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Echoing the point about applying for whatever. Many senior jobs do not need specific technical skills as much as they need qualities such as emotional maturity, courage, integrity and good judgement. With that in mind I’d like to talk a bit about what a person can do to be considered for very senior executive roles, because I was moved into one this year, reporting direct to the CFO of a very large tech company, and it’s given me a new perspective on a lot of this. My main job is to plan out and negotiate our commercial contracts with other gigantic companies. It’s pretty fun. 1. Network! Network network network. The most leverage you can possibly have for a compensation negotiation with someone is that they (or their boss) want you, specifically, for the role. I got recommended for my current role by someone who was a client 10 years ago when I was an attorney, who formed a good impression of me at the time. A few years later I took a couple days after a business trip to go over to his city to say hi to him and grab dinner. It only took 2-3 interactions over about 10 years to keep the link there, and then when he was VP at this company and heard the CFO was hiring, I got a call. This is also an argument for not half-assing even junior or miserable jobs if there’s anyone around who might remember you being good later on. 2. **Once you can afford to**, prioritise doing interesting work that builds your CV over incremental pay. I took one major pay cut to get out of law and into corporatedom and later swapped out some base for commission to take a risky sales role so that I had some sales experience. That mix was what made the guy from point 1 think of me for the role. I think there’s a tendency in particular for younger people to prefer to specialise more, but having cross-functional skills, particularly unusual ones, is actually quite rare and saleable. 3. For negotiating my package, I did the following: (1) figure out my “bullshit high” number and my actual bottom line in advance; (2) be aware of my BATNA (continue in a job I didn’t much like but where I was paid adequately and was doing new things); (3) come up with a justification for the bullshit high figure. The one I used was something like “if I stayed in professional services I’d be earning X, it’s all lockstep and publicly known”, but I believe the actual justification is irrelevant, only that you have one. They then countered with a number that was south of my bullshit high number but way north of my actual bottom line and I said yes on the spot. Hello >50% pay raise (sth like 200% if you include the options package). At this point I’m ahead of where I would have been if I had soldiered on as a lawyer and made partner. 4. Ignore titles and focus on substance. I asked for a director level title and HR offered something like senior manager. When I found out I would be reporting to the C-suite directly and the actual job sounded cool and interesting I just asked them to give me the title I wanted as an external one; I was later given a ten-person team and asked to prepare an org chart stating what extra resources I would need. I think I’m still on the system as a senior manager. Since it doesn’t seem to affect my actual pay or standing (that comes from substantive things, IE the CFO’s public confidence in me and my reputation with the VPs), I don’t feel this was all that important. 5. Practice chill and be willing to take calculated risks. The onboarding process took ages and the contract I was given was terribly drafted. I signed it anyway and have done very well out of it. In similar circumstances, years ago, I agreed to be brought in as a consultant with no employment security for the first few months, as the company had a hiring freeze. In both cases the company could have screwed me; in both cases I judged it wasn’t worth their while to and focused on what they would actually care about, and with the actual hiring managers I benefited a bit from the halo effect due to making their lives that bit easier. Use your judgment for this but in my view the more senior you get, the more you benefit from demonstrating calm and good judgment; minimising friction during negotiations (note this is not the same as not asking for things) and cautiously extending trust is part of this. Except for HR and I suppose small business owners, I’ve met very few people who don’t naturally want to reward good performers well. The trick is understanding what they think constitutes good performance.
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Jul 21, 2019 07:29
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As I said, it’s a risk, and not one to be taken without very careful consideration. My point is really that sometimes it is worth taking those risks, so long as you know what you are doing. Not suggesting that people just “YOLO!!!” rush into cowboy contracts. E: Also I’ve worked for the kind of person you are talking about and they absolutely suck. In my last (sales) job I insisted on getting everything in writing because I didn’t trust the woman I was working for any further than I could throw her. That doesn’t change my personal experience that people like her are less common than ok people. Beefeater1980 fucked around with this message at 13:51 on Jul 21, 2019 |
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Jul 21, 2019 13:47
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Eric the Mauve posted:Also: who cares? Losing you is their problem. They had their chance. gently caress ‘em. This, so much. If they had done enough, you wouldn’t have been open to an approach.
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Sep 10, 2019 08:49
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Vox Nihili posted:Wait a minute, you were issued options at a strike price of $0.10 per share when your company's common stock was valued at $1.00 per share??? Is there a problem with that in the US, perhaps tax related? Because it’s fine here, but I know we issue RSUs to our American colleagues.
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Sep 25, 2019 03:18
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With verbal offers send an IMMEDIATE email back to them with all key terms and asking them to let you know if anything is NOT correct. May as well prepare yourself for the inevitable litigation, after all. E: if you’re done negotiating and already accepting, then state that you’re accepting too.
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Oct 1, 2019 19:59
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I like bargaining for advantage and getting to yes a lot. I may have mentioned before in this thread but my favourite negotiation game was when we split the group into pairs (these were lawyers so the premise was they were negotiating on behalf of clients). All but one pair had a genuine negotiation scenario like the ones mentions above. The last pair, one of them had a genuine list of issues and the other one just had a slip of paper saying “Say no to everything, explain nothing and don’t blame the client.” Why yes, it was based on a real scenario.
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Oct 10, 2019 17:57
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Asking for too much is very rarely wrong. I was once contacted by a recruiter to move to a job in Saudi, which is somewhere I would absolutely hate to go. I told her I wouldn’t even think of it for less than 500k USD base salary, which was my “make up a ridiculous number” at the time (by memory, about 2.2-2.5x what I was then on as a mid level lawyer). Killed that offer but apparently it caused the hiring manager to go back and ask for more first, and the same recruiter suddenly started finding me more senior roles with a much higher base. That in turn gave me a much better batna when I eventually did move. I had a drink with her a few months later and she outright told me that the high ask made her think I was suited for more senior jobs. It’s weird what affects people’s opinions.
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Oct 11, 2019 20:10
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I’ve never seen it all that strictly applied but many places do at least claim to have one.
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Oct 12, 2019 00:00
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Dwight Eisenhower posted:I think a new kid makes any marriage run on fumes because babies loving suck. This is true. The first big divorce spike is in the 6 months after a couple’s first child is born IIRC. This is consistent with reality (source: have 2 kids). It’s not representative of life after.
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Oct 17, 2019 18:04
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I’m not handling negotiations so much now because I moved to a pure P&L ownership role, but I had a typical case pop up the other day that a colleague asked me to look at, and I’m sharing a few details in case it’s of interest. One of our suppliers is doing an acceptably good job for us, at an acceptable rate. As we expand into new cities, one of their competitors has won some of our business from our local managers by offering us a much better rate. Service levels appear so far to be equivalent. The nature of the goods being supplied is not such that we need to pick just one supplier. We believe we are a material customer of the first supplier, but not the second. It’s coming up to time to review our contract with the first supplier. I would normally advise my colleagues to try to keep a friendly relationship with, and give business to, both suppliers so as to promote competition going forwards. I would also suggest them to push for better terms from the first on renewal to bring them into line with market. Obviously assume that we have done our homework on both suppliers and understand the assumptions that they have about how much business we will give them etc. My question: has anyone here had a different approach to a similar situation (eg, seek to extract even better terms by picking just one supplier)? To me it seems like you would always have less leverage and get a worse deal that way, but maybe it’s sometimes worth it?
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Jan 15, 2020 22:43
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Dik Hz posted:The drop in compensation will haunt you for the rest of your employment at that place. Don't do it. People who make less are perceived as being less valuable, and that bias persists. Only time to even consider a drop in an element of compensation is if the overall package is larger (for example by having a new variable component).
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Feb 28, 2020 17:46
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:do not open range conversations imo it benefits you a lot less than it benefits them Agree. If you don’t have one, as said above then current salary x1.5-2 is a good reply to most speculative enquiries about expectations. Don’t worry about pricing yourself out; all you’re really communicating is “upper end of whatever range you have, but I’m tactful enough not to say so directly”. Any employer that doesn’t take that well is not a good employer to work for.
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Mar 23, 2020 12:51
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As time goes on I’m ever more convinced that a human being’s ability to negotiate a raise at their current employer is neutral or helped by perceived flight risk. Or rather, it’s a composite of: - how scared is someone (a single identifiable person) that you leaving will make their life worse; - how capable is that person of spending the company’s money to stop their life being made worse; and - how much does that person trust that you won’t embarrass them by leaving anyway (this is where loyalty / human connection has an impact and is probably the source of the flight risk thing)? HR are probably the only people who could have a well informed view on whether or not you are long term going to stick with the firm, but outside of harassment and theft HR doesn’t fire people: it processes other departments firing people.
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Aug 12, 2020 19:56
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Dik Hz posted:Threatening to pull an offer. Artificial time pressure. Talking down to someone for attempting to negotiate. A shift in mood during the interview from collaborative to adversarial when salary is brought up. Praising people who took the offer/bad-mouthing people who negotiate. Gossiping behind people's backs about negotiating/not being grateful. A couple jobs back I had a sales director colleague who used to bitch to me about incoming candidates wanting various things - high salaries, benefits, flexible working and so on. It always dumbfounded me. What the gently caress were they supposed to want?
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Jan 24, 2021 14:54
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spwrozek posted:Yeah I got 10K to move just me in 2011 for a mid level engineering job from Michigan to Colorado (single, no house, easy move). I would probably want at least 2X that to move to another country. Envious of you guys and your humane relocation packages. I work for an Asian company and our barebones expense policy means we reimburse a one way economy ticket (regardless of distance) and two weeks in a budget hotel.
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Mar 3, 2021 11:48
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My generic response now to questions about current comp is that it’s subject to a confidentiality agreement but the elements are base plus bonus or whatever, with no numbers. For expected comp it’s “in line with my experience and the responsibilities of the role” and if I know what they are likely to put on the table and they ask for more detail, elements I want in (bonus, options etc). If it’s in person and they’re really persistent, I sometimes deflect “expectations” questions with an anchor that’s way above what they could possibly offer, and then undercut immediately by acknowledging that’s not realistic. EG “it would be amazing if you paid me SUM=(max_say_yes_immediately_num * 3) as base salary but really I expect compensation to be appropriate to my experience and the scope of the role” or something like that. Ultimately what matters is having a very clear idea of (1) your real bottom line below which it’s an auto no; and (2) your “this is amazing, say yes before the opportunity vanishes” number (although this should usually ring a warning bell that you need to be sure you really want the job and have done your due diligence, since if they have to pay over the odds for it there’s always a reason), and if the number is not above (2), then having the mental fortitude to say “no” or at least “not unless you pay me Y”.
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Mar 7, 2021 16:45
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Well, this is interesting. I’m being asked to move countries to one with a much higher tax rate, not being tax adjusted and getting my (frankly absurdly high; they’re not lying when they say the other department heads would be pissed off if they knew) salary rebased down in line with my actual title, off the back of a bruising 2020 review. The only upside is keeping my unvested options (which for various reasons do have actual value). The next tranche vests...soon. I have a plan for dealing with this. Will know by Monday if it worked or if I have an exciting new career in menial labour. Either way there should be interesting negotiation thoughts to share for anyone else in the scenario “I’m not underpaid, but nobody else is paid to care about my contribution”.
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Apr 30, 2021 03:18
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Jordan7hm posted:The addition of gender and race makes this actually interesting. Business consulting senior manager making 98k is eyebrow raising. Haha I saw that one too and was like “the gently caress?”
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May 6, 2021 04:42
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Having just come through a very nasty situation (end of fixed term multi year contract, offered permanent role in dead end role with pay cut, nobody else hiring), some thoughts on how to navigate job reverses and come out ahead. 1. Be VERY clear on your priorities. Mine were, in descending order (1) stay employed; (2) stay in current job long enough to collect some specific, valuable benefits (which in a magnificent gently caress you move were due to vest exactly one day after the end of my fixed term contract); (3) avoid being bound by new contract while I see if there is anything else. 2. Ruthlessly suppress your ego. Did it feel like poo poo to thank my employer for offering me a demotion and a pay cut? Yup. Did I do it anyway? Yup. How? I spent ages telling myself all the good points (get paid, still a prestigious job, interesting work) until I believed them, and didn’t stop until I signed with the new place. 3. Know the players and their priorities. Broadly I had my boss, a former work peer who didn’t want me to be a contender for his job but did want me to stick around and do mine, and HR, who just wanted an easy life. My boss wasn’t going to chase me down to sign paperwork so long as the big stuff was going well (which it was). HR wouldn’t make independent decisions about my new contract. I sent them a lot of small comments and questions on the contract at appropriate intervals. Not my fault if they were so slow to approve them that I ended up still working and being asked to do stuff without a contract in force. 4. Control your emotional state. Until I had the draft contract from HR I wasn’t sure if they would honor the new deal. Once I had it I was relaxed and could actually negotiate other opportunities without the pressure of worrying what happens next. 5. Strategically put yourself in a vulnerable position. This has to be used really carefully but can be very powerful. Basically, a key problem in negotiations with someone new (in my case my new employer) is usually trust. If you are dealing with someone who you are confident is basically trustworthy but doesn’t know if you are, ask for everything you want except security - let them control the timetable and build in some get outs for them so they don’t have to worry that you are trying to con them into signing something fast. Once you trust each other, those issues can then fall away and you can get the deal you wanted and the security too, without anyone being worse off. (NOTE: trust is something that is only capable of existing in relation to individuals. Don’t ever do this with someone who doesn’t need to value the relationship going forward EG an HR person at a corporate). End result was that I got what I wanted even if it was utterly terrifying for a long period. Found another role with a 10% raise on base plus a very chunky equity component, am leaving on good terms after getting paid a bonus for working an extra period (which counts as continuous thus letting me get my vesting) and never got bound by the new contract. I mean I probably aged 10 years in the past six weeks but totally worth it. E: one final point that people have mentioned before but that it’s easy to forget when you’re getting started: you’re always negotiating with a specific individual; the person who can say “yes” to whatever it is that you want. If that’s not the person sitting opposite you then you are not negotiating. Conversations with HR are almost never negotiations. Beefeater1980 fucked around with this message at 06:17 on May 11, 2021 |
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May 11, 2021 06:09
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After a year or so of making ends meet through consulting and trying to get a new business off the ground that folded, it’s back to regular work to get enough capital for another run at it in a few years’ time. This was hard! Being a bit older (just turned 41), last job being senior and having had a career with lots of different roles made it really goddamn difficult to get an interview anywhere. But it made the actual interviews a lot easier. Takeaways from geriatric job-seeking: * Once you have had more than one or two jobs, you can control the framing of your work history in the interview by giving people an overview on your terms. Then you only have to answer questions on stuff that actually matters to them instead of filling in blanks. * A lot of people seem to like asking about things that went wrong or that you regret from former jobs, so have a couple of those lined up. * I’ve had good reactions a few times now to “is there anything that you still have concerns about?” as a closing question. * When the offer came in I lined up a call with the hiring manager to negotiate compensation, rather than communicating it via HR like when I was a dumb child. Offer came in quick, counter-offered at 10% higher and ended up 8% higher. Always negotiate even when your alternative is no job.
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May 2, 2022 16:44
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What worked for me a few weeks ago was to set up a call with the hiring manager after receiving news that they would make an offer and open with “I want to talk about 3 things: compensation, X and Y”, where X and Y are things I would need to know about to do the job well. Contextually, I knew from outside sources their internal range for the role in advance and knew that their initial offer was at the top of their approved range. Then when as expected the manager said “let’s talk about comp first”, I used approximately this phrasing: “It’s light compared to my expectations. If you could raise it to N (my big win number) I could accept it right now. More than you offered now but less than N, I’d have to think about it. If there’s no movement I would have to think very hard about it and it might not work.” They came back close to N, which was fine (I would as it happens have said yes even with no uplift). I use this approach because it’s non-threatening and makes it low stakes for the manager to give me information, but it does sacrifice some strength of position for affability and friendliness so it’s not the right approach if you’re genuinely willing to walk away (eg if you have a competing offer) and are focused on extracting maximum value.
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May 6, 2022 07:40
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Eric the Mauve posted:It's pennywise/poundfoolish to not want to pay for background checks on everyone before you interview them, but at the very least you could hand the stack of approved-for-interview resumes to an intern and say "hey, make some calls and make sure all these people actually have the degree they say they do and worked at the places they say they worked" Isn’t it all outsourced these days? I’ve shamefully returned to law firm life and my new employer just threw the background checks at some idiot company that made me fill in everything online and then expected me to do the chasing of former employers myself. It’s incredible laziness.
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Jun 20, 2022 16:00
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My most recent background check involved the verification company asking “would you rehire this person?”; I think it can be assumed to be part of all rigorous checks going forward. That being said, there is definitely litigation risk for anyone who answers “no” to that question so in most cases I wouldn’t expect it to be a problem. E: I am willing to believe that many small business owners do not know this and are quite willing to talk poo poo about ex employees. This is unwise.
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Jul 18, 2022 14:48
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Eric the Mauve posted:
Yeah this is nuts. Sales is HARD which is why it (usually) is heavily incented by commissions.
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Aug 3, 2022 02:47
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E: wrong thread. Beefeater1980 fucked around with this message at 10:41 on Feb 7, 2023 |
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Feb 7, 2023 07:42
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Has anyone else had to deal with provisional offers that are subject to internal approval? My thoughts, having just been through a process that went that way (we ended on a good number): * it’s an invitation to negotiate against yourself. The company ain’t gonna raise that number unless you ask and keep asking. * it slows the process by a week or two. You’ll want to spend the time working on other offers / projects to keep your mind off it and avoid the temptation to chase. * it’s more likely to be driven by internal HR bullshit than an actual attempt at bait and switch, even if it feels like that. * you will probably have to say “no” at least once to get the original offer. This feels like a bit of a waste of time but whatever.
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Mar 2, 2023 16:41
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Is it wrong for HR to screen out candidates with lateral thinking skills? Is it wrong to ensure that the new Chief People Officer is a B or C tier candidate with a box ticking mentality? I leave these complicated questions in the capable hands of the new Chief People Officer.
Beefeater1980 fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Mar 7, 2023 |
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Mar 7, 2023 01:52
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Assume you have just joined a company very recently (couple of weeks, say) as a senior IC. Comp was above your bottom line but not much. Assume you’re very quickly assigned a much broader role with a team to manage. Then after you outline your plans for the team the VP says ok, now add a couple more teams. This is cool and interesting work but now also very gruelling. You have a probationary period during which it is easy to quit with no notice (or be fired!) - this is not a US market and a real notice period will apply after that ends. It seems like coming up to end of probation would be a natural point to renegotiate your package, aiming for an out-of-cycle adjustment. If this is right, how would you approach it?
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May 24, 2023 03:39
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Thanks @lockback @arquinsiel @leper khan. On reflection my BATNA isn’t strong enough at this stage so this is sadly a goodwill / begging situation rather than a true negotiation. As always, look for an opportunity to change that is probably the way forward.
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May 25, 2023 06:01
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I work in an organisation that pays quite significantly different amounts in different countries. Which is fine, everyone knows the rules. About a month ago I had this conversation. HR: Hey, would you be happy to move to country X (40% pay cut after tax)? Your team mostly work there so it would be really convenient. Me: Hey! No. Thanks! HR: Why not? Me: I don’t have to give a reason. The answer is no. HR: OK. So that’s a maybe? Me: It’s a no. HR: OK. Me: When I joined I was actually partly induced to sign by the promise that you would move me to country Y (25% pay raise after tax). HR: So you want to move to Y? Me: Nope. I like being here and my family is here and it will be a massive pain to move anywhere else. But if you insist on me moving there you have to pay me the uplift. HR: OK. It struck me as a very pointless conversation. But why on earth would HR think it was a good idea to float a move I was obviously going to say no to? There’s no business pressure to move and I would have to have been an idiot to agree.
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Jul 21, 2023 14:15
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The business does still want me to move to country Y at some point. I’m not keen and I don’t want HR claiming that I requested the move. E: I mentioned it at all because of the sheer absurdity of having the same individual in HR trying to induce me to join one day by waving the comp uplift for country Y and then turning around the moment I’m through the door and Just Asking Questions about how I would feel about relocating to country X. It doesn’t seem to be a real request and has now disappeared, but it was an odd conversation. Beefeater1980 fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Jul 22, 2023 |
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Jul 22, 2023 01:03
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We require 2 “overachieving” or 1 “holy poo poo this person is good” ratings before we can promote someone, and then it’s subject to running the gauntlet of the people who didn’t get the promotion and the candidate’s new peers. It’s pretty brutal! But I think it’s well designed. E: structurally it obviously still is way harder than being hired into a senior role as an outsider, but since that’s how I got in, glass houses, stones.
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Aug 31, 2023 16:50
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Arquinsiel posted:How often are you running your review process so that people can get those ratings? Twice annually
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Sep 1, 2023 00:29
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I have been hiring permanently since joining my new role. Last year I hired a team of 5 up to 8, then once I filled my headcount I was given another set of problems to fix and told to hire a larger team to go fix it. I’m now being threatened with another set of interesting(tm) problems to fix. As a result, in the past few months I have done somewhere between sixty and eighty interviews as hiring manager. Here’s some stuff you can do if you’re applying for a role with someone like me to make it more likely they will go fight HR if necessary to get more resources to hire you. * Ask good questions during the interview. Be interested in the role. Curiosity is an extremely strong indicator of a good hire. * Have some cool or interesting insight about our business. At a minimum, know what we do and who our main competitors are. * Know your domain well, be able to answer technical questions. * Give concrete examples as much as possible. Lots of people can BS convincingly, but fall apart when you ask them to give examples * Push back if you disagree with something and think you can back yourself. * Ask for a second interview with me after receiving but before accepting your offer. One candidate did this and had such great questions I was impressed. There’s a limit to how much a hiring manager can actually achieve by tussling with HR, but the expected outcome isn’t zero.
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Apr 18, 2024 18:30
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