<story><title>Ten Commandments of Salary Negotiation</title><url>https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/negotiating-comp</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>The real problem with these guides is that they always assume the hiring manager is 100% adversarial and will be using everything in their power to minimize your salary.&lt;p&gt;Some companies definitely operate that way, but as a hiring manager I have a lot of incentives to hire and retain good employees. If I&amp;#x27;m constantly low-balling every candidate and squeezing the lowest possible salary out of them, I&amp;#x27;m also going to be constantly losing my best people when they realize they&amp;#x27;re underpaid in 6 months. Then I have to go out and recruit, hire, and re-train someone else.&lt;p&gt;It depends on the company, of course, but many hiring managers are more than happy to carve out as much compensation as they can get away with for new hires. It improves team morale, decreases team turnover, and gives the hiring manager additional leverage over highly paid employees who know they can&amp;#x27;t just walk out the door into a higher salary somewhere else.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, most candidates these days have been taught (by guides like this and other internet wisdom) that salary negotiation must be played like an ultra-competitive game where the first move is to always force the company to name their price first. Hiring managers aren&amp;#x27;t dumb and we do this all the time, so whenever a candidate starts reciting hardball negotiation playbooks I just start with an offer that&amp;#x27;s 5-10% lower than what I think we&amp;#x27;ll end up with. The candidate then comes back and demands something 5-10% higher and we settle back at the number I had in mind anyway.&lt;p&gt;In the odd event that the candidate &lt;i&gt;doesn&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; negotiate back up after forcing me to go first, I just throw the extra money into the offer anyway. Employees are even happier to see that I&amp;#x27;ve come up on my initial offer, which is a great way to start the relationship.&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, when some candidates come in demanding multiple months of delays while they collect competing offers and want to go through endless rounds of re-negotiation even after we&amp;#x27;ve agreed on a number, I just cut them loose and wish them luck on their career search. Unless you&amp;#x27;re a FAANG hiring many people at once, it doesn&amp;#x27;t make sense to play endless games with candidates who are going to end up at a FAANG anyway.</text></item><item><author>WalterBright</author><text>&amp;gt; Why can’t you just tell me how much it’ll be, and then we can move on?&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, why don&amp;#x27;t you just tell them the lowest number you&amp;#x27;ll accept?&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Well, the reason we have to play this game is because, like it or not, everyone else is playing it.&lt;p&gt;The real reason is it is completely unworkable to require a best offer from one side and not the other side.&lt;p&gt;Negotiation is central and inevitable to life with more than one person. Negotiating also means giving up things you don&amp;#x27;t value for things that you do value - making for much better allocation of resources.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vaporary</author><text>&amp;gt; Unfortunately, most candidates these days have been taught (by guides like this and other internet wisdom) that salary negotiation must be played like an ultra-competitive game where the first move is to always force the company to name their price first&lt;p&gt;I have to say, it hardly seems to me like an applicant asking a potential employer to name a figure first is an ultra-competitive hard-core tactic.&lt;p&gt;May I ask if you&amp;#x27;re located in California?  If so, how do you deal with AB 168, which requires companies to disclose salary ranges upon request?</text></comment>
<story><title>Ten Commandments of Salary Negotiation</title><url>https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/negotiating-comp</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>The real problem with these guides is that they always assume the hiring manager is 100% adversarial and will be using everything in their power to minimize your salary.&lt;p&gt;Some companies definitely operate that way, but as a hiring manager I have a lot of incentives to hire and retain good employees. If I&amp;#x27;m constantly low-balling every candidate and squeezing the lowest possible salary out of them, I&amp;#x27;m also going to be constantly losing my best people when they realize they&amp;#x27;re underpaid in 6 months. Then I have to go out and recruit, hire, and re-train someone else.&lt;p&gt;It depends on the company, of course, but many hiring managers are more than happy to carve out as much compensation as they can get away with for new hires. It improves team morale, decreases team turnover, and gives the hiring manager additional leverage over highly paid employees who know they can&amp;#x27;t just walk out the door into a higher salary somewhere else.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, most candidates these days have been taught (by guides like this and other internet wisdom) that salary negotiation must be played like an ultra-competitive game where the first move is to always force the company to name their price first. Hiring managers aren&amp;#x27;t dumb and we do this all the time, so whenever a candidate starts reciting hardball negotiation playbooks I just start with an offer that&amp;#x27;s 5-10% lower than what I think we&amp;#x27;ll end up with. The candidate then comes back and demands something 5-10% higher and we settle back at the number I had in mind anyway.&lt;p&gt;In the odd event that the candidate &lt;i&gt;doesn&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; negotiate back up after forcing me to go first, I just throw the extra money into the offer anyway. Employees are even happier to see that I&amp;#x27;ve come up on my initial offer, which is a great way to start the relationship.&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, when some candidates come in demanding multiple months of delays while they collect competing offers and want to go through endless rounds of re-negotiation even after we&amp;#x27;ve agreed on a number, I just cut them loose and wish them luck on their career search. Unless you&amp;#x27;re a FAANG hiring many people at once, it doesn&amp;#x27;t make sense to play endless games with candidates who are going to end up at a FAANG anyway.</text></item><item><author>WalterBright</author><text>&amp;gt; Why can’t you just tell me how much it’ll be, and then we can move on?&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, why don&amp;#x27;t you just tell them the lowest number you&amp;#x27;ll accept?&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Well, the reason we have to play this game is because, like it or not, everyone else is playing it.&lt;p&gt;The real reason is it is completely unworkable to require a best offer from one side and not the other side.&lt;p&gt;Negotiation is central and inevitable to life with more than one person. Negotiating also means giving up things you don&amp;#x27;t value for things that you do value - making for much better allocation of resources.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tyingq</author><text>True, though there&amp;#x27;s lots of different experiences.  Some companies don&amp;#x27;t even allow the hiring manager to see&amp;#x2F;know the offer until after it&amp;#x27;s accepted.  All delegated to some HR &amp;quot;compensation&amp;quot; group that is definitely adversarial.&lt;p&gt;Candidates can&amp;#x27;t really reliably know who&amp;#x27;s pulling the strings.</text></comment>