Inner Light posted:

Congrats! Is the new gig fintech as well?

Shirec posted:

Event: I start the interview process after a referral from a friend, and eventually get to the offer state.

qsvui posted:

are you really

Shirec posted:

I mainly lurk here and am friends with someone who is a bit more versed in negotiation than I, and figured I could post my success story!

Background: Junior software dev in fintech, Chicago. Doing generally fine, underpaid but not terribly so. Biding my time to a promotion so I could jump ship for more money. Pandemic happens, they cut salaries across the board. I go from 75 to 70k. Start to look immediately.

Event: I start the interview process after a referral from a friend, and eventually get to the offer state. I have been prepping and literally writing scripts for each potential path, with numbers for each one. Have my line in the sand of what is too low to accept. I know I'm not in the strongest negotiating position but I also can keep my current job without being in trouble. They ask for my number, I say that I am sure they will offer fair compensation based on the position, and that I'd be willing to discuss it when they get to the actual offer. They come back with 95k, 29k rsu (vesting over 3 years). This was literally the top of my expectations, but at the top of my script that I had in front of me, it said :

DO NOT REACT AND DO NOT ACCEPT, ASK FOR AT LEAST 10% MORE.

So I did that and the first time ever in my life, I negotiated. I asked for 10% more on the base, which was around 105. They came back a day later with a counter, 100k base and 43k in rsus. For that, I said yes. It was a really powerful experience and I'm gonna be making so dang much more, and way more than I had hoped for in my plans.
Thank you negotiation thread for helping give me a framework

Old - New:
Salary: 70k - 100k
Bonus: 7.5% - 10%
RSUs: 0 - 43k

jaete posted:

Here's a stupid question. I work in software, in London UK, and in my experience recruiters always ask how much you're currently making, pretty early on in the process (usually in the first phone call), and literally won't talk to you any further until you tell them.

I'm not sure if this "never say a number" thing here in this thread is a US centric thing; or if it's just that recruiting agencies are scum and it would be better to apply to each company directly (although in my experience there's not that much difference); or if this is just what the UK is like; or what.

I'm not planning to search for a new job any time soon, but I was wondering how it might go next time. How do I actually tell a recruiter (whether agency or in-company or whatever) "no, I'm not divulging any of my salary history" and still somehow get them to keep talking to me? Like, by now I'm getting to be senior enough that I might be able to just straight up walk away or whatever if they keep insisting, but... that's apparently not how any of these "negotiations" go for any of you people in this thread, is it?

(I've been lucky enough in the past to always find a job that either pays better or is at least much more interesting than the old one. But of course being better at negotiating wouldn't hurt I guess. I suspect that I might have been able squeeze some more money out of some of those previous jobs, by being more bold or something I dunno.)

Dumb Lowtax posted:

Piggybacking on that, I have another company insisting to me that they're one of the special ones where negotiation is literally impossible. This time they're saying it's Hollywood that works this way, rather than the UK.

The only reason I don't find that laughable is that they're claiming it's more about the situation than the industry. In particular, it's a child company that hasn't gotten off the ground yet and is still allocating its initial budget. No one is on payroll yet. The large company with infinite money simply gave this group a large check, and said use it however you want to form an effects studio.

Could they be right? They're not recruiting me directly, only my best friend who's on their initial team is -- it seems like he has less reason to shill for them.

He asked me flat out what my number was and I refused to say, and told him why. He said that the producer is clueless what a niche researcher like me makes, and will ask for how much I cost and if I don't cooperate, that will be the end of the call. The producer will NOT be bothered to look into market rates of my specialty because they've never hired that sort of researcher before and likely won't again. The parent company will not help him figure it out either; they're fully on their own. The quickly-assembled studio industry just works this way, he says.

Do new studio projects really work much more like such a bidding process, where everybody states their worth or nothing gets done?

More generally, is the advice of this thread appropriate for a new company, where the person hiring me isn't even on payroll yet?

Space Gopher posted:

So, if you divide your target pre-tax W-2 salary by 2,000, you should get an estimate of your W-2 hourly rate. Multiply that by two and you get a reasonable baseline 1099 contracting wage. Or, you can just shortcut it and divide your salary by 1,000 to start with.

Dumb Lowtax posted:

Now the question becomes, do I want to put up a job in Hollywood if the norm there is "put everyone in a shell company on 1099's"? That will depend.

If it IS an 1099, does the "rule of 1000" apply?


The classic rule makes it sound like being in a 1099 means I would ask for TWICE as much than if I wasn't.

Does that only apply when comparing it to part time/W2, or does it when comparing to full time/salary too? If a 1099 job offer says they pay $200k should I act as though it's really only offering $100k? Or is the difference vs. salaries much less extreme?

Dumb Lowtax posted:

Now the question becomes, do I want to put up a job in Hollywood if the norm there is "put everyone in a shell company on 1099's"? That will depend.

If it IS an 1099, does the "rule of 1000" apply?


The classic rule makes it sound like being in a 1099 means I would ask for TWICE as much than if I wasn't.

Does that only apply when comparing it to part time/W2, or does it when comparing to full time/salary too? If a 1099 job offer says they pay $200k should I act as though it's really only offering $100k? Or is the difference vs. salaries much less extreme?

Dumb Lowtax posted:

RC Cola posted:

This is RC Cola's wife.

My parent company is looking to promote me from my current position of Assistant Director of Nursing to Director of Nursing at one of our other locations. I currently live in Denver and have second interviews for positions near Seattle and LA.

The company near LA asked me to have a number in mind for the second interview. How do you go about not saying a number when they say that to you? The cost of living around LA is higher than Denver or Seattle, is that something I should bring up to them? When do you ask about relocation money in the negotiation process?

Dik Hz posted:

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Dumb Lowtax posted:

Whoa this is awesome, how do I use it? If I want to know how much my research field makes in industry in a certain city

Dik Hz posted:

I don't know gently caress-all about your industry, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that healthcare managers in LA make a median wage of $125,080 as of May, 2019. 75th percentile is $163,590, and 90th percentile is $203,820. They're not moving you from Denver because you're below average.

quote:

Con your way through an interview (even technical):

• Step 1: Before the interview conversation gets deep into questions, insist on doing introductions. Briefly prattle off some (pre-scripted) narrative about why you're a good fit. Whatever it is you'd like for them to buy into. Sounding professional here is more important than details. It will come into play later.
  
  
• Step 2: Let them do their questions. Answer the ones that you know you can answer well. Play off the ones that you can't... ah, you see, my skillset just has a slightly different emphasis, or I've been out of the mindset for a couple months.... and without spending any time, rapidly move on. Here's the important part: As each question comes, waste interview time on things that are not answering them. Stall by asking THEM a question in between each question, just for getting to know each other better. Normally these go at the end of an interview, but pepper them between as if you just thought of them--they'll likely be polite enough to answer. In reality, you have a never-ending pre-made list of them. Make sure they're good questions about their workplace that they would love to say a whole lot of words about. Most people will beam about what it is they do on the job. Keep them talking instead of you.
  
  
• Step 3: Now, you've wasted most of the time allocated for the interview. Time for the payoff. Ask one final question. As the conversation winds down, they'll usually ask if you have one. In my case, the lead interviewer was even "glad" that I had already peppered many of my questions throughout, since we were now short on time!
  
  Your parting question to them is this: "Are there any hesitations about hiring me that remain? I can address them while we're all here". Of course, the problem is, insufficient information has been exchanged so far. Either they'll tell you some flaw in the narrative you gave early on (that you can fix next time), or something better will happen. Because actually, this question takes them way off guard--just a moment ago they were planning on not having to face you personally while making these judgements! If shyness wins, they'll either answer no (so you must be a good match), or better yet, you're a good match and here's why you must be--reciting back your own narrative about why you're a good fit (hardly much else substantial has been said so far to draw from!). The magic of this trick is that everyone on the call (or in the room) who is interviewing you now hears everyone else saying or implying out loud that you're a good match, as though it's confirmed truth, because there wasn't time for any evidence to the contrary. They hear it from their own respected peers. I didn't even know that there would be this social dynamic to it, until it already was underway to my astonishment. Once they exit the interview (or hang up) they get a while to individually e-mail their decisions back to the leader... but by then all they'll remember is hearing from all of their peers, who they trust more than they'd trust some stranger's word anyway, that you're a good match for the position. Qualified or not, you're in.
  

quote:

Con your way through negotiations:

Of course the rule of thumb is to never give your number first, no matter how hard they press, but how does one decline politely in practice? Well, think of it this way: It's simply never time YET to give them a number.

• You always have a fair argument to delay blunt questions about your salary if you still don't yet have an offer in hand. Ask them to finish interviewing you. If they don't know if they want you yet because they haven't finished interviewing, how can they possibly guess how much you're worth to them? How much revenue you'd bring to the company per year? If they'd rather force you to say a number before even interviewing to find out how good of a match you are, then they're clowns and you should move on, as there are plenty of non-clowns hiring.
  
  
• Even once you have an offer in hand, you can keep stalling without giving your own number. There's always a reason... maybe you haven't yet checked into your market value in that city yet. Or later, maybe you'd need all the details of their compensation package in front of you first for a fair comparison to the salary part of it.
  
  
• Stall and stonewall through their most indignant insistence that you're doing it wrong for that industry. Or just politely act shy and indecisive, like it's your personality. Frustrate them with your stubbornness if you have to--because at this point you DO have an offer in hand, they DID (through expending a lot of energy) find out that you're a candidate they'd like to move forward with, and now they don't want to blow it up over something petty. Eventually they'll relent and name a number.
  

In one case for me it was pretty extreme, 100k higher than I would have said, because I did not know the particular industry yet nor how wasteful it tends to be with funds, and they didn't know my market value either because I was applying for a specialty they don't usually hire for.

Dumb Lowtax posted:

Con your way through an interview (even technical):

Step 1: Before the interview conversation gets deep into questions, insist on doing introductions. Briefly prattle off some (pre-scripted) narrative about why you're a good fit. Whatever it is you'd like for them to buy into. Sounding professional here is more important than details. It will come into play later.

Step 2: Let them do their questions. Answer the ones that you know you can answer well. Play off the ones that you can't... ah, you see, my skillset just has a slightly different emphasis, or I've been out of the mindset for a couple months.... and without spending any time, rapidly move on. Here's the important part: As each question comes, waste interview time on things that are not answering them. Stall by asking THEM a question in between each question, just for getting to know each other better. Normally these go at the end of an interview, but pepper them between as if you just thought of them--they'll likely be polite enough to answer. In reality, you have a never-ending pre-made list of them. Make sure they're good questions about their workplace that they would love to say a whole lot of words about. Most people will beam about what it is they do on the job. Keep them talking instead of you.

Step 3: Now, you've wasted most of the time allocated for the interview. Time for the payoff. Ask one final question. As the conversation winds down, they'll usually ask if you have one. In my case, the lead interviewer was even "glad" that I had already peppered many of my questions throughout, since we were now short on time!

Your parting question to them is this: "Are there any hesitations about hiring me that remain? I can address them while we're all here". Of course, the problem is, insufficient information has been exchanged so far. Either they'll tell you some flaw in the narrative you gave early on (that you can fix next time), or something better will happen. Because actually, this question takes them way off guard--just a moment ago they were planning on not having to face you personally while making these judgements! If shyness wins, they'll either answer no (so you must be a good match), or better yet, you're a good match and here's why you must be--reciting back your own narrative about why you're a good fit (hardly much else substantial has been said so far to draw from!). The magic of this trick is that everyone on the call (or in the room) who is interviewing you now hears everyone else saying or implying out loud that you're a good match, as though it's confirmed truth, because there wasn't time for any evidence to the contrary. They hear it from their own respected peers. I didn't even know that there would be this social dynamic to it, until it already was underway to my astonishment. Once they exit the interview (or hang up) they get a while to individually e-mail their decisions back to the leader... but by then all they'll remember is hearing from all of their peers, who they trust more than they'd trust some stranger's word anyway, that you're a good match for the position. Qualified or not, you're in.

Dumb Lowtax posted:

Just be subtle about it! At minimum, allocate less time to the interview questions they'd remember that you struggled on, and more time on the parts where you sell yourself. Do use that final question; it came straight from this thread it worked.

Dumb Lowtax posted:

Just be subtle about it! At minimum, allocate less time to the interview questions they'd remember that you struggled on, and more time on the parts where you sell yourself.