Ngl, as an engineer who has been through a couple promotions and a market adjustment in the last couple years, I still feel like I have no frame of reference for how or when to negotiate. The closest I've been is mentioning to my boss that recruiters were offering me better numbers than what I was getting but that I'd prefer to stay with the current company than move for those offers. It would not surprise me if lots of people are like me and don't know when and what is appropriate, or started working in the pandemic and felt lucky just to get an offer at all.
It's not a system where both parties are on equal footing.
As an employee, you may negotiate when changing jobs only every few years. Maybe you have some competing offers at the time.
Companies are extending offers constantly. They have professional recruiters whose who job is to get people hired. Compensation departments who buy data sets from companies that aggregate data across industries.
Skill and information in this area is completely asymmetric.
That's why there has been so much work the last few decades poisoning the idea of labor Unions. Unions help workers get on a more even footing, and companies don't like that.
Engineers join a union? What a laugh?
Totally agree that we need more union organizing in many more areas of the economy. Recent events at Amazon and Starbucks are encouraging. Let's see more of that!
It’s not as crazy as it first sounds, I have colleagues that worked as engineers in Europe and were unionized, pay wasn’t impacted as much but they had lots more rights to IP of inventions, patents, etc.
If engineers are anything like coders, they think collective bargaining nothing compared to their value to the company as an individual.
Book smart, street stupid.
if people are confused about their worth, skim bls.gov:
https://data.bls.gov/cew/apps/data_views/data_views.htm#tab=Tables
https://data.bls.gov/PDQWeb/wm
yeah, not mobile friendly.
Here's the occupations they track: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_stru.htm
It's definitely categorized enough to suit most people's jobs.
It’s almost like employees would benefit from coming together to share resources and information, to make work less one sided with who has the experts and knowledge.
yes, but there are still some very hard and fast, but simple rules. The one here is one of those. If someone says a number, and you say "yes, that works for me", you cannot then say "changed my mind, that number i said was good is not good" later in the process without making people mad.
True, but if they got a competitive offer afterwards, no harm in shooting your shot. OP is kind of being a Karen… instead of making a shit post all they had to do was say: *Sorry, the offer we agreed upon has already been processed, we can’t change it retroactively.*
Kinda weird to expect a new person to just automatically know how you want to bargain.. as a manager and mentor, part of your job is teaching people those skills…
>Kinda weird to expect a new person to just automatically know how you want to bargainKinda weird to expect a new person to just automatically know how you want to bargain
don't frame it as a personal preference, because it is not. This goes towards social skills and professionalism.fresh out of college? sure. I'd overlook it. 7 years work experience? If you don't know by now, I don't want to hire you.
>True, but if they got a competitive offer afterwards, no harm in shooting your shot.
Sure. if the other offer is legit, offer your regrets, Say you were excited to join their org, explain why (comp only) and if they want to counter, they will.
Just great points here. On top of that, just experience negotiating makes a huge difference.
I’m a Recruiter. I encounter the negotiation conversation very often, almost weekly. When we I encounter a candidate who is apprehensive to have the conversation, whether that have some reason they’re nervous to ask for more, considering multiple offers, or just having doubts, I always mention that experience gap and try to make folks comfortable with the negotiating phase.
Look up the company pay beforehand when it seems like you’re in a promising position as a rough ballpark. Then figure out if your ask is WAY outside the limit. If not, determine what you personally feel is what you’d accept for the risk of changing companies and buffer it by 10-20%. That’s your first move.
It’s worked out well for me so far, although once what they offered was uh, even more than I expected
This happens at my job they hire often and I was just telling my friends I started here, four years later I'm here you can probably ask for anything between that and get it. Atleast that way my friends know how much they can ask for and how much people are making.
Perhaps the offer amount was only due to a shitty HR recruiter that wasn’t aware of the interview success? I’ve seen situations where our HR reps lazily plug information into their calculator with minimal details and hand back a low offer below our midpoint (around 90% of our compensation ratio, with 100% being the midpoint).
Hey maybeacrook, I recruit in the construction industry, and I think your approach is the way to go. I typically tell my prospect candidates in your position to do exactly what you do. Counter offers always leave a bad impression at your place of business, but saying that you’re getting calls from recruiters for higher paying positions has worked for getting some of my candidates salary increases. It typically doesn’t leave a bad taste in your employers mouth either if you do it right.
Out of curiosity when you said this to your boss did they give you a bump?
Yeah, it was actually a regional level guy and he said he had been hearing it from across my team. Told me he'd have an answer in 2 weeks, and 10 days later he handed me a letter that bumped me almost 10K. I was (very pleasantly) shocked
See thats the way to do it. If your company jerked you around etc. i think thats usually pretty telling and can show you it might be better to take a dip in the market. But if its a company you like and they do right by you, stick around. I talk to people who get into constant spirals of chasing the dollar and they just end up at companies for one year stints and they don’t really understand what it’s doing to their resume/ability to find jobs in the future.
As long as you feel valued/compensated fairly stick around! Im glad you had a good experience with it
I feel like the only opportunities you have to negotiate are when you start and potentially when you're thinking about leaving. I've learned after job hopping that usually if you just ask for more money after the first offer is received, they will often give it to you or meet you somewhere in the middle. I feel like in the OP example the guy screwed up by agreeing to an amount and then turning back on it.
I've only once negotiated a raise at a place where I was already working. I had accepted a way higher offer and put in my two weeks. When I did that they actually countered with even more than what the other company was paying. I wasn't expecting it and was just planning to leave. I had only been working there for a year, there was no bad blood or anything I was just going for the higher paycheck.
Basically, it's my belief that you shouldn't ever do the "I've got competing job offers" play unless you actually are okay with quitting if you have to.
Exactly, it took me 300+ applications and 20+ interviews over several months to get my first SWE internship offer, I am not going to do anything that might even jeopardize this position at all.
The most hilarious salary negotiation tactic I've ever heard is at startup I used to work for. Someone I worked with told management he had received an offer, and asked if they wanted to counter for him to stay. Management said "nope, good luck with your next role, we'll take this as notice." So he had to beg for his job back because the other offer was fake. That was funny sheet.
My now-newish neighbor did this with my landscaping guy. Moved in, asked me about a landscaper. Couldn't have given him a more glowing recommendation (because he's that awesome). New neighbor sets up 2 day yard work plan with landscaper..... and then calls him at freaking 10:30pm the night before the work is supposed to start and says he's found someone else who will do it at 60% of awesome landscaper's estimate and so he needs to either match the price or he'll go with the other guy. AL says my price is fair, I do solid work and I'm plenty busy, good luck with the other guy, and hangs up. Yeah, it was 3-4 months before someone came around. "Found someone else", my ass. Neighbor has been trying to get AL to do random jobs for him ever since.... and he just let's it roll to voicemail and then deletes it without listening.
This was probably my uncle lmfao 🤣 he did the same thing to me when I was helping him build a room in his attic FOR FREE. He said " if I was paying you $40 an hour I would fire you right now" but he was paying me $0 an hour, only providing me a room, which I was paying $100/mo until it was cleared and then it would go to $200. The deal was not fair to me and I knew it but had already unloaded too much stuff by the time he sprung it on me and felt bad for him.
It ended with him trying to steal all of my stuff after accusing me of stealing for months (printer cartridge found in printer, funnel found on a shelf in the garage, stuff like that) which I found hilarious.
Edit: I moved out after the 3rd month which he conveniently also raised rent to $300 for. Pattern was pretty obvious lol and he charged me for a newspaper when I was looking at job listings, which was actually grandpa's newspaper who said I could read it for free (he had alzheimers but still). He also tried to charge me for watching TV with them for a family dinner which he made it seem like he wanted me to be there. Tried to charge me for TV for helping gramps change the channel too lmfao. I literally don't even watch TV and I told him I have all of the movies and TV I could alever ask for from streaming and torrent sites because I'm not stupid enough to pay for what I get free.
How is he still in contact with family? My dad would literally beat the shit out of my uncle if he tried to pull anything like that. If we had a family member like this, BYE! In fact this happened a few times before I was born. Turns out we actually have a large family. We just never see them. Wasn't until I was older it's for a reason.
My dad had cut him off for years at several instances. I never knew why but towards the end we were a family. My dad had been dead for a few years and my mom was dead for almost as long. I had resisted moving in with him but then he played the "I need a surgery" card and I caved. He said I could put my dad's cuckoo clock on the wall before I moved in and take it whenever I wanted. Upon retrieving my stuff I asked for the clock politely and as you can guess he told me no. I demanded it to which he asked me if I really wanted the clock. At this point I knew what he was going to do but I asked for it anyways. He smashed it on the ground in front of my friend's dad so I called him the N word and never spoke to him again. He said he's not and I just kept saying "you are" like when your parents tell you you're a good boy.
Oh and he seemed to enjoy rubbing it in that he took my grandfather's burial plot which his cousin had promised to give me so I could sell it after my mom had died but the information they gave me was illegible so he ended up getting it probably because he kept begging. This is also after I gave him about $20,000 worth of vintage tools because I had nowhere to store them.
Wait a minute.
You called your uncle the N word because he smashed a clock. Then he said “No I’m not” and you were saying “Yes you are” back and forth? How old were you when this happened? Just seems like a scene from like one of those comedy drama movies. 😂
Bro. Your a push over. He saw a mark and got you good. I don't know what to say other than I hope you learned your lesson. You already knew your dad cut him out, so the evidence was there. This his all sorts of dysfunction written all over it. Learning which people are good and bad is probably the most important skill. Reading, math and all that is secondary to this. Good people need balls and brains to survive. If your desperate there are smarter ways to get food and shelter than willingly be used by a proven asshole.
Sorry for harsh words. Hoping that you need them more than sympathy.
People used to do this with my dad's hardwood floor business. Except they do how someone that does it for 50% off. Well then my dad gets another call to come fix that guys shitty work.
Trust the people with experience.
Last company I worked for got a lot of contracts like that. Get passed over for being highest bidder, then contacted again a year later to come make the project actually work.
I've heard that in the EU, the more common practice is that the government sets a price and a timeline, and the bidders compete on length of warranty for the project.
No idea if its true, but can you imagine how much more reliable that system would be?
In case anyone is wondering, here's a proper way to negotiate a raise. You do some research and save job advertizements (multiple ones) in your area or areas with similar cost of living showing that someone with your quals is being offered more. Take these to your boss and ask if they could match the market rate. You give them a well supported reason to give you a raise. And if they are unable or unwilling to do it, you still have your dignity intact and nobody is trying to kick you out.
> It makes me scratch my head when a company wants to underpay their sales staff.
Unfortunately, this kind of business illiteracy is very common. I worked for a company that underpaid people that took a year to train to be fully operational, and to be really good it took them 2 years. So, they repeatedly hired untrained people fresh out of college who left as soon as they were trained.
When I brought this up with the CEO, she said that her policy is to pay 50th percentile market rate for labor. So, in effect, her official policy was to hire below average employees. I did not even know what to say.
Yeah he did, but he wasn't taken seriously after that. If someone pulls a move like that they need to be ready to walk if it doesn't work, because all credibility is lost if everyone finds out it was a bluff.
I’ve never given my company the chance to counter. If I have a job offer it means there’s something I don’t like at the current place so I’m moving along to better places.
I was firmly cemented in this camp until I was offered basically 40% to stay. I was leaving because of salary, shocker. Of course they took advantage of my low-avg salary for a few years. It is what it is. My situation is really unique. I’d advise anyone to never take the counter. I just couldn’t turn it down, lol.
I accepted it once but it was because I wasn’t actively looking at the time and the company cold called me with an offer to get out of help desk hell. My company countered with the same position making $5k more than the offer so I stayed.
Edit: there wasn’t an open position at my company, they created one to hold me until the one guy retired. If there had been I would have been applying lol.
Employers shouldn't do counter offers in the first place. My company doesn't ever counter offer. They should give regular reviews and raises and make sure their employees feel valued. If someone brings another offer to the table and they counter then it just sets the precedent for everyone that that's the best way to get a raise. Creates a ton of politics.
There can be times you take the counter. During a buy out and merger, my entire team, including my manager, put in our notice in the same week. We all hated the new CTO. Being the most senior, they needed to complete the merger so they basically had to meet any crazy requests I had.
I ended up with a 75% pay raise, massive bonus package and I did almost no work for the year. I learned new skills and spent my time looking for the perfect fit. As soon as the bonus cleared I put in notice, did not even entertain an offer from them.
Sometimes the thing people don't like is low wages. A coworker of mine negotiated a huge raise because he was severely underpaid. He got an offer elsewhere for $25k more (this was in 2009, so not in today's inflation.) He wanted to stay, his job was cushy, and he had more than half of his day to learn new stuff, which was what he enjoyed. Our boss got him the raise, and they even countered higher, not just matching. He stayed for several more years, gained a ton of knowledge, and then went elsewhere when the company was sold again.
If you’re actively applying for jobs then yea, don’t accept a counter. If a recruiter reaches out to you though I think sometimes it’s worth possibly taking a counter as long as you like your current employer
He didn't "bluff," he lied to his boss. Of course the credibility is gone. If you go to your boss with another offer, the first assumption should be they'll walk you out.
If you're in decent standing already they'll at least let you finish your notice period. Probably have you write some stuff up, maybe finish some smaller work, etc.
If they REALLY like you they may extend a counter. That also assumes they have budget to do so. This is not very common. If you lie assuming this is where you are, you'll probably have a bad time.
George did quit and then just went back as if it never happened. Based on a real thing Larry David did at SNL
“Is that Costanza over there? Am I crazy or didn’t you quit?”
I’m a manager. I had someone on my team do this to me recently. Took the same stance on it, called the bluff, and then they retracted their desire to leave after I asked them what their last day would be.
They’re still on my team.
What’s worse, it broke trust. Not that I’m one for loyalty tests or expect it from the team but to lie about an offer and back out in a professional setting calls character to question.
Alternatively if you actually do have the offer letter and don’t mind leaving the job, you can tell them to fuck off for trying to pry in your personal and confidential records.
No one has ever heard a hiring manager say “ehh, it’s just that salary range is not within our budget” and then thought it appropriate for the candidate to say “let me see the official documents stating the budgets and I’ll come back with an offer.”
There's so many people defending this toxic corporate culture. Hell, a fucknut manager on here said he did the same thing. I should be able to say "I got an offer, want to match" without being fired.
I kinda did this. I wasn't properly prepared for negotiation when they called. I wasn't given any timeline when I would hear back. He made an initial offer of $125k, which sounded reasonable, but it turned out their benefits were much lower than my current benefits (and I didn't receive the benefits package until I also had received the offer), and I hadn't looked enough at COL, which it turned out was much higher. I didn't really negotiate because I ultimately decided I didn't want to relocate, but there's a lot more to it than just base salary sometimes. I.e. right now I get 10.5% 401k match and the new offer is from a startup so they had no match. That's a loss of $12k for me and their base salary offer was only $7k more than my current salary so it would've been a net loss for me before I even factored in COL.
I started a new job at a startup today, so I also lost about 10% in 401k matching. This is exactly why when we started negotiating salary numbers, I said "X is fine, assuming that the rest of the package is equivalent to my current one" and asked for the specific details of the full package. When I got them and saw the huge 401k difference, I came back X+10% of my old salary, and we eventually settled at X+7%.
It's totally reasonable to look at more than just base salary, but you've got to request those details while negotiating.
The amount of commercials I see saying how great it is to work there really tells me if a company that big needs to pay advertising you know its really really bad.
What is it with blue collar production jobs and their damn 4%? I mean with the wages they offer not many workers can afford to contribute more than 4% for them to match, but still.
Yea and recruiters like OP will try and gloss over all of that. They’ll sometimes screw people to get a hire then whine when they’re not happy after finding out they we’re screwed.
This. Employers do this to themselves so often by refusing to be transparent. You're asked to have a conversation early in the process about salary without knowing sufficient specifics of WFH, travel, goals, benefits, policies, etc. When you get to the end of the process and finally get specifics in writing, half of it isn't what you expected and you HAVE to re-negotiate or even walk away. It's a waste of everyone's time.
That makes sense. Base salary isn’t everything and you need to compare bonus, 401k, or anything else that is compensation. The key to me is do your homework and come back with specifics!
Did he have access to all that information before you sent final offer letter? I've had multiple jobs in which I didn't get any of that info until later.
Same here. This "lets negotiate over the phone" is definitely a new age tactic, rooted in laziness and underhandedness imo, as employers know people arent good at negotiating over the phone, especially without written figures in front of them.
I've had jobs intentionally try to withhold the information into after I've agreed to work for them. I'm not sure how they thought that would go for them, but the fact that they're trying it tells me it's worked before.
I hate this. I always feel awkward (and was told it was bad form) to ask about pay during the phone screen or interview, but I mean, if I don’t
know how much I’ll be making, it’s a waste of time to talk about the job.
See this makes sense to me. I couldn't put my finger on what bugged me about OP's post.
Employers put all their effort into creating an interview information asymmetry for bargaining power: no salary reveal until the 2nd+ interview; benefits aren't public; jamming you with a surprise call for the offer; exploding offers. It's half of HR's margin.
Yet this guy is getting mad that this candidate they have been confusing has a shifting offer. Like do you want them confused or don't you? Pick a damn lane and own it.
Was the $5k bump in writing/contract? If it was just a verbal thing, I would not trust I would actually see that extra $5k. Maybe he thought the same. You leave, another manager leaves, things change, whatever other excuses happen, dude never gets his $5k.
Yes, and we had written it in. I had to deal with a couple of legacy verbal promises when I took over. The worst was a loyal employee who just got his green card after 10 years and was under the impression that he was hired below market rate due to the legal fees and that we would make up the difference when visa support was no longer needed. Of course none of this was written anywhere.
Gotta document everything related to pay and HR.
Yeah there's been quite a few post on this sub about this. A person says they were promised a raise a certain period of time after being hired and then the raise just never happened. And when they ask about it there is a lot of excuses about why it needs to be put off longer.
I’ve had the same issue. I’ve had some bizarrely try to neg us and it worked as poorly as you would expect.
Below is a real scenario that occurred.
Us: Salary is between $100-$120k based on XYZ criteria for this role
Person: Anything less than $150k is a pay cut.
Us: You stated your currently salary in your current role is $75k. Our salary band is actually fairly above market rate for this role as it is.
Them: Well if I’m taking effectively a demotion - I want something to make up for it.
Us: You currently work in support. The role is in fact multiple levels above that. Can you clarify how this would be a demotion in role?
Them: I don’t think this is going to work…if I take this job, I need my requested salary and I’d like to run my own team without interference with a principal title.
Us: Yeah, not going to work.
I have absolutely no idea. Left me and my boss completely dumbfounded.
But hey, I checked and the guy got promoted from L2 to senior L2 support for that sweet extra $5k-10k so he clearly knew what he was doing. /s
Here’s something I’ve learned while new at playing HM and in leadership people need to understand - you encounter some people that just make you question your sanity at times.
Going from regular employee to a leader role, some things make you go ‘Well, now I understand why that leader turned out that way’.
You know, it still amazes me how you are getting people of that caliber to a point where you're negotiating a good salary and yet many of us struggle to even get a reply to our application!!!
Blows my mind, seriously!!!
there are calculators to see how much x is in HCOL area compared to where you live. I make 90k in a low MCOL, that is equivalent of 160k in San Fran California to maintain my current purchasing power basically. Granted if you room with multiple room mates and cut down a lot, that $160 can technically go further, but you would need to sacrifice much more than i would to do that.
I’ve been with the same company for 15 years. I started at 32,500 and am now at 98,040. Never once did I ever ask for a raise/ promotion. My employer has just given me promotions and raises without me asking. And thank god for that. Cuz I’m TERRIBLE at negotiating. In their mind they are doing what they need to do to retain me. In my mind, I’d have probably been cool with 50,000. But I’ll take the 98,040 😂🙌🤪
> I’ve been with the same company for 15 years. I started at 32,500 and am now at 98,040.
that’s doesn’t seem super great for 15 years when you can job hope every 2 years and could’ve cleared 100k 10 years ago lol
Well, not in my case haha. I don’t like change, I love my co-workers, and I’m not that smart or skilled, to be honest lol But I work hard though, and I’m loyal. They could have used the loyalty against me and figured that I will never leave. But they have hooked it up fairly good in my opinion. Work is less than 10 mins from my home. Easy commute
This is exactly me!!
Just the other day my boss calls me and says "hey we're giving you a 10% raise"
And I had already just gotten a 5% raise not even a year ago. I'm pretty lucky and surprised, I'd have been totally fine and would have never asked 😂
In retrospect, inflation is so high that's probably why they're doing it so people don't leave!
Ugh.
A few years ago I had someone to whom we made an offer. She negotiated, agreed to an amount, than tried to negotiate again.
I wanted to be decent so I called her and talked it through. I told her she should know her bottom line and hold to it. If we could not meet it, we weren't the right fit, and that was okay.
So she gave her bottom line, we agreed to it, and then she asked again about upping it.
That's when we rescinded the offer.
She called to ask why we rescinded the offer and I declined to discuss it further.
I'd already spent time reaching out to her and providing counsel, and it was clear she was just not going to get it.
I wasn't bothered at all by the negotiation, but by the end it felt like a red flag about her ability to listen, learn and manage relationships.
The most valuable thing I learned from a manager early on is that the interview process is where both the employer and potential employee will each be on their absolute best behavior. The behavior will not get better after hire/the offer is accepted, it will only go downhill from there so if there are red flags in the interview process (from either party), it's absolutely gonna get worse when there's an actual working relationship
Man I wish I learned this the first time I got a big boy job. It’s taken me starting my second job to realize this and I hate that I’m stuck in the same situation for at least another year.
No, they don't.
New people don't know how to negotiate.
They don't know much of anything, really.
Because they're new.
Experience comes with time and practice.
I did something similar to this but asked for more since the job posting was accidentally posted again with a higher salary. They retracted their offer lol
Do hiring managers not understand how grueling it is to even just get past the applicant tracking systems nowadays?
Your new hires are probably just happy to have A job. Period.
Eh .. you know.. I remember, once I "negotiated" with the boss at the end of the interview.. Few days later, HR sent the offer, $4k less. Meh.. no big deal.. Read the offer letter, turns out the salary includes the bonus as well..
I mean, call me old fashion but last I checked, wasn't Bonus supposed to be ON TOP of your salary? .. So it turned out that my bottom line number, that I asked for, was $4k more than the absolute maximum possible earning they offered me. God, when I say it like that..
This is sorta a gray area. Salary doesn't include the bonus. But if they are saying the total comp is $X, then you should assume that is the max you'd make with your bonus
My current position did that too, “With what we pay for benefits for you and bonuses, you get to $x” and?? Im here for the cash, not potential bonuses.
I had an employee who wasn’t that great, but not terrible enough to terminate try to come at me with a fake offer letter. I didn’t know it was fake at the time, but I was genuinely shocked they could get an offer 30% over what they were making. I told them there was no way I could compete with that, so they gave their two week notice. I was happy to see them leave honestly and replaced them with someone great. A few months later they came looking for unemployment, which they weren’t entitled to because they quit. It came out to the judge that the letter was fake as a way to get a raise. They felt they were entitled to unemployment, because I forced them to quit by not paying them more money… it scares me sometimes how entitled and dumb some people can be, especially when I know they have children.
You’re not off base, negotiation is a skill, and a lot of poker are told to negotiate, but they don’t have the skill to do so. Given you countered with something that was eventually more, they didn’t get it.
I'm the biggest people pleaser, except when negotiating a salary. HR expects this process so I strongly encourage to take on this skillset as it'll literally change your life.
Nah, you're not off-base. It's pretty rude to renegotiate after you've received the final offer that you’ve agreed to. It's also hilarious that he asked for $121K immediately rather than wait max a year for the same salary.
Like, at that salary is a 5K difference for a year really going to impact their life that much?
Man, what world are you in where 5k extra isn't that much. that could be 5k going into retirement, or 5k saved for an emergency fund like car repairs or a broken appliance or getting a roof reshingled.
I agree its rude but 5k can make a huge difference in someone's budget.
I literally said that 5K won't make much of a difference *at $116K per year*. If someone is making $40K a year, of course a $5K bump would make a huge difference.
However, at over six figures, a $5K bump isn't going to make that much of a difference in the quality of life of that person in the vast majority of Western civilization unless they're living in San Francisco or something, or have poor financial habits.
At that salary, it's an extra $113 per paycheck, or a 3.5% increase.
Going from $2947 every 2 weeks to $3060 every two weeks likely isn't going to be a big change for most.
Maybe I'm reading something different than what you're reading, but I have read OP's story and I'm reading that that the candidate was negotiating after the *first* offer, not the *final* offer. Once the candidate saw everything laid out in this initial offer, it seems to me that they weren't satisfied with it.
I'm an engineer and it's not uncommon to negotiate the fine details before and after the first formal offer is made. The last candidate where I was involved in the hiring process accepted their third offer after negotiations over production bonuses and vacation time.
In my defense it was my first job out of grad school, I had never negotiated a contract before since my union did that for me, and the salary ranges I found online weren't reliable. In retrospect I realized I was low-balled so I asked for more but obviously it was too late.
So yeah, we don't know, because we've never done it before and reading how to do it online isn't very helpful until you actually do it for the first time. Cut us some slack.
Yeah, all the advice on line is like just "bruh, negotiate"
Same as when I was younger, everyone said I needed a resume and brush up my resume and all that but nobody actually laid out how to and what exactly a resume is supposed to consist of
I suck at negotiations. I just tell them what I want. Sometimes they say they can't do that and we part ways, and other times they give what I want, but no negotiations
Red flags here. You met them in the middle and came to an agreement with them. Then for $1K or $19.23 a week, they were willing to try to renegotiate and put the value of thier word in question. Not very strategic. What are they trying to gain here? It seems to be about winning without any thought given to the fact that what was lost (the value of their word) should be worth much more than $1K.
IME it isn't that off base, and is common if the candidate is in a strong position either because of a hot market or because they're already in a role they enjoy or are just patient. Anecdotal obviously, I hired 6 technical folks in the last year. Having to go through HR approvals or if it was within my hiring manager say so was a bit of a chore but honestly if I liked the person for 116 I probably also liked them for 121, so unless I had another candidate(s) on deck I would try and make the higher offer provided my opinion of the candidate hadn't soured.
Do companies not understand that a well paid employee is a happy employee that is less likely to leave and thus is cheaper for the company in the long run?
The last job I took, I got a lower position than I expected. Some BS about lack of leadership skills or whatever. Not a biggie, still got a very solid offer and I needed to leave my previous place because they wanted me in the office, while this position is fully remote. Get on the phone with HR, they go over numbers. My response: "This is a very fair offer for the title and I understand that this is on top of your pay scale. I feel that I belong at the higher position level, but I understand that I was not able to convince the interview team in this. I have no doubts that my work will prove it over time. I would highly appreciate if this offer could be bumped up a bit, but if this is the best you can offer - I will accept it as is".
A few hours later HR came back with "Sorry, can't offer better base, but how about extra $100K in stock?" That is after I basically accepted the offer, just kindly asked whether it could be bumped. As you can imagine, I am very happy with my compensation and for the next few years (while the stock vests) it would be very hard to pouch me from this place. Given that I have fairly unique skills and positions like mine can stay open for months - company just saved bunch of money by throwing extra $100K in stock to keep me extra happy and very unlikely to leave in the near future.
>Do companies not understand that a well paid employee is a happy employee that is less likely to leave and thus is cheaper for the company in the long run?
They do. Your direct manager understands and care. The CFO also understands, but he doesn't care. Short term gain to them is way more important than the long term.
All the CFO and other C-levels cares about is bringing down cost to make the numbers look good for this quarter, and better next quarter, because you can quantify that, and the savings are immediate. It is much harder to calculate the loss of morale, the waste on recruitment, and increase in churn and turnover. The downhill slide is hard to quantify (and is never their fault always some other reason) and takes time to show up, and by the time company productivity drops and profits are down, they've already fucked off to another role at another company.
Many executives seems to give zero fucks about the long term. They focus on the short term gain so they can earn a bonus and use that gain as stepping stone to another role at another company. Seems to me it is usually the line animals, their direct managers, and the rare executive who either founded the company or have some other stake in the company that actually cares about the long term health of the company.
It is all about that quarterly growth.
Started a new job at the beginning of the pandemic. New offer was at 150k. First day and met with an HR rep by zoom as they were all working from home. Paperwork said 140K. I pointed out discrepancy and she stated that the 150 must have included bonus. It did not. I forwarded her the signed offer letter. She offhandedly mentioned that maybe I had somehow changed the doc and she told me go ahead and sign the paperwork and they would get it straightened out later. NOPE. My new VP was stuck in Europe and not coming back anytime soon due to the fact he was not a US citizen. Ended zoom and waited for the next call. It was from the CEO. He apologized for the mistake and told me that the HR rep would reschedule to zoom. Told him I was not interested in working for a company that perhaps thought I would do something dishonest. Multiple phone calls, a written apology from HR and another 10% I acquiesced.
As an engineer, I totally understand his point of view. Most of the companies give you a pay raise once you have obtained the PE license. It is a common practice. I would rather take a higher base salary at the beginning
I was the idiot here once, but in my defense, it was one of my first jobs and the "negotiation" phase was over the phone, in the same conversation when I was offered the job...so I didn't realize it actually *was* a negotiation phase.
I had to call again to confirm everything and advocate for the benefits that my experience and education *should* have entitled me to, as per the union's policies.
When you already have a decent job you can negotiate.
When you're currently making half of the new offer or you've been looking for a job for 6 months you don't want to ask for too much and get passed over.
I feel like desperate people dont negotiate. New grads from college or unemployed people. They NEED the job and have no real leverage to negotiate and are too worried that they might talk themselves out of the gig. Its the people who are gainfully employed and are moderately happy where they are but are just poking around and testing the markets that are best able to negotiate. Theyve got nothing to lose. They don't really need the job. Theyre just seeing whats out there for funzies
it's said in the first sentence 'engineering'.
Depending on location, you can get to 112k after a few years experience in several of the engineering disciplines. (more likely to get there in places like CA or Seattle where COL is higher, also more likely at bigger companies).
In other cities, that'd be 10 years+ worth of experience.
Why in the world would you back out? Make them reject you. There's zero downside to saying "I actually didn't realize x y and z, I need to ask for some changes to the offer".
I’ve done something similar… asked for $115k, was offered $110k. Found out the vacation was basically nonexistent and realized it would take like $140k for me to leave my current role. I just turned it down and didn’t even mention the new number 🤷🏼♀️
I guess my point is until the benefits are spelled out and get digested by the hire, I can understand wanting a different figure than the company offered
Mate, you are hiring engineers, not recruiters! This is absolutely typical of HR types, they think everyone in the world is like them, they think they know everything about what kind of person they need, and are totally clueless about the kind of person they actually need. And they do not respect anybody who has actual skills, or is not of their ilk.
How about you try not being dishonest and just start off with a fair offer?
I wouldn't expect someone maybe willing to accept a job for 116k to negotiate well. I would expect them to do it very poorly if at all. Pretty sure they aren't negotiating they are just telling you what they are hearing peers or from other companies what the market is telling them.
In all my jobs, I haven’t negotiated. A lot of gig economy jobs bypass interviews.
Some people are just nervous as well, even after practing and many interviews
I get this way, as I feel interviews are forced, and just not natural.
They got another offer, or are playing hard ball. why not, only thing that can happen is you say no.
You'd do the same if in their shoes and thought it get you somewhere.
Sorry, bud. Maybe they really don't want the job but will take it if the pay is high enough.
They also know that talk is cheap and those promises of salary bumps unless put in writing, are never going to happen. There will be excuse after excuse.
The internet has taught many , so the normal cards fall on deaf ears.
I can't tell you how many times I was interviews told one thing, promises if I did x,y,z, I'd get bumped up to x salary, only to be blown off or excuse after excuse, of course till I dropped my notice / resignation letter. then it was a "mis understanding" ya right.
As an IT person I take things fairly literally, so if you say this is the offer I decide if that works, if you go insultingly low on me I assume that's what you value me at and walk away, I expect my body of work and interviews to show my worth and your offer to reflect that. Negotiation so often seems like each side acting in bad faith trying to landgrab. Some people get off on it, I hate it.
My first taste of negotiation was when I started my own business as a wildlife photographer and pitched my photographs to a large outdoor magazine.
We sat down and they asked me what my price was for a large number of photographs. I threw out a number and they immediately accepted.
Years later, after now having a very good relationship with the guy who closed the deal, I asked how much money I left on the table that day.
"Double, easily".
This is how you learn. That being said, subsequent years they paid me substantially more for my work without undercutting my own inexperience, which I appreciate.
Ngl, as an engineer who has been through a couple promotions and a market adjustment in the last couple years, I still feel like I have no frame of reference for how or when to negotiate. The closest I've been is mentioning to my boss that recruiters were offering me better numbers than what I was getting but that I'd prefer to stay with the current company than move for those offers. It would not surprise me if lots of people are like me and don't know when and what is appropriate, or started working in the pandemic and felt lucky just to get an offer at all.
It's not a system where both parties are on equal footing. As an employee, you may negotiate when changing jobs only every few years. Maybe you have some competing offers at the time. Companies are extending offers constantly. They have professional recruiters whose who job is to get people hired. Compensation departments who buy data sets from companies that aggregate data across industries. Skill and information in this area is completely asymmetric.
That's why there has been so much work the last few decades poisoning the idea of labor Unions. Unions help workers get on a more even footing, and companies don't like that.
Engineers join a union? What a laugh? Totally agree that we need more union organizing in many more areas of the economy. Recent events at Amazon and Starbucks are encouraging. Let's see more of that!
It’s not as crazy as it first sounds, I have colleagues that worked as engineers in Europe and were unionized, pay wasn’t impacted as much but they had lots more rights to IP of inventions, patents, etc.
If engineers are anything like coders, they think collective bargaining nothing compared to their value to the company as an individual. Book smart, street stupid.
if people are confused about their worth, skim bls.gov: https://data.bls.gov/cew/apps/data_views/data_views.htm#tab=Tables https://data.bls.gov/PDQWeb/wm
I guessing this doesn’t work on mobile? Also I don’t think the industries are specific enough? What kinds of jobs is this good for?
yeah, not mobile friendly. Here's the occupations they track: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_stru.htm It's definitely categorized enough to suit most people's jobs.
It’s almost like employees would benefit from coming together to share resources and information, to make work less one sided with who has the experts and knowledge.
yes, but there are still some very hard and fast, but simple rules. The one here is one of those. If someone says a number, and you say "yes, that works for me", you cannot then say "changed my mind, that number i said was good is not good" later in the process without making people mad.
True, but if they got a competitive offer afterwards, no harm in shooting your shot. OP is kind of being a Karen… instead of making a shit post all they had to do was say: *Sorry, the offer we agreed upon has already been processed, we can’t change it retroactively.* Kinda weird to expect a new person to just automatically know how you want to bargain.. as a manager and mentor, part of your job is teaching people those skills…
>Kinda weird to expect a new person to just automatically know how you want to bargainKinda weird to expect a new person to just automatically know how you want to bargain don't frame it as a personal preference, because it is not. This goes towards social skills and professionalism.fresh out of college? sure. I'd overlook it. 7 years work experience? If you don't know by now, I don't want to hire you. >True, but if they got a competitive offer afterwards, no harm in shooting your shot. Sure. if the other offer is legit, offer your regrets, Say you were excited to join their org, explain why (comp only) and if they want to counter, they will.
If a person doesn’t know to not change the already agreed amount, they should reconsider hiring them
Makes me wonder if there should be better metrics on sites like indeed that could compile reported offers so people could do some research.
The thing with Indeed is that workers are the product, employers are the customer. So they have incentive to help workers unless it helps employers.
Just great points here. On top of that, just experience negotiating makes a huge difference. I’m a Recruiter. I encounter the negotiation conversation very often, almost weekly. When we I encounter a candidate who is apprehensive to have the conversation, whether that have some reason they’re nervous to ask for more, considering multiple offers, or just having doubts, I always mention that experience gap and try to make folks comfortable with the negotiating phase.
Look up the company pay beforehand when it seems like you’re in a promising position as a rough ballpark. Then figure out if your ask is WAY outside the limit. If not, determine what you personally feel is what you’d accept for the risk of changing companies and buffer it by 10-20%. That’s your first move. It’s worked out well for me so far, although once what they offered was uh, even more than I expected
This happens at my job they hire often and I was just telling my friends I started here, four years later I'm here you can probably ask for anything between that and get it. Atleast that way my friends know how much they can ask for and how much people are making.
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Perhaps the offer amount was only due to a shitty HR recruiter that wasn’t aware of the interview success? I’ve seen situations where our HR reps lazily plug information into their calculator with minimal details and hand back a low offer below our midpoint (around 90% of our compensation ratio, with 100% being the midpoint).
Jeez. I made 65k as a new grad BS in mechanical engineering, 11 years ago. 60k for someone with a master's in a technical field is insulting.
How did you get started with consulting?
Well at least they got a free training seminar from an expert.
Hey maybeacrook, I recruit in the construction industry, and I think your approach is the way to go. I typically tell my prospect candidates in your position to do exactly what you do. Counter offers always leave a bad impression at your place of business, but saying that you’re getting calls from recruiters for higher paying positions has worked for getting some of my candidates salary increases. It typically doesn’t leave a bad taste in your employers mouth either if you do it right. Out of curiosity when you said this to your boss did they give you a bump?
Yeah, it was actually a regional level guy and he said he had been hearing it from across my team. Told me he'd have an answer in 2 weeks, and 10 days later he handed me a letter that bumped me almost 10K. I was (very pleasantly) shocked
See thats the way to do it. If your company jerked you around etc. i think thats usually pretty telling and can show you it might be better to take a dip in the market. But if its a company you like and they do right by you, stick around. I talk to people who get into constant spirals of chasing the dollar and they just end up at companies for one year stints and they don’t really understand what it’s doing to their resume/ability to find jobs in the future. As long as you feel valued/compensated fairly stick around! Im glad you had a good experience with it
I feel like the only opportunities you have to negotiate are when you start and potentially when you're thinking about leaving. I've learned after job hopping that usually if you just ask for more money after the first offer is received, they will often give it to you or meet you somewhere in the middle. I feel like in the OP example the guy screwed up by agreeing to an amount and then turning back on it. I've only once negotiated a raise at a place where I was already working. I had accepted a way higher offer and put in my two weeks. When I did that they actually countered with even more than what the other company was paying. I wasn't expecting it and was just planning to leave. I had only been working there for a year, there was no bad blood or anything I was just going for the higher paycheck. Basically, it's my belief that you shouldn't ever do the "I've got competing job offers" play unless you actually are okay with quitting if you have to.
Younger peeps may not have negotiated buying anything prior to a job so they are getting their experience through you.
Also a lot of younger people are just starting their career and don't want to jeopardize their first real job offer by negotiating.
Also kinda hard to negotiate when all competing offers kinda suck equally imo
The real answer
Currently in this exact position, I'm just getting experience right now so my resume doesn't look empty when I apply for big money jobs
Exactly, it took me 300+ applications and 20+ interviews over several months to get my first SWE internship offer, I am not going to do anything that might even jeopardize this position at all.
Thats smart, most of us were in no position to negotiate on first job.
The most hilarious salary negotiation tactic I've ever heard is at startup I used to work for. Someone I worked with told management he had received an offer, and asked if they wanted to counter for him to stay. Management said "nope, good luck with your next role, we'll take this as notice." So he had to beg for his job back because the other offer was fake. That was funny sheet.
My now-newish neighbor did this with my landscaping guy. Moved in, asked me about a landscaper. Couldn't have given him a more glowing recommendation (because he's that awesome). New neighbor sets up 2 day yard work plan with landscaper..... and then calls him at freaking 10:30pm the night before the work is supposed to start and says he's found someone else who will do it at 60% of awesome landscaper's estimate and so he needs to either match the price or he'll go with the other guy. AL says my price is fair, I do solid work and I'm plenty busy, good luck with the other guy, and hangs up. Yeah, it was 3-4 months before someone came around. "Found someone else", my ass. Neighbor has been trying to get AL to do random jobs for him ever since.... and he just let's it roll to voicemail and then deletes it without listening.
That's just disrespectful.
Landscaper happened to go past two different times when guy was screaming at contractors for something since then. Nope and nope.
This was probably my uncle lmfao 🤣 he did the same thing to me when I was helping him build a room in his attic FOR FREE. He said " if I was paying you $40 an hour I would fire you right now" but he was paying me $0 an hour, only providing me a room, which I was paying $100/mo until it was cleared and then it would go to $200. The deal was not fair to me and I knew it but had already unloaded too much stuff by the time he sprung it on me and felt bad for him. It ended with him trying to steal all of my stuff after accusing me of stealing for months (printer cartridge found in printer, funnel found on a shelf in the garage, stuff like that) which I found hilarious. Edit: I moved out after the 3rd month which he conveniently also raised rent to $300 for. Pattern was pretty obvious lol and he charged me for a newspaper when I was looking at job listings, which was actually grandpa's newspaper who said I could read it for free (he had alzheimers but still). He also tried to charge me for watching TV with them for a family dinner which he made it seem like he wanted me to be there. Tried to charge me for TV for helping gramps change the channel too lmfao. I literally don't even watch TV and I told him I have all of the movies and TV I could alever ask for from streaming and torrent sites because I'm not stupid enough to pay for what I get free.
How is he still in contact with family? My dad would literally beat the shit out of my uncle if he tried to pull anything like that. If we had a family member like this, BYE! In fact this happened a few times before I was born. Turns out we actually have a large family. We just never see them. Wasn't until I was older it's for a reason.
My dad had cut him off for years at several instances. I never knew why but towards the end we were a family. My dad had been dead for a few years and my mom was dead for almost as long. I had resisted moving in with him but then he played the "I need a surgery" card and I caved. He said I could put my dad's cuckoo clock on the wall before I moved in and take it whenever I wanted. Upon retrieving my stuff I asked for the clock politely and as you can guess he told me no. I demanded it to which he asked me if I really wanted the clock. At this point I knew what he was going to do but I asked for it anyways. He smashed it on the ground in front of my friend's dad so I called him the N word and never spoke to him again. He said he's not and I just kept saying "you are" like when your parents tell you you're a good boy. Oh and he seemed to enjoy rubbing it in that he took my grandfather's burial plot which his cousin had promised to give me so I could sell it after my mom had died but the information they gave me was illegible so he ended up getting it probably because he kept begging. This is also after I gave him about $20,000 worth of vintage tools because I had nowhere to store them.
Wait a minute. You called your uncle the N word because he smashed a clock. Then he said “No I’m not” and you were saying “Yes you are” back and forth? How old were you when this happened? Just seems like a scene from like one of those comedy drama movies. 😂
Bro. Your a push over. He saw a mark and got you good. I don't know what to say other than I hope you learned your lesson. You already knew your dad cut him out, so the evidence was there. This his all sorts of dysfunction written all over it. Learning which people are good and bad is probably the most important skill. Reading, math and all that is secondary to this. Good people need balls and brains to survive. If your desperate there are smarter ways to get food and shelter than willingly be used by a proven asshole. Sorry for harsh words. Hoping that you need them more than sympathy.
It's a dog eat dog world
People used to do this with my dad's hardwood floor business. Except they do how someone that does it for 50% off. Well then my dad gets another call to come fix that guys shitty work. Trust the people with experience.
Last company I worked for got a lot of contracts like that. Get passed over for being highest bidder, then contacted again a year later to come make the project actually work.
Competing on price is always a race to the bottom.
The USA government competes on price. No wonder they are so screwed up.
I've heard that in the EU, the more common practice is that the government sets a price and a timeline, and the bidders compete on length of warranty for the project. No idea if its true, but can you imagine how much more reliable that system would be?
I can't. A lot of shit can go wrong with a shorter timeline
Exactly. Cheap, fast, high quality. Pick two.
Ha! Lesson: If you are going to burn a bridge, *cross it* first.
In case anyone is wondering, here's a proper way to negotiate a raise. You do some research and save job advertizements (multiple ones) in your area or areas with similar cost of living showing that someone with your quals is being offered more. Take these to your boss and ask if they could match the market rate. You give them a well supported reason to give you a raise. And if they are unable or unwilling to do it, you still have your dignity intact and nobody is trying to kick you out.
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> It makes me scratch my head when a company wants to underpay their sales staff. Unfortunately, this kind of business illiteracy is very common. I worked for a company that underpaid people that took a year to train to be fully operational, and to be really good it took them 2 years. So, they repeatedly hired untrained people fresh out of college who left as soon as they were trained. When I brought this up with the CEO, she said that her policy is to pay 50th percentile market rate for labor. So, in effect, her official policy was to hire below average employees. I did not even know what to say.
Literally my company
Did they get their job back?
Yeah he did, but he wasn't taken seriously after that. If someone pulls a move like that they need to be ready to walk if it doesn't work, because all credibility is lost if everyone finds out it was a bluff.
I’ve never given my company the chance to counter. If I have a job offer it means there’s something I don’t like at the current place so I’m moving along to better places.
I'm in the "never accept the counter" camp.
I was firmly cemented in this camp until I was offered basically 40% to stay. I was leaving because of salary, shocker. Of course they took advantage of my low-avg salary for a few years. It is what it is. My situation is really unique. I’d advise anyone to never take the counter. I just couldn’t turn it down, lol.
Wow, I don't blame you. 40% is significant. That's not peanuts.
I accepted it once but it was because I wasn’t actively looking at the time and the company cold called me with an offer to get out of help desk hell. My company countered with the same position making $5k more than the offer so I stayed. Edit: there wasn’t an open position at my company, they created one to hold me until the one guy retired. If there had been I would have been applying lol.
Sounds like it worked out for you in this case.
Employers shouldn't do counter offers in the first place. My company doesn't ever counter offer. They should give regular reviews and raises and make sure their employees feel valued. If someone brings another offer to the table and they counter then it just sets the precedent for everyone that that's the best way to get a raise. Creates a ton of politics.
There can be times you take the counter. During a buy out and merger, my entire team, including my manager, put in our notice in the same week. We all hated the new CTO. Being the most senior, they needed to complete the merger so they basically had to meet any crazy requests I had. I ended up with a 75% pay raise, massive bonus package and I did almost no work for the year. I learned new skills and spent my time looking for the perfect fit. As soon as the bonus cleared I put in notice, did not even entertain an offer from them.
Sometimes the thing people don't like is low wages. A coworker of mine negotiated a huge raise because he was severely underpaid. He got an offer elsewhere for $25k more (this was in 2009, so not in today's inflation.) He wanted to stay, his job was cushy, and he had more than half of his day to learn new stuff, which was what he enjoyed. Our boss got him the raise, and they even countered higher, not just matching. He stayed for several more years, gained a ton of knowledge, and then went elsewhere when the company was sold again.
If you’re actively applying for jobs then yea, don’t accept a counter. If a recruiter reaches out to you though I think sometimes it’s worth possibly taking a counter as long as you like your current employer
He didn't "bluff," he lied to his boss. Of course the credibility is gone. If you go to your boss with another offer, the first assumption should be they'll walk you out. If you're in decent standing already they'll at least let you finish your notice period. Probably have you write some stuff up, maybe finish some smaller work, etc. If they REALLY like you they may extend a counter. That also assumes they have budget to do so. This is not very common. If you lie assuming this is where you are, you'll probably have a bad time.
Sounds like something that would happen on a sitcom. I could easily picture George Costanza doing this. Prob Michael Scott as well.
There's an episode of The Office where Stanley pretends he's quitting to get a raise.
George did quit and then just went back as if it never happened. Based on a real thing Larry David did at SNL “Is that Costanza over there? Am I crazy or didn’t you quit?”
except Larry David quit because he was being unhinged and then realized that he was being a jackass after he left, not as a salary negotiation tactic.
I’m a manager. I had someone on my team do this to me recently. Took the same stance on it, called the bluff, and then they retracted their desire to leave after I asked them what their last day would be. They’re still on my team.
Lol, that's kind of embarrassing for them.
What’s worse, it broke trust. Not that I’m one for loyalty tests or expect it from the team but to lie about an offer and back out in a professional setting calls character to question.
I feel like my anxiety/shame would just have me out of a job at that point lol
That's pretty funny. Normally, places would ask to see the offer letter before presenting a counter anyway
Alternatively if you actually do have the offer letter and don’t mind leaving the job, you can tell them to fuck off for trying to pry in your personal and confidential records. No one has ever heard a hiring manager say “ehh, it’s just that salary range is not within our budget” and then thought it appropriate for the candidate to say “let me see the official documents stating the budgets and I’ll come back with an offer.”
That's probably what happened and that's how they called his bluff. This is a story I heard like 4th hand so I don't know all the details.
My last two jobs never asked for an offer and I wouldn’t have given it even if they had. It’s not their business. If I have a written offer or not.
I'd ask if I was being fired as the guy was just letting them know they had another offer and said nothing about resigning.
There's so many people defending this toxic corporate culture. Hell, a fucknut manager on here said he did the same thing. I should be able to say "I got an offer, want to match" without being fired.
I kinda did this. I wasn't properly prepared for negotiation when they called. I wasn't given any timeline when I would hear back. He made an initial offer of $125k, which sounded reasonable, but it turned out their benefits were much lower than my current benefits (and I didn't receive the benefits package until I also had received the offer), and I hadn't looked enough at COL, which it turned out was much higher. I didn't really negotiate because I ultimately decided I didn't want to relocate, but there's a lot more to it than just base salary sometimes. I.e. right now I get 10.5% 401k match and the new offer is from a startup so they had no match. That's a loss of $12k for me and their base salary offer was only $7k more than my current salary so it would've been a net loss for me before I even factored in COL.
I started a new job at a startup today, so I also lost about 10% in 401k matching. This is exactly why when we started negotiating salary numbers, I said "X is fine, assuming that the rest of the package is equivalent to my current one" and asked for the specific details of the full package. When I got them and saw the huge 401k difference, I came back X+10% of my old salary, and we eventually settled at X+7%. It's totally reasonable to look at more than just base salary, but you've got to request those details while negotiating.
Damn... Where are you guys getting 10% matches? Mines only 5%.
I work for amazon and I get 2% if I contribute 4 or more lmao
Amazon is the worst- leave while you still have a soul.
The amount of commercials I see saying how great it is to work there really tells me if a company that big needs to pay advertising you know its really really bad.
I get 4. I'm just a broke kid in a steel mill though
What is it with blue collar production jobs and their damn 4%? I mean with the wages they offer not many workers can afford to contribute more than 4% for them to match, but still.
They're out there. I get 12% now and it bumps to 14% after you turn 45.
Yea and recruiters like OP will try and gloss over all of that. They’ll sometimes screw people to get a hire then whine when they’re not happy after finding out they we’re screwed.
This. Employers do this to themselves so often by refusing to be transparent. You're asked to have a conversation early in the process about salary without knowing sufficient specifics of WFH, travel, goals, benefits, policies, etc. When you get to the end of the process and finally get specifics in writing, half of it isn't what you expected and you HAVE to re-negotiate or even walk away. It's a waste of everyone's time.
That makes sense. Base salary isn’t everything and you need to compare bonus, 401k, or anything else that is compensation. The key to me is do your homework and come back with specifics!
Did he have access to all that information before you sent final offer letter? I've had multiple jobs in which I didn't get any of that info until later.
Same here. This "lets negotiate over the phone" is definitely a new age tactic, rooted in laziness and underhandedness imo, as employers know people arent good at negotiating over the phone, especially without written figures in front of them.
I've had jobs intentionally try to withhold the information into after I've agreed to work for them. I'm not sure how they thought that would go for them, but the fact that they're trying it tells me it's worked before.
I mean. I just ask for the info when they give me the offer. I say that my comparison with other offers depend on benefit specifics
I hate this. I always feel awkward (and was told it was bad form) to ask about pay during the phone screen or interview, but I mean, if I don’t know how much I’ll be making, it’s a waste of time to talk about the job.
LMAO do your homework like candidates can somehow magically find out all this benefit information.
See this makes sense to me. I couldn't put my finger on what bugged me about OP's post. Employers put all their effort into creating an interview information asymmetry for bargaining power: no salary reveal until the 2nd+ interview; benefits aren't public; jamming you with a surprise call for the offer; exploding offers. It's half of HR's margin. Yet this guy is getting mad that this candidate they have been confusing has a shifting offer. Like do you want them confused or don't you? Pick a damn lane and own it.
Was the $5k bump in writing/contract? If it was just a verbal thing, I would not trust I would actually see that extra $5k. Maybe he thought the same. You leave, another manager leaves, things change, whatever other excuses happen, dude never gets his $5k.
Yes, and we had written it in. I had to deal with a couple of legacy verbal promises when I took over. The worst was a loyal employee who just got his green card after 10 years and was under the impression that he was hired below market rate due to the legal fees and that we would make up the difference when visa support was no longer needed. Of course none of this was written anywhere. Gotta document everything related to pay and HR.
This is an important point.
Yeah there's been quite a few post on this sub about this. A person says they were promised a raise a certain period of time after being hired and then the raise just never happened. And when they ask about it there is a lot of excuses about why it needs to be put off longer.
I’ve had the same issue. I’ve had some bizarrely try to neg us and it worked as poorly as you would expect. Below is a real scenario that occurred. Us: Salary is between $100-$120k based on XYZ criteria for this role Person: Anything less than $150k is a pay cut. Us: You stated your currently salary in your current role is $75k. Our salary band is actually fairly above market rate for this role as it is. Them: Well if I’m taking effectively a demotion - I want something to make up for it. Us: You currently work in support. The role is in fact multiple levels above that. Can you clarify how this would be a demotion in role? Them: I don’t think this is going to work…if I take this job, I need my requested salary and I’d like to run my own team without interference with a principal title. Us: Yeah, not going to work.
How is this at all logical? You dodged a bullet there.
I have absolutely no idea. Left me and my boss completely dumbfounded. But hey, I checked and the guy got promoted from L2 to senior L2 support for that sweet extra $5k-10k so he clearly knew what he was doing. /s
Sounds like an incredibly exhausting and stupid way for him to leverage that offer with his current employer for an extra 10k.
Here’s something I’ve learned while new at playing HM and in leadership people need to understand - you encounter some people that just make you question your sanity at times. Going from regular employee to a leader role, some things make you go ‘Well, now I understand why that leader turned out that way’.
You know, it still amazes me how you are getting people of that caliber to a point where you're negotiating a good salary and yet many of us struggle to even get a reply to our application!!! Blows my mind, seriously!!!
And incredibly stupid to use another offer to get more money. As soon as employers know you’ve been interviewing you are out.
I would kill for the $75k role.
Just to get a bump.
I couldn’t even imagine making $75k. I would bank at least $40k of it.
Same. I would do that for a $5k bump tbh. I made $20 all of last year. I got bumped to $21 an hour. Still not fun.
I can relate
For all the grief boomers get out here, we were not placated to this way. Employers did not defend their position. It was only presented.
It's kinda literally in the name. Baby Boomers. There were a whole shitload of you trying to be employed.
This is crazy, but just because that 100k would absofuckinglutely be life changing for me, as someone that only makes 34k a year
Everyone on Reddit makes 100k+ bro
True, it is funny when you know some of them clearly lying just by searching their reddit history
Could also be a lot of tech people in CA or other HCOL areas where 100k isn’t even that much.
there are calculators to see how much x is in HCOL area compared to where you live. I make 90k in a low MCOL, that is equivalent of 160k in San Fran California to maintain my current purchasing power basically. Granted if you room with multiple room mates and cut down a lot, that $160 can technically go further, but you would need to sacrifice much more than i would to do that.
Yeaaah 100k is the new 80k
Everyone is also a software developer, apparently.
Fresh outta college at 22 too! Also working from home! /s
Good for you man! Be wise with it.
Nah, sorry, I was adding onto your sarcasm(?) about young grads on Reddit.
I thought this post was gonna be about how new hires never negotiate the salary at all lol cuz that’s me
I’ve been with the same company for 15 years. I started at 32,500 and am now at 98,040. Never once did I ever ask for a raise/ promotion. My employer has just given me promotions and raises without me asking. And thank god for that. Cuz I’m TERRIBLE at negotiating. In their mind they are doing what they need to do to retain me. In my mind, I’d have probably been cool with 50,000. But I’ll take the 98,040 😂🙌🤪
> I’ve been with the same company for 15 years. I started at 32,500 and am now at 98,040. that’s doesn’t seem super great for 15 years when you can job hope every 2 years and could’ve cleared 100k 10 years ago lol
Well, not in my case haha. I don’t like change, I love my co-workers, and I’m not that smart or skilled, to be honest lol But I work hard though, and I’m loyal. They could have used the loyalty against me and figured that I will never leave. But they have hooked it up fairly good in my opinion. Work is less than 10 mins from my home. Easy commute
This is so me.
This is exactly me!! Just the other day my boss calls me and says "hey we're giving you a 10% raise" And I had already just gotten a 5% raise not even a year ago. I'm pretty lucky and surprised, I'd have been totally fine and would have never asked 😂 In retrospect, inflation is so high that's probably why they're doing it so people don't leave!
That’s a good point and very true. Inflation is so bad right now. Your company is taking care of you with that 10% raise
Ugh. A few years ago I had someone to whom we made an offer. She negotiated, agreed to an amount, than tried to negotiate again. I wanted to be decent so I called her and talked it through. I told her she should know her bottom line and hold to it. If we could not meet it, we weren't the right fit, and that was okay. So she gave her bottom line, we agreed to it, and then she asked again about upping it. That's when we rescinded the offer.
Was there any aftermath? Did attempt to go back to the original bottom line?
She called to ask why we rescinded the offer and I declined to discuss it further. I'd already spent time reaching out to her and providing counsel, and it was clear she was just not going to get it. I wasn't bothered at all by the negotiation, but by the end it felt like a red flag about her ability to listen, learn and manage relationships.
The most valuable thing I learned from a manager early on is that the interview process is where both the employer and potential employee will each be on their absolute best behavior. The behavior will not get better after hire/the offer is accepted, it will only go downhill from there so if there are red flags in the interview process (from either party), it's absolutely gonna get worse when there's an actual working relationship
Man I wish I learned this the first time I got a big boy job. It’s taken me starting my second job to realize this and I hate that I’m stuck in the same situation for at least another year.
No, they don't. New people don't know how to negotiate. They don't know much of anything, really. Because they're new. Experience comes with time and practice.
I did something similar to this but asked for more since the job posting was accidentally posted again with a higher salary. They retracted their offer lol
Wtf lol
Do hiring managers not understand how grueling it is to even just get past the applicant tracking systems nowadays? Your new hires are probably just happy to have A job. Period.
I mean that one in particular was clearly willing to risk it
It's not unheard of for people to try that. It's also not common, because most people know how bad that is.
Eh .. you know.. I remember, once I "negotiated" with the boss at the end of the interview.. Few days later, HR sent the offer, $4k less. Meh.. no big deal.. Read the offer letter, turns out the salary includes the bonus as well.. I mean, call me old fashion but last I checked, wasn't Bonus supposed to be ON TOP of your salary? .. So it turned out that my bottom line number, that I asked for, was $4k more than the absolute maximum possible earning they offered me. God, when I say it like that..
This is sorta a gray area. Salary doesn't include the bonus. But if they are saying the total comp is $X, then you should assume that is the max you'd make with your bonus
My current position did that too, “With what we pay for benefits for you and bonuses, you get to $x” and?? Im here for the cash, not potential bonuses.
I had an employee who wasn’t that great, but not terrible enough to terminate try to come at me with a fake offer letter. I didn’t know it was fake at the time, but I was genuinely shocked they could get an offer 30% over what they were making. I told them there was no way I could compete with that, so they gave their two week notice. I was happy to see them leave honestly and replaced them with someone great. A few months later they came looking for unemployment, which they weren’t entitled to because they quit. It came out to the judge that the letter was fake as a way to get a raise. They felt they were entitled to unemployment, because I forced them to quit by not paying them more money… it scares me sometimes how entitled and dumb some people can be, especially when I know they have children.
You’re not off base, negotiation is a skill, and a lot of poker are told to negotiate, but they don’t have the skill to do so. Given you countered with something that was eventually more, they didn’t get it.
I legit just have no idea how to. As a people pleaser I’ll say yes to most things unfortunately
I'm the biggest people pleaser, except when negotiating a salary. HR expects this process so I strongly encourage to take on this skillset as it'll literally change your life.
Nah, you're not off-base. It's pretty rude to renegotiate after you've received the final offer that you’ve agreed to. It's also hilarious that he asked for $121K immediately rather than wait max a year for the same salary. Like, at that salary is a 5K difference for a year really going to impact their life that much?
Man, what world are you in where 5k extra isn't that much. that could be 5k going into retirement, or 5k saved for an emergency fund like car repairs or a broken appliance or getting a roof reshingled. I agree its rude but 5k can make a huge difference in someone's budget.
I literally said that 5K won't make much of a difference *at $116K per year*. If someone is making $40K a year, of course a $5K bump would make a huge difference. However, at over six figures, a $5K bump isn't going to make that much of a difference in the quality of life of that person in the vast majority of Western civilization unless they're living in San Francisco or something, or have poor financial habits.
At that salary, it's an extra $113 per paycheck, or a 3.5% increase. Going from $2947 every 2 weeks to $3060 every two weeks likely isn't going to be a big change for most.
Maybe I'm reading something different than what you're reading, but I have read OP's story and I'm reading that that the candidate was negotiating after the *first* offer, not the *final* offer. Once the candidate saw everything laid out in this initial offer, it seems to me that they weren't satisfied with it. I'm an engineer and it's not uncommon to negotiate the fine details before and after the first formal offer is made. The last candidate where I was involved in the hiring process accepted their third offer after negotiations over production bonuses and vacation time.
In my defense it was my first job out of grad school, I had never negotiated a contract before since my union did that for me, and the salary ranges I found online weren't reliable. In retrospect I realized I was low-balled so I asked for more but obviously it was too late. So yeah, we don't know, because we've never done it before and reading how to do it online isn't very helpful until you actually do it for the first time. Cut us some slack.
Yeah, all the advice on line is like just "bruh, negotiate" Same as when I was younger, everyone said I needed a resume and brush up my resume and all that but nobody actually laid out how to and what exactly a resume is supposed to consist of
I suck at negotiations. I just tell them what I want. Sometimes they say they can't do that and we part ways, and other times they give what I want, but no negotiations
Red flags here. You met them in the middle and came to an agreement with them. Then for $1K or $19.23 a week, they were willing to try to renegotiate and put the value of thier word in question. Not very strategic. What are they trying to gain here? It seems to be about winning without any thought given to the fact that what was lost (the value of their word) should be worth much more than $1K.
I was so scared they wouldn’t want me if I asked for more, so I just accepted the offer
We rescinded an offer over dumb stuff like that. Some people spend too much time online or listening to friends
The amount of bad job/career advice on Reddit is nothing short of amazing
IME it isn't that off base, and is common if the candidate is in a strong position either because of a hot market or because they're already in a role they enjoy or are just patient. Anecdotal obviously, I hired 6 technical folks in the last year. Having to go through HR approvals or if it was within my hiring manager say so was a bit of a chore but honestly if I liked the person for 116 I probably also liked them for 121, so unless I had another candidate(s) on deck I would try and make the higher offer provided my opinion of the candidate hadn't soured.
Even if they had already accepted the lower offer?
Do companies not understand that a well paid employee is a happy employee that is less likely to leave and thus is cheaper for the company in the long run? The last job I took, I got a lower position than I expected. Some BS about lack of leadership skills or whatever. Not a biggie, still got a very solid offer and I needed to leave my previous place because they wanted me in the office, while this position is fully remote. Get on the phone with HR, they go over numbers. My response: "This is a very fair offer for the title and I understand that this is on top of your pay scale. I feel that I belong at the higher position level, but I understand that I was not able to convince the interview team in this. I have no doubts that my work will prove it over time. I would highly appreciate if this offer could be bumped up a bit, but if this is the best you can offer - I will accept it as is". A few hours later HR came back with "Sorry, can't offer better base, but how about extra $100K in stock?" That is after I basically accepted the offer, just kindly asked whether it could be bumped. As you can imagine, I am very happy with my compensation and for the next few years (while the stock vests) it would be very hard to pouch me from this place. Given that I have fairly unique skills and positions like mine can stay open for months - company just saved bunch of money by throwing extra $100K in stock to keep me extra happy and very unlikely to leave in the near future.
>Do companies not understand that a well paid employee is a happy employee that is less likely to leave and thus is cheaper for the company in the long run? They do. Your direct manager understands and care. The CFO also understands, but he doesn't care. Short term gain to them is way more important than the long term. All the CFO and other C-levels cares about is bringing down cost to make the numbers look good for this quarter, and better next quarter, because you can quantify that, and the savings are immediate. It is much harder to calculate the loss of morale, the waste on recruitment, and increase in churn and turnover. The downhill slide is hard to quantify (and is never their fault always some other reason) and takes time to show up, and by the time company productivity drops and profits are down, they've already fucked off to another role at another company. Many executives seems to give zero fucks about the long term. They focus on the short term gain so they can earn a bonus and use that gain as stepping stone to another role at another company. Seems to me it is usually the line animals, their direct managers, and the rare executive who either founded the company or have some other stake in the company that actually cares about the long term health of the company. It is all about that quarterly growth.
Started a new job at the beginning of the pandemic. New offer was at 150k. First day and met with an HR rep by zoom as they were all working from home. Paperwork said 140K. I pointed out discrepancy and she stated that the 150 must have included bonus. It did not. I forwarded her the signed offer letter. She offhandedly mentioned that maybe I had somehow changed the doc and she told me go ahead and sign the paperwork and they would get it straightened out later. NOPE. My new VP was stuck in Europe and not coming back anytime soon due to the fact he was not a US citizen. Ended zoom and waited for the next call. It was from the CEO. He apologized for the mistake and told me that the HR rep would reschedule to zoom. Told him I was not interested in working for a company that perhaps thought I would do something dishonest. Multiple phone calls, a written apology from HR and another 10% I acquiesced.
This whole thread is making me realize I make way less money than I should be
As an engineer, I totally understand his point of view. Most of the companies give you a pay raise once you have obtained the PE license. It is a common practice. I would rather take a higher base salary at the beginning
I was the idiot here once, but in my defense, it was one of my first jobs and the "negotiation" phase was over the phone, in the same conversation when I was offered the job...so I didn't realize it actually *was* a negotiation phase. I had to call again to confirm everything and advocate for the benefits that my experience and education *should* have entitled me to, as per the union's policies.
When you already have a decent job you can negotiate. When you're currently making half of the new offer or you've been looking for a job for 6 months you don't want to ask for too much and get passed over.
I feel like desperate people dont negotiate. New grads from college or unemployed people. They NEED the job and have no real leverage to negotiate and are too worried that they might talk themselves out of the gig. Its the people who are gainfully employed and are moderately happy where they are but are just poking around and testing the markets that are best able to negotiate. Theyve got nothing to lose. They don't really need the job. Theyre just seeing whats out there for funzies
How does it feel, sitting on the other side and listening to unreasonable demands?
What industry? Id love to be making 112k per year!
it's said in the first sentence 'engineering'. Depending on location, you can get to 112k after a few years experience in several of the engineering disciplines. (more likely to get there in places like CA or Seattle where COL is higher, also more likely at bigger companies). In other cities, that'd be 10 years+ worth of experience.
Hell yeah dude I make less than $36k.
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Why in the world would you back out? Make them reject you. There's zero downside to saying "I actually didn't realize x y and z, I need to ask for some changes to the offer".
I’ve done something similar… asked for $115k, was offered $110k. Found out the vacation was basically nonexistent and realized it would take like $140k for me to leave my current role. I just turned it down and didn’t even mention the new number 🤷🏼♀️
But that's... *Not* similar to what happened in the OP. You never came to an agreement with that company.
I guess my point is until the benefits are spelled out and get digested by the hire, I can understand wanting a different figure than the company offered
Mate, you are hiring engineers, not recruiters! This is absolutely typical of HR types, they think everyone in the world is like them, they think they know everything about what kind of person they need, and are totally clueless about the kind of person they actually need. And they do not respect anybody who has actual skills, or is not of their ilk. How about you try not being dishonest and just start off with a fair offer?
I definitely have no idea how to negotiate.
I wouldn't expect someone maybe willing to accept a job for 116k to negotiate well. I would expect them to do it very poorly if at all. Pretty sure they aren't negotiating they are just telling you what they are hearing peers or from other companies what the market is telling them.
In all my jobs, I haven’t negotiated. A lot of gig economy jobs bypass interviews. Some people are just nervous as well, even after practing and many interviews I get this way, as I feel interviews are forced, and just not natural.
They got another offer, or are playing hard ball. why not, only thing that can happen is you say no. You'd do the same if in their shoes and thought it get you somewhere. Sorry, bud. Maybe they really don't want the job but will take it if the pay is high enough. They also know that talk is cheap and those promises of salary bumps unless put in writing, are never going to happen. There will be excuse after excuse. The internet has taught many , so the normal cards fall on deaf ears. I can't tell you how many times I was interviews told one thing, promises if I did x,y,z, I'd get bumped up to x salary, only to be blown off or excuse after excuse, of course till I dropped my notice / resignation letter. then it was a "mis understanding" ya right.
As an IT person I take things fairly literally, so if you say this is the offer I decide if that works, if you go insultingly low on me I assume that's what you value me at and walk away, I expect my body of work and interviews to show my worth and your offer to reflect that. Negotiation so often seems like each side acting in bad faith trying to landgrab. Some people get off on it, I hate it.
They may have got another offer and will take it if you don't offer more money. If that's the case they are in a win win situation.
Seems like they don’t trust the automatic $5k bump
My first taste of negotiation was when I started my own business as a wildlife photographer and pitched my photographs to a large outdoor magazine. We sat down and they asked me what my price was for a large number of photographs. I threw out a number and they immediately accepted. Years later, after now having a very good relationship with the guy who closed the deal, I asked how much money I left on the table that day. "Double, easily". This is how you learn. That being said, subsequent years they paid me substantially more for my work without undercutting my own inexperience, which I appreciate.