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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:You're a freelancer. As someone who semi frequently buys freelance consulting work I would expect you to offer me a price first. Just tell them what they need to pay you, I don't think you have to justify it at all. "For this project, my rate will be $X." If they push back saying that your rate is higher than it was before, you can either try to justify it or you can tell them "well, you know the price and where to find me." Just to be clear, in the past, the way this has gone is I give my rate, they say OK or "Would you do it for this lower rate?", and I either say yes or no. I was considering approaching it as a negotiation, given that I have an established relationship with this company, and had agreed to a lower rate in the past in just such a scenario. Out of curiosity, why do yall think this is so different from salary negotiations? My perspective may be influenced by the fact that I've worked alongside a lot of permalancers that were treated as part of the team.
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Feb 10, 2021 19:56
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Muscle Tracer posted:Out of curiosity, why do yall think this is so different from salary negotiations? My perspective may be influenced by the fact that I've worked alongside a lot of permalancers that were treated as part of the team. You're not an employee and you are not drawing a salary. You are a business entity entering into a contract with another business entity. You bear higher risks and higher costs without the benefits of being an employee.
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Feb 10, 2021 19:59
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You're also doing a defined scope of work for a defined period of time in a way an employee is not.
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Feb 10, 2021 20:00
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You are selling your output as a product, rather than selling your input effort.
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Feb 10, 2021 20:05
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Jordan7hm posted:You're also doing a defined scope of work for a defined period of time in a way an employee is not. KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:You are selling your output as a product, rather than selling your input effort. Yeah it's these two things.
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Feb 10, 2021 20:09
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Muscle Tracer posted:Out of curiosity, why do yall think this is so different from salary negotiations? My perspective may be influenced by the fact that I've worked alongside a lot of permalancers that were treated as part of the team. You kind of address it, but ostensibly freelancing this isn't your only client and you have other customers. Most salaried positions demand enough time to be the employee's only salaried position, so they can't mitigate lovely pay by having some better paying clients and eventually phasing out of working for the worst paying client.
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Feb 10, 2021 20:17
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I'm happy to offer some advice on the rate negotiation separately, though. 1) If I've used you in the past, and your rate is $X, I expect you to either keep that rate. If you have changed your rate, I expect you to tell me what your new rate is. (You should make this rate higher than your other client rates unless you're publishing a rate table) 2) They might accept your new rate. That's great if so. 3) They might not accept your rate. I would strongly encourage you to not negotiate and tell them to go fish. 4) If you do decide to negotiate, I think you give them the one take-it-or-leave-it offer that you find fair. You don't have to justify this. Just say "look in light of prior relationships / your value to me as a client I can do this specific project at rate X"
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Feb 10, 2021 20:32
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:You are selling your output as a product, rather than selling your input effort. This seems like an interesting point, but I still don't see how this (or the other points above) mean that negotiation is impossible or inappropriate. When I was salaried at a large advertising agency, we negotiated the price of our services with our enterprise clients all the time, and often the basis of that, which procurement requested, was the number of hours we'd work and the rates of those positions, which was often a point of negotiation. Was that wrong to do? If not, why is it essential to negotiate as a salaried employee, or as a large service provider, but not as an independent service provider? Not disagreeing, just trying to understand the logic. KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I'm happy to offer some advice on the rate negotiation separately, though. This is useful practical advice, thank you!
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Feb 10, 2021 20:33
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Muscle Tracer posted:Out of curiosity, why do yall think this is so different from salary negotiations?
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Feb 10, 2021 20:34
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Guinness posted:Freelancing/contracting is also somewhat paradoxical in that the higher rates you charge the better customers you tend to get. You have to view a freelancing position as a business-to-business transaction, not a business-to-individual transaction. You are a business and should know what your going rate is. And it should be high out the gate because you can always negotiate it down, but very difficult to negotiate it up.
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Feb 10, 2021 20:36
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Muscle Tracer posted:This seems like an interesting point, but I still don't see how this (or the other points above) mean that negotiation is impossible or inappropriate. When I was salaried at a large advertising agency, we negotiated the price of our services with our enterprise clients all the time, and often the basis of that, which procurement requested, was the number of hours we'd work and the rates of those positions, which was often a point of negotiation. Was that wrong to do? If not, why is it essential to negotiate as a salaried employee, or as a large service provider, but not as an independent service provider? This is somewhat industry dependent, but my (consulting) firm's position is that we work in one of the following ways: 1) You pay a fixed price for a set of deliverables. We set this price. If you want a lower price, that's fine - we'll reduce the scope of deliverables. If you don't like it or don't see the value associated with deliverables, go fish. 2) You demand to see an estimate of hours and rates. As soon as you demand any kind of breakdown, we let you know that we're happy to show estimated hours and rates, but at that point we will only work on a time and materials basis against the published rack rates. Negotiating on anything other than deliverables sucks. If you're going to deliver X, and it will take you 10 hours, why would you let the client talk you down from that? If they think you're highballing them, they can pay you time and materials.
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Feb 10, 2021 20:48
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Muscle Tracer posted:This seems like an interesting point, but I still don't see how this (or the other points above) mean that negotiation is impossible or inappropriate. We're not saying that it is impossible or inappropriate, but it's different. The business relationship is different. The power dynamic is different. The legal basis of the contract is different. The product you are selling is different. If I need to hire a plumber to come replace my shower, I expect to be able to ask them what their rate is. If I balk at it, they have the opportunity to lower it but they probably will tell me to pound sand. As they should. If I were a real estate management company looking to retain a plumber on staff I would approach that differently since the terms of the relationship and expected outcomes are different. KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:This is somewhat industry dependent, but my (consulting) firm's position is that we work in one of the following ways: This is exactly how my consulting firm worked, too. Long-term open-ended T&M contracts are how big companies "hire" people without all the overhead and risk of hiring employees. You can dump contractors on a moment's notice. As a contractor, you price this risk (and higher taxes) in to your rate (2-3x your "salary" rate as a starting point). But you get contractors instead of employees and IMO long-term T&M contractors should in most cases be employees but that's just not the America we live in. Guinness fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Feb 10, 2021 |
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Feb 10, 2021 20:49
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Update, before our discussion could be scheduled or say anything the headhunter apologized for sending incomplete package to me. Only off by about 30,000 usd, no biggie just a goof haha (not funny). Still gonna push for more on the part I saw. Barudak fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Feb 11, 2021 |
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Feb 11, 2021 04:53
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Ugh, what is the best way to figure out what people in my field/title are making in my town? Glassdoor? I need to make an effort post in this thread because I've been getting kind of hosed since I started this job. First job out of school, gave a 10k salary range in interview and got smack dab in the middle offered, just happy to be employed during reviews (especially last year due to covid), just the whole gamut of setting myself up to be taken advantage of. No idea how to negotiate. This thread amazes me and I'm currently reading through it. I am a mechanical engineer by degree (title is Engineer I), and while I do some of that the majority of my job is project management. It's been my track since I started in 2018. My division is extremely small, during covid we shrank from something like 10 to 4. It's my division manager (another mech eng with like, 12ish years of experience), myself, and two CAD designers. There was another engineer there when I got hired, but he had been there for like five years and hadn't risen to chalk, wasn't well liked, and didn't really have the passion for the job. He was let go 8 months after I was hired, and Im pretty sure I was basically a replacement. That was about two years ago, and since then it has been just me and my manager as the only mechanical engineers outside of our PEs (we hired two in January 2020, they were both gone by the end of March. Bad luck there, guys). The point of this is that I have got no reference for what an engineer salary at our company looks like, because my only colleague with my degree is my boss. There are similar companies in the town but...not really? We are local but profitable and the others are regional, national, or multinational. Right now I'm at just under 75k, as hourly. If I put my info into glassdoor with the title of "Engineer", it comes out with a "market value" of 77k, based on something like 80 salaries. "Project Engineer" returns a value of 85k, based on 32 salaries. "Mechanical Engineer" comes in $25 dollars over my current pay (lol) based on like 8,000 salaries. How do I know what the gently caress is reasonable? Is it really just going and getting offers?
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Feb 11, 2021 05:29
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I’m guessing you already looked up your own employer and didn’t find enough information. Try looking up competitors in your area or in cities with a similar cost of living
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Feb 11, 2021 05:39
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PIZZA.BAT posted:I’m guessing you already looked up your own employer and didn’t find enough information. Try looking up competitors in your area or in cities with a similar cost of living Yeah, there is my title and salary, which I should probably take down if I can (lol), and a project manager salary of 104k based on one review. The people with project manager titles are few, none are engineers. Surveyors and inspectors I think? Completely different project types than mine.
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Feb 11, 2021 06:09
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Hello thread, sorry for the phone post, have at me: Worked as a junior buyer for 8 months, was then promoted to buyer. Due to budget crunches and then covid, didn’t get a raise for 2 years, all the while taking on more responsibilities. Was promoted to purchasing supervisor (33% raise) effective start of 2021. My boss, director of supply chain, and super important to the company, retired last week and is starting her own biz. This past week I moved into my bosses old office and assumed her responsibilities, including daily meetings with ceo and DEPT heads, hired a new person, responsible for entire department, etc. it’s been an absolutely crazy week, but I’m up for the thrills as long as I get compensated for it. Our team now reports to the cfo and she’s asked me to take a week to decide if I want the manager position. I can do the job, but my hours worked and stress levels are going to be way up for a long time. I’m going to tell the cfo that I do want the job, and to please write me a formal offer. I expect to be low balled relative to the market, mainly because of my lack of management experience and I can see them having reservations with doubling my salary in 45 days, but that’s probably self doubt. They have one other internal option, but he doesn’t want the role (moved to IT and prefers it). Any tips on how to handle internal promotion offer? I want at least the 33% raise that came with my last promotion, which truthfully wasn’t a huge jump in responsibility. This move definitely would be. If I can’t get a satisfactory offer off the bat, I am considering countering with a 15% raise and 5k salary adjustments for every million in surplus inventory I eliminate (major goal of cfo) or some other performance oriented benchmarks so I have a defined way to work my way into my desired salary. Stretch goal is kickass for a year and ask for director title. Any advice would be much appreciated!
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Feb 11, 2021 06:20
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Guinness posted:When I briefly had to deal with invoicing as a consultant, the customers with $50k invoices never complained and paid right away. The customers with $5k invoices were enormous shitheels about it and I never want to work with them again. Same experience here. Larger clients recognize the value they are getting from the deal, the ROI of the money they are spending and that it's an investment in the future. SMB usually just see a large number and want to squeeze out every little cent they pay. As for negotiation on my hourly rate. My rate is 10-15% above what I'd consider minimum and I'd only lower it if there's something in it for me. Like new technology I'd be hardpressed to get experience with somewhere else, (almost) guaranteed return business or a client with a great name that will vastly improve my resume and results in bigger/better opportunities in the future.
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Feb 11, 2021 13:27
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H1b salary data is also public. In my field it tends a bit lower than normal, probably due to the less advantageous negotiating position https://h1bdata.info/
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Feb 11, 2021 14:52
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Target Practice posted:Ugh, what is the best way to figure out what people in my field/title are making in my town? Glassdoor? https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172141.htm The link to create your own customized tables is really, really powerful and can drill down very deeply if you choose. Glassdoor is also good. It's impossible to be an engineer these days without some project management, in my own (engineering-adjacent) corner of the world.
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Feb 11, 2021 14:57
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Target Practice posted:Ugh, what is the best way to figure out what people in my field/title are making in my town? Glassdoor? The problem with researching engineering salaries is that you tend to have a bunch of different responsibilities lumped together under one roof. A state engineer should have different expectations from a consulting engineer should have different expectations from a research engineer. Throw PEs in the mix and it’s easy to get turned around. Unless you’re living somewhere unusually expensive: For a newish bench engineer you’re making a decent rate. For a project manager (corresponding to “project engineer”), you can probably do better, since that tends to carry more responsibility. That said, if you’re not stamping items that need to be stamped (and in most states that’s literally impossible at your experience level), it’s going to be hard to make an argument for a raise on that basis since they’ve already got you. Cutting to the point: Having been in your situation, I found the salary sites to be pretty unreliable, since most companies do their engineering titling differently and you have no real insight into their staffing needs at a glance. As is usual, if you want to make a pay jump without getting very lucky, you’ve got to start interviewing. If you can effectively present skills to an employer that needs them you should be able to get (read:NEGOTIATE) a salary outside the designated ranges on those sites as long as you’re willing to be patient and walk away from offers that don’t give you what you’re looking for. Depending on your particular niche, a PE may make a big difference.
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Feb 11, 2021 15:13
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Oof. When I left school I wanted to do a PE but after working with them it's kind of lost its lustre. If I was a civil or wanted to do structural I could see the benefit but I don't see a lot of use as a mechanical PE (this might just be my experience). I had this idea since I started that for the first few/several months, I ended up costing the company money, since so much of my time seemed to be billed to training. I was told by my manager that it was okay if I wasn't profitable right away, since I was learning the ropes and got thrown into the deep end. In the interest of being more prepared for my review in June, I got my hands on every single time entry that I've entered since I started through last month. I took my total billed amount, subtracted my gross wage based on total hours worked, and came up with a delta for each month. For reference my bill rate has been 3.3 times my wage since I started, despite my wage increasing by 12.5%. *Now I know there is overhead with running a business and all that poo poo, but I don't have data for how much of the difference between my wage and bill rate goes to business costs, and I cannot imagine I'd ever be able to learn that. That remains an unknown.* What I found is that, using this formula, not only have I never cost the company money, the delta hasn't even ever come close to zero. This shows me consistently profitable for the entire time, even when I was racking up 40-50 hours of training in a month, like when learning a new software or diving into new regulations to scope a project. In fact, for what the company paid out to me in 32 months, I billed that amount in the first 14 months. In 2019, I was told that there just wasn't enough work to justify a raise. In 2020, welp it's covid and we lost like 35% of the company so, I understand that things are lean, I'll wait on that raise sure. Now I don't know if this is a useful data set or anything, maybe not. Maybe that figure is something that seems important but doesn't actually mean anything. Sure kind of makes me feel like I'm getting hosed (I mean besides by the crushing nature of capitalism.) Again, my situation seems very weird and I'd like to detail it because it's probably a good lesson in what not to do re company loyalty and taking it on the chin.
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Feb 12, 2021 03:20
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I'm not saying you do or do not deserve a raise - that's more a question of your work product than your billable rate. I do think some of your calculations and assumptions are a bit naive. Bottom line: You're in professional services. You're not getting (significantly) hosed. My hourly billable rate is about 5x my pre-tax hourly takehome pay. A decent rule of thumb is that overhead burden for a fairly light and small company is approximately equal to your takehome. This includes P&E, taxes, benefits, vacation time, the pay of nonbillable entities (your accounting, payroll, HR, office support, IT, etc) and probably some other poo poo I can't remember. So in order for you to be theoretically profitable you need to be billing 2x your takehome pay. I think you're also calculating on your billable rack rate. There's no guarantee that all of those hours are client billable. I've had associates working for me where I could not morally justify billing all of their hours to a client based on their work output. They of course did not actually see that calculation. edit: what's your application rate based on your calculations?
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Feb 12, 2021 03:32
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Listen to Kyoon. Your company will always charge more for you than they pay you. That’s how this works. My utilization has been 100%+ for the last 4 years despite doing BD and other internal stuff, and my rate is anywhere from 3x-6x my hourly depending on the client. I am making my company money, and yeah this past year with covid I didn’t get compensated properly for it. But. I dunno what part of professional services you’re in or where you are, but literally firm in my neck of the woods is sold out and hiring. We are in a job seeker’s market right now and tons of people are moving around. If you think you can do better elsewhere you’re probably right.
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Feb 12, 2021 03:40
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Jordan7hm posted:I dunno what part of professional services you’re in or where you are, but literally firm in my neck of the woods is sold out and hiring. We are in a job seeker’s market right now and tons of people are moving around. If you think you can do better elsewhere you’re probably right. This is a very good point and a much more positive spin. I kinda got caught up in the math. If you think you're not being fairly compensated, I bet you can go looking and find a new opportunity. But part of my earlier point still stands - you go around looking at your billable rate vs your takehome pay, you're never gonna be happy. It's services - you are the product.
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Feb 12, 2021 03:43
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I'm not saying you do or do not deserve a raise - that's more a question of your work product than your billable rate. I do think some of your calculations and assumptions are a bit naive. Bottom line: You're in professional services. You're not getting (significantly) hosed. My hourly billable rate is about 5x my pre-tax hourly takehome pay. Those billable hours I used are invoiced and paid by the client hours. I am able to differentiate between billable hours that were invoiced and those that were billable but written off. All good points, thank you guys. Yeah, I totally understand about the bill rate vs take home. I'm just trying to understand my previous trajectory in the company. I'm still reading through the thread, it's a lot to take in and it seems like one misstep can totally gently caress you. Target Practice fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Feb 12, 2021 |
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Feb 12, 2021 03:51
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Target Practice posted:Lots of words So you are 2-3 years our of school as a Mech working in consulting of some type (based on bill rate talk), make $75K, have gotten a 12.5% aggregate raise in that time, everyone around you is getting fired, don't like PE's because? they take on a lot more liability and usually make a lot more money, and don't understand that a 3x+ bill rate is normal. If you think you are underpaid go find a new job. You never said where you live but you sound pretty well compensated to me, as an engineering manager.
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Feb 12, 2021 03:55
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spwrozek posted:So you are 2-3 years our of school as a Mech working in consulting of some type (based on bill rate talk), make $75K, have gotten a 12.5% aggregate raise in that time, everyone around you is getting fired, don't like PE's because? they take on a lot more liability and usually make a lot more money, and don't understand that a 3x+ bill rate is normal. Bakersfield, CA. Yeah gently caress I guess you're right. I've been getting more responsibility as a project manager (while being told by my division manager that I'm being used as a Guinea pig to identify gaps in our project management protocols and training). My stress has increased SIGNIFICANTLY and I'm probably just really loving wore out. I don't take enough vacation, I feel imposter-y, and probably just need to get my poo poo handled. I will go through the rest of the thread in preparation for my review, I think the poo poo I'm worried about is probably off topic for the thread, lol.
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Feb 12, 2021 04:07
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There's not much of an opportunity to negotiate at your review unless your duties changed significantly, and frankly if your duties changed significantly the time to negotiate was when they changed before you agreed to do the additional work. Expect a routine non-negotiable step and I probably wouldn't try to negotiate it. If you do, be prepared to piss people off and go job hunt.
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Feb 13, 2021 01:06
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No means gently caress you I'm busy
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Feb 15, 2021 13:26
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No is also just no too. Words get misused all the time. We should start negotiating in binary.
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Feb 15, 2021 13:27
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I feel like there is a story behind the last two posts 
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Feb 15, 2021 13:36
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I couldn't not share this horrible negotiator that thinks he's King poo poo of negotiating as soon as I read it: https://www.askamanager.org/2021/02/when-asked-about-salary-i-say-ill-start-for-x-and-earn-the-rest-through-merit.htmlquote:Here’s what I’ve been doing when it comes to salary negotiation: When asked what I want, I’ll say something like, “I’ll start for $120k/year and earn the rest through merit.” How does that sound to you?
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Feb 16, 2021 20:33
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This is like that King of the Hill episode where Hank his proud of his negotiation skills to where he was always paying sticker* price for his vehicles "and not a penny more!". * Autocorrect tried to make that "sucker price"
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Feb 16, 2021 20:37
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In fairness not only the article that quotes it says this is a bad approach but every comment under it seems to proceed to dunk on the person that submitted it.
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Feb 16, 2021 23:35
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I just love it when a person is so loudly and confidently wrong
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Feb 17, 2021 00:58
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Parallelwoody posted:In fairness not only the article that quotes it says this is a bad approach but every comment under it seems to proceed to dunk on the person that submitted it. I can tell from the tone of that person's letter that they absolutely will not listen to either the author's advice or the comments. It's just oozing of idiot-bravado
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Feb 17, 2021 01:14
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Parallelwoody posted:In fairness not only the article that quotes it says this is a bad approach but every comment under it seems to proceed to dunk on the person that submitted it. Oh yeah I actually think Ask A Manager is a great site. I agree with Alison like 90% of the time. I was just amazed with how smug the OP sounds about his (her?) negotiating when he's 100% wrong. m0therfux0r fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Feb 17, 2021 |
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Feb 17, 2021 02:08
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PIZZA.BAT posted:I can tell from the tone of that person's letter that they absolutely will not listen to either the author's advice or the comments. It's just oozing of idiot-bravado Oh yeah definitely. Lol "I left 30k on the table in my own hypothetical example because I'm so smart I don't even play the game," is a real take, that's for sure.
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Feb 17, 2021 02:26
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im the 2.3% inflation per year
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Feb 17, 2021 02:36
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