dozens of times before, while the potential employee has probably done it at most a handful of times.). Given that, it's probably safer to let the other party open the field, and hopefully negotiate up from there.

platz 12y ago
based on what I read here about making the first offer, I'd agree https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=641BD45A41B1BD6C!645&ithint=file%2c.PDF&app=WordPdf&authkey=!AGgpWzijeR0SK0Q https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=641BD45A41B1BD6C!6...
poopsintub 12y ago
It's pretty hard to evaluate how much you're worth and how much you would be to a company and job you know little about. You can ask questions and get the gist of the business, but until you're in and truly know how the system and company runs, it's very hard.
deleted 12y ago
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stormbrew 12y ago
> I think the reason "Let them make the first offer" is such common advice is because most people, when faced with the prospect of choosing a number, usually go too low, perhaps out of discomfort with appearing arrogant or for fear of losing an offer entirely. The former's probably the bigger concern for engineers, given how notoriously bad at appropriately valuing their own skills they are. The latter is rare in tech, but is occasionally a legitimate concern for other fields with worse job markets. I don't think it's really unique to tech. The information asymmetry you describe below is more than enough reason for this to apply to nearly any prospect in any field, and it applies doubly in situations where the pay is generally low to begin with (eg. shiftwork). Only the most exceptionally informed prospects will be able to make an opening offer that won't stand a good chance of getting them shafted.
notahacker 12y ago
I'd agree with it being an "advanced technique" in the sense there's a skill to getting the figure right, but I'd actually argue that when it's optimal, it's because it doesn't require much actual negotiation skill to pull off e.g. in the common situation of knowing they won't pay much of a premium over a well-established market price, you may as well start off with a bigger premium More negotiation skill is required to credibly threaten to walk away or justify your worth after they've opened by lowballing you. If you do have reasonable negotiation skills and enough insight into the other party's assessment of your value to avoid underestimating how much they think you're worth, you can probably hint you know the size of that value and anchor their offer to it without making the commitment of an actual offer anyway.

by akavi 12y ago

platz 12y ago

based on what I read here about making the first offer, I'd agree https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=641BD45A41B1BD6C!645&ithint=file%2c.PDF&app=WordPdf&authkey=!AGgpWzijeR0SK0Q https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=641BD45A41B1BD6C!6...

poopsintub 12y ago

It's pretty hard to evaluate how much you're worth and how much you would be to a company and job you know little about. You can ask questions and get the gist of the business, but until you're in and truly know how the system and company runs, it's very hard.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

stormbrew 12y ago

> I think the reason "Let them make the first offer" is such common advice is because most people, when faced with the prospect of choosing a number, usually go too low, perhaps out of discomfort with appearing arrogant or for fear of losing an offer entirely. The former's probably the bigger concern for engineers, given how notoriously bad at appropriately valuing their own skills they are. The latter is rare in tech, but is occasionally a legitimate concern for other fields with worse job markets. I don't think it's really unique to tech. The information asymmetry you describe below is more than enough reason for this to apply to nearly any prospect in any field, and it applies doubly in situations where the pay is generally low to begin with (eg. shiftwork). Only the most exceptionally informed prospects will be able to make an opening offer that won't stand a good chance of getting them shafted.

notahacker 12y ago

I'd agree with it being an "advanced technique" in the sense there's a skill to getting the figure right, but I'd actually argue that when it's optimal, it's because it doesn't require much actual negotiation skill to pull off e.g. in the common situation of knowing they won't pay much of a premium over a well-established market price, you may as well start off with a bigger premium More negotiation skill is required to credibly threaten to walk away or justify your worth after they've opened by lowballing you. If you do have reasonable negotiation skills and enough insight into the other party's assessment of your value to avoid underestimating how much they think you're worth, you can probably hint you know the size of that value and anchor their offer to it without making the commitment of an actual offer anyway.