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Comment by edw519 | Hacker News Reader

Quicker Salary Tip for Software Engineers: The first one to mention a number loses.

Even when pressed, I never mention a number.

For both of our sakes, however, I want to make sure that we're in the same ballpark or we're wasting each other's time. So I may (only if I have no better way) say something along the lines of, "I'm in the 90's now, but I'm clearly underpaid and I'm looking for the best way to solve that problem."

Then I'll ask, "Are we in the same ballpark?"

If not, we both smile and move on.

If yes, we proceed. I always let them make an offer first. That's when the negotiation begins.

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"Don't say a number first" is a popular belief, but is probably wrong in general, and irrelevant in some situations.

There's research that shows that in certain situations, the first mentioned number acts as a strong anchor. So you might want to be the first.

But then, you're not really following your own advice when you mention your approximate current salary. That is mentioning a number first. But you're helping the other side by setting a low anchor. After you've said "90s", you're bound to get an offer in the 90s.

In any case, having a "BATNA", best alternative to negotiated agreement, is often way more important than the first number. If you have a job with salary s and you're otherwise happy with it, you can always refuse offers below (say) 1.10s. And if the company has another candidate who asks less than s, it doesn't matter how well you negotiate.

It's not popular belief, but the result of applying a bit of game theory to the negotiation: http://stevehanov.ca/blog/index.php?id=67

I've seen that, but that hypothetical game isn't even close to a good model for the typical real life negotiation. Basically, it models a negotiation that stops at the first disagreement!

The argument also implicitly depends on several dubious assumptions:

-- that the odds of the company choosing L is only 50% when going first;

-- that I will accept an L offer (not the case if I'm currently employed, then I just want to go for H or bust);

-- or that I value H significantly more than L (not the case when I'm unemployed, then I just want to increase the chance of getting the job), etc.

> There's research that shows that in certain situations, the first mentioned number acts as a strong anchor. So you might want to be the first.

I believe I read the same research (Robert Cialdini? though he might have been citing other people's work).

The effect is certainly real, but the keyword here is "certain situations", I don't quite recall this research to include salary negotiations among these certain situations.

Though I'd love to be proven wrong, do you have a citation?

But let's say it works (I could easily be wrong on the above), this number anchoring effect also works when the number mentioned is not strictly related to the quantity you're trying to make higher (or lower) in the response. So you could passingly mention an hourly rate (or yearly income) of an unrelated profession, or even something like "activity/service X costs 90k yearly". In this case you can also safely name a much higher number than you're aiming for (as long as it's on the same order of magnitude, I suppose), which was shown to strengthen the anchoring effect. That way, you're still framing the "bigness" but without mentioning a possible salary first. So you get to have your cake and eat it too.

You say you don't mention a number, but saying "I'm in the 90's" is basically the equivalent of saying "I make $90,000" as far as the negotiation is concerned.

Was thinking exactly the same thing, because this is exactly what I think when candidates say "I'm in the X's but looking to improve that". Well, yeah, of course you're looking to improve X. You still set the floor, saving me the trouble of guessing it too high.

My other tip is, there's always a little wiggle room to your advantage.

When they give you their 'final offer' tell them to come up a little. They never fail to do it, even if it's only 1-2%, and it's increased my salary substantially over the years.

It helps if they know you're looking elsewhere and getting other offers. One of the jobs I ended up being really happy with made what I thought was a great offer to begin with, but I wanted to think things over. I had 7 days to accept the offer and planned on using that time to be sure it's what I wanted to do. Three days in they came back with an offer 10% higher if I accepted that day and halted the rest of my interviews. I thought it over for a bit and accepted 10 minutes later.

Incidentally, I had a very good recruiter who was in communication with them.

If you don't have a recruiter, use that to your advantage. A recruiter is probably going to get 25 - 33% of your base salary for commission. The company is saving a lot of money hiring you without paying a recruiter fee. That's why you see referrals as high as $10k -- it's substantially less than a recruiter fee.

And my final tip is to consider the overall compensation package and let your potential employer know that. Salary is only one part of it. I wouldn't even negotiate lower pay if they cover health care, because plans change annually, but I would argue for higher pay if their health plan sucks. That sort of thing.

Typically your best opportunity for a big raise is in the initial salary number. Future raises are often at least partly formula-driven. And since they are likely to be computed as a percentage of your current pay, perhaps with a merit component as well, getting more in the initial salary also means your raises will be more later.

Though if you're appreciated (I won't say good), you can get a big raise when you announce you're leaving.

If you have to announce you are leaving before they acknowledge (or realize) your value to them, you should probably leave no matter how much they offer you. That's hard to do if you really like the place, but it's usually a sign that there are bigger problems. I took a counter offer once, and it worked out OK, but things always felt a little awkward with my manager after it.

if an employee has to threaten to leave to get a raise, someone is doing something wrong. probably the employee.

Can you expand on that?

This is the sole model of all the SMBs I know, never worked on Big Evil Corp yet, some expanding is appreciated.

you don't have to threaten to leave to get a raise; you talk with your manager and tell him what you think you're worth and why its important to you that you make that, and you have a conversation about it. maybe you haven't demonstrated that you're worth it (go get a blog, speak at a user group, go earn your credibility). maybe the organization doesn't value talent at low levels [1], in which case you'll never get top compensation.

[1] http://www.dustingetz.com/the-unnecessity-of-superstar-middl...

i think that's bullshit. "I make X, I feel I am worth Y". Credibly demonstrate that you are worth Y[1]. This got me the raise I wanted within my current employer, and willingness to decline an offer less than Y will get me the salary I want the next time I move companies.

[1] here's a hint: don't say "i can do XYZ, trust me" -- signal to them you can do XYZ by blogging, speaking at meetups, portfolio of projects, etc.

If I'm a recruiter, I then say: "Oh good...we're close. The salary approved for this position is 0.8Y. But we offer high-cholesterol lunches that have been 'catered' by the local fast-food meta-purveyors, health care, blah blah blah. Did I mention our free massage Fridays, and extensive selection of free, high-sugar, diabetes-inducing soft drinks?"

You then get to choose to counter or walk away. If you're a good negotiator (which you're not, since you've said the first number), we'll probably end up at 0.9Y.

Meanwhile, Joe Bloggs comes in, and doesn't say a number. The recruiter offers 0.8Y, and Joe finally says "I was thinking 1.2Y". Joe, being a savvy negotiator, ends up with at least Y, and maybe 1.1Y.

It doesn't matter what Y is, you always have a chance of doing better than your goal if you speak last. You lose that advantage if you speak first.

If you're a good negotiator, Y won't be your ideal salary X, but more along the lines of 1.3*X. The basic tenet of negotiation is that both sides are understood to start from a position that is unacceptable for the other side.

You can also always try for the DITF[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique

Does not matter. As I said, pick any value of Y, and you'll end up better off (on average) by not saying the first number. Doesn't matter if Y = X or if Y = 20X.

Except I was talking to alpha geek, not recruiter, and he didn't say .8y, he said OK. Could I have gotten more? Who knows, but it was a large enough jump that I'm not even thinking about it.

> The salary approved for this position is 0.8Y

So you start by lying to the interviewee? That's the beginning of a great relationship.

It's not a lie when I say I need 1.5 Y. I'll be super happy to get that. However I might settle for Y reluctantly. There's no lying involved. Besides I have no way of knowing what they got approved.

That was pointed at the recruiter and the "approved" salary made up on spot.

"portfolio of projects"

Which reminds me of a question I have been asking myself lately. What do you do with your portfolio of "hacky" code?

For instance, recently I wanted to experiment porting an open source application to iOS, to give the old iPhone 3G I had just lying around a new life. There were certain parts of the existing codebase that weren't well structured to meet the requirements of the iOS APIs I had to fit in, but I managed to squeeze in the changes without any major restructuring.

It is code I am not proud of, code I would never write in a professional setting, but it was the perfect direction for my requirements and constraints. For that, I am really happy with the result.

Ultimately, I determined that the 3G just didn't have enough processing power to meet the expectations I had, so I don't have any interest in taking the project further or cleaning up the mess I made. However, even in the state it is in, it is code that is most likely useful to others. But at the same time I don't feel it reflects well on my abilities.

i leave it on my github. i link the source for my shitty blog from my resume with a note: "solo author. freetime experimental project. my blog is hosted here. don't look too hard at this code, it sucks."

Sounds like good advice. Thanks!

Why even say "I make X?" "I'm looking for Y" still answers the real question and has the advantage of not giving them a lower anchor.

Having one party know critical information about the other party in a negotiation, but not vice versa, gives the knowing party a big advantage. I think stating your current salary gives the other negotiator a pretty good idea of how low of a salary you'd take, which you don't want to put out there right away.

Other options when asked what is your current salary:

1. "Since I was a top performer last year, I will be getting a large raise this month. I can get back to you when I get the specific number"

2. "Since I currently get 7 weeks of vacation and work from home 75% of the time, my current salary is probably not a good starting point since this position does not offer that compensation"

3. " I expect to receive another offer next week so I can't give you a range until I know how much they are going to offer"

4. " The NDA at my current employer prohibits me from discussing my compensation"

As long as you are professional about declining to give you salary, the worst thing that can happen is that you get a really low offer and you tell them no thanks.

As a contractor, I'm ready to name numbers. I charge ~$125/hour for Rails or iOS Contracting, depending on commute and anticipated length of engagement. - aaron.blohowiak@gmail.com

The contractor - client relationship is quite different from employee - employer, so there is usually little negotiating involved.

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