salary negotiation

[BukNaked36]

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Mine wanted a week max. In this job market they really want to avoid losing out on their 2nd or 3rd candidates if the first doesn't come through.

Just got off the phone with a company I am likely to accept instead. When I told her my old salary she said "Well that's a little higher than I was thinking, but let me see what I can put together." I definitely appreciate that honesty a little more. We also agreed it was a little late for negotiation since I have to decide on 2 other offers by tomorrow, so she's just going to put her best offer out there.

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3 offers - Congratulations. Best of luck at the whichever you choose.

[stinkpaw]

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The real key to salary negotation is to act like you can live without them. Give them the impression you are fielding offers (which you should be doing actually). Make them feel like the girl who isn't going to get asked to the dance. It's human psychology, once they think you are so good that other people are fighting over you they will pull out the stops. It's like on ebay when people go mad overbidding stuff just because they want to win it.

Use that psychology to your advantage when looking for a job.


natedogg

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Nate-

That strategy only has a chance of working when the candidate actually has some skills and experience that are in high demand and low supplu.

I can't tell you how many green fresh out of school kids I've sent packing 'cause they were giving attitude like they were God's Gift during their interview.

This gets even worse when you are applying with a large company whose hiring is done by the HR Dept. They need to fill slots and if #1 is giving them a hard time then they'll go with #2.

Bottom line: ugly chicks can't play hard to get if they want to go to the Prom...

[NajdorfDefense]

All 3. 1 would be harder as it is more of a unique job, but you could get comps.

[Mark_K]

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Mine wanted a week max. In this job market they really want to avoid losing out on their 2nd or 3rd candidates if the first doesn't come through.


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Really??? They have three senior level "web design" candidates lined up to take the job? Wow! That's either BS or they got a great hiring dept. They don't use headhunters either? Something doesn't smell right on the other side of that phone. Good experienced web designers are HARD to hire. No-way they just get three off the street like that.

Mark

[suzzer99]

Im not a web designer. I'm a programmer. Ok I'm not sure about the 3rd guy but they said they had a 2nd guy, who was a distant 2nd. They had an ad on Monster, which is where I saw them. Supposedly they've interviewed 30 or 40 ppl or something. I'm sure a lot of those people were ready to work immediately and at least one of them get a *maybe* from the company. What seems so crazy about that?

Anyway that company is out. Still gonna be hard to let the HR girl down. But whatever. Now though I have a really really tough decision to decide by tomorrow--between a roughly 3 month contract gig with my old employer at $80/hr or a full time job with a small consultancy for like $112-$120k/yr depending on bonus, which is tied to their performance.

Both jobs should be interesting projects, which is my primary but not sole motivating factor right now. The first job I talked about, the one I posted the offer letter above, I think I would be more of a cog in the machine and work on the same stuff most of the time. This is why they're out. After a lot of soul searching, I've realized it's important to me to work on more varied interesting projects. Projects where I get to make the whole thing my baby, and get adulation when it comes out really cool.

So now I have to decide between the two.

Old Company: one big hourly rate, nice huge paycheck but scary tax payment next year, work at home (which is good and bad), sounds like a pretty cool project, familiar territory, see some old faces I like, possibly see some I didnt like, deal with the old corporate BS - which actually wasn't horrible as big corps go, freedom of being done in 3 months and not being tied to a job, not much chance of leveraging this into any mega-opportunities or anything

New Place: new territory, challenging projects, chance to learn new disciplines of programming, got a good vibe from the people I talked to, decent yearly rate with normal benefits, NO TELECOMMUTING (a little would be nice), commute is 15 minutes or so, that damn 2-week vacation that you don't even accrue right away - ugh, possible chances to move way up or leverage this into starting my own consultancy someday, it's very possible this job will still be there if I do the 3 monthlong project but no guarantees


Anyway thanks for indulging me on that. I know it's not directly related to salary negotiation. But it helped me clear my head and may help some in similar spots I guess.

[Mark_K]

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Im not a web designer. I'm a programmer. Ok I'm not sure about the 3rd guy but they said they had a 2nd guy, who was a distant 2nd.


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Oops, yes my mistake I was thinking programmer and typed designer (VLSI development engineers are referred to as chip designers and I typed it on autopilot). We would actually contract the design and artwork work and used in house programmers.

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They had an ad on Monster, which is where I saw them.


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I hope you didn't take my jab at Monster.com the wrong way. It wasn't meant toward you or other high skilled individuals. When I would use Monster, literally 99% of the resumes would be of people that have been layed-off (and usually for a reason) or H1B Visa applicants. Very very few high caliber talented people are found this way. You were indeed a lucky find by some HR people - and I think you noticed this from their offers and comments about you.

BTW, I'm sure Monster is probably great in other less competitive fields (accounting?, clerical?).. For engineering, it sucks.

Congratulations on your offers! I'm sure you will make a great decision.

BTW, Last year I saw your trip pictures. You have a SERIOUS talent in that area. I hope you could take advantage of that someday.

Mark

[jba]

suzzer good work, keep the updates coming. tough call IMO, if it was my decision I'd lean towards the contract just because I like the freedom. but mostly it would depend on how difficult it was to get a job this time around.

what kind of languages do you use btw?

also I agree with Mark on monster, my company wont even look at the thing and hire engineers exclusively through in house referrals and a single headhunter.

[turnipmonster]

go for the new place. learning new stuff + good vibes + challenging, you are going to be much happier. do you do j2ee stuff btw?

[effang]

Most of these comments are great, but really don't apply to the majority of positions at smaller firms. And much of this doesn't apply for your first or 2nd job where they are looking for grunt like work.

[suzzer99]

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go for the new place. learning new stuff + good vibes + challenging, you are going to be much happier. do you do j2ee stuff btw?

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Yeah J2EE and javascript. I have a ton of experience with Weblogic. I also know Perl, XSLT, a bunch of other stuff. I really like working on the UI. I think that's the most fun for me, and something I seem to have a better knack for than most programmers.

I'm still really struggling with this decision. Basically it comes down to stuff like what kind of lifestyle do I want right now, and where do I want to be when I'm 40 (I'm 37 now). Not easy questions to answer in one night. Especially since up to a few weeks ago my dream to be the next Phil Ivey was still technically alive. I'm going to see if I can get the weekend to mull it over between the two frontrunners.