Tell: Got 50% bump for faking a counter offer | Hacker News Reader

Tell: Got 50% bump for faking a counter offer

37 pointsfakeusername50 comments

I lied about another counter offer at negotiation time and the new company bumped the total offer package from $170,000 (base $130,000) to $260,000 (base $155,000 ) to match the fake counter offer and also bumped the offered titled two levels up. Shows the importance having a counted offer. I have 9 years of software development experience and current and new company is in Seattle Area. Just wanted to say it to somebody about the guilt which I cannot refuse to have.

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I am going to go out on a limb and say that fake anything is a bullshit way of doing business. In a small way, you probably have made our corner of the world a worse place to be in.

Why not just ask for 260K? To lie in order to get it may seem like the only way to guarantee a realization of what you are worth, but this fosters a business climate that you ultimately may not want to live in. Companies may feel the need to be more defensive at the negotiating table, put the squeeze on developers in terms of hours or reduced open source contributions, or even to illegally collude in order to force people to stay at their... oh wait that one already happened.

A business climate in which parties are faking information can be a dangerous place. It is in our collective best interest to be honest and to foster an environment in which honesty is expected. Think on that the next time you buy a food product.

Another example that is more general: company leadership feels the need to produce a certain kind of quarterly financial result in order to appear favorable to investors or customers. The company that has the most accolades fakes it the most, leading to a lot of pressure on everyone else to do the same. Someone has to pay for this though, often it is paid in increased risk.

EDIT: removed irrelevant examples.

Get off your high horse. Either congratulate or ignore, but in the end just move on.

I am not commenting here to feel good about myself or to spread my moral views. I am attempting to appeal to his personal and our collective self-interest.

They could have just said good luck. If it back fired he would have had a hard time saying he was taking a lower offer. it was a gamble and it paid off.

Any argument against this? Jamespitts seems to make perfect sense here. @jamespitts, thanks for the valuable comments. As per my experience just asking $260K from the professional negotiator would have not landed me anywhere near this figure, he would have at-most increased 10K. Not arguing against what you said, just saying I cannot win with recruiter on negotiation without counter offers.

Thanks for the measured reply, f.u.n... I can definitely sympathize with your point about your not being able to realistically ask for the amount you ended up with!

We are at a serious disadvantage, even though it seems to many outside the industry that we make an incredible amount of money. But our high salaries are actually quite a bargain considering how much value is potentially going to be realized by the founders and investors (across multiple investments and over the long run).

A few days ago I was actually thinking about the challenge for a developer of achieving a salary closer to what one is worth. I was wondering if job searches can be better managed so that offers land at nearly the same time, perhaps through some sort of software-based mechanism that is well-understood and widely accepted.

If the world operated as a true meritocracy, not faking or bullshitting and just being 100% honest would work.

However, has asking for a 50% raise in the same company ever worked? Can you imagine a scenario where it would work? Maybe I am lacking in imagination.

The reality is that in our current business climate, various morally repugnant actions take place all the time. The examples you listed of dishonest climates, you keep getting a raw deal. Do you just take the short end of the stick to maintain the moral high ground?

Like you said, all the negative things you feared would come to pass have, in fact, already come to pass. Companies regularly hide information, mislead everyone they're legally allowed to, and outright lie. And no one is surprised.

No one in business, any business, at any level pays for goods and services what they think they are worth. They pay the minimum that they think will be accepted.

The idea that someone on the opposite side of the negotiating table has your best interests at heart and is going to be as generous as they can with you is naive. Occasionally it happens, but it's not probable and not something anyone should rely on. And this holds whether we're discussing purchaser-supplier, founder-vc, employee-employer, or customer-seller.

This is not to say that the people opposite the table are bad people, and once the terms of the relationship have been agreed upon, they will often go above and beyond to help you out. But everyone will negotiate in their self-interest first.

That would be honorable, yes. On the other hand so was Eddard Stark.

I hope the area of residence / years of experience / original offer / new offer / title bump have all been changed at least somewhat, because if not, the people who hired you could potentially see this and identify you - and they might not appreciate that you lied to them.

If you're feeling guilty about something, tell it to your dog.

More money is good, congrats, and this is just part of negotiation. But the company itself sounds broken.

Any company that will give you a higher title/pay based that's not based on skill is not doing job leveling properly. Going from (for example) "Jr. SDE" to "Sr. SDE" just because of a counter-offer/negotiation? No way. I'd be worried who else at the company is employed at a higher level than they should be...

I have a question: How do people even have real counteroffers? Do you apply for multiple jobs and two or more happen to make you an offer? How do you manage to get the times to line up so perfectly?

One way is to go back to your original company and say you're leaving. You then either sit back and see if they offer you more money to stay, or you explicitly tell them "NewCo is offering $X" and see if they match or beat that.

This move, while very gutsy and sometimes very effective, only really works in an industry where you're in high demand and/or you're essential to the operation of your current employer.

But, in either case, there's no guarantee. Your old boss might certainly counter-offer and give you the higher salary, but only long enough to find a replacement employee at (or even less than) your old salary. Then your salary very abruptly drops to $0.

Apply for a new job and put in your 2 weeks at your old job, If they need you enough your old job might offer you more money.

I can't help but think that taking the more money at current company could turn out bad unless you sign a contract with breakup terms.

Well, when you go job searching you don't just apply for one job, do you? So the timing is the interesting part. In my experience, companies want you to be open with them about this, so that they do not lose good candidates by being too slow. If you tell them you're interviewing elsewhere or entertaining other offers, they will take that into account. You can straight up tell them what your timeline is like and they will work to accommodate it.

(Of course if they're not interested in you anyway it doesn't matter how many offers you have.)

Remember, recruiting is a job too. The people who do it at the company want to hire you, they want to get those positions filled, that means they are doing their job well.

Or you can just lie about it, as OP did. Perhaps a risky maneuver, but if it's plausible for you to be in demand, I don't see why it's not worth trying.

Personally my approach is a bit more basic. I ask for what I want, and if you don't wanna give it to me then fine, someone else will. But, my numbers are definitely not on OP's level, that is an impressive level of compensation.

When I look for a job I apply to multiple companies at the same time when I find job openings that match what I'm looking for and also apply to companies I'd love to work for that don't have openings.

So I end up having multiple phone interviews and then on-site interviews until I get one or more good offers. Just recently I got 3 really good offers in the span of two weeks and took the time to chose the one I really wanted to accept. I told each company I was interviewing at other places too and wanted some time to think.

There are a couple ways to do this. The easiest is to work with a good recruiting company. Lots of them suck but if you can find a good one it's worth it. Ask people you know for recommendations. If you find a good recruiter they will be familiar with how long each company takes so they can do things like have you start interviewing at places that take longer first. Essentially, they'll handle most of the timing issues for you. Having multiple offers puts you in a stronger negotiating position and they usually get paid a percentage of your starting salary so they want you to do well.

If you're doing it on your own the key is to apply to several places and communicate a lot with each company's internal recruiters. When you start interviewing ask what the whole process is and what the usual timeline is for each step. After each step send a brief thank you message. If they are slower getting back to you on the next step than you expected send a quick message to check on when you can expect to hear from them. As you're going through the process at various companies some will progress faster than others. Make sure that the slower ones are aware you're further along in interviews at other companies so they can catch up. When faster companies propose dates for the next step choose something in the longer end of the range to slow things down. Once you have your first offer inform the other companies you're interested in that you have an offer and they need to start wrapping things up one way or the other.

Most companies can be flexible about their timelines. Even places that are known for long application processes can be significantly sped up if they know you're on a deadline.

Why feel guilty? If they are willing to pay that much, then you are worth that much to them.

I see it as the opposite, they were willing to pay you less than what they see as your potential value. For their own benefit.

How can one not feel guilty when lying?

That is the intriguing question in this type of situation.

Is it okay to lie to someone that's taking advantage of you?

Is it okay to lie if you and your family benefits with no real harm done to the second party?

Is it okay to lie in response to a lie?

I guess the real self-judgement has to be based on whether one knew the nefarious behavior of the other party beforehand or not. It's a tough one.

But I understand your point, I often wonder if law enforcement officers ever feel guilt over the fact they can, and do, outright lie as part of their jobs.

Forget the guilt and channel your energy to creating more than $260,00 of value for your company.

During my first internship at a a start up that was about to IPO, I was so grateful, I would have worked for free. After a semester and the IPO, I was offered a different internship that I thought would provide more learning value. I told my mentor/manager, and he pulled me aside.

He said, "name a pay hike, and we can easily get it for you." I remember being so surprised because I was replaceable, and my work could easily be shifted to a new intern. Also, I remember the chance they took at taking an unproven undergrad on a rocketship of a startup. He told me that I didn't understand how businesses work yet, and I would soon learn that you are worth the value you provide.

Since then, I focus on knowing that at any company, I will provide incremental value, not just the status quo, but against competitive peers. And if a company offers more than I believe I can provide at a given time, I'll work my ass off to get to point where I can provide commiserate value.

Just out of curiosity, what is the industry your company is in, and what kind of position were you hired for?

This is not at all to find out who you are, but I haven'f seen such salaries as the norm for most developers so I am always curious to know more as to what field and position attracts this kind of compensation out of the gate.

Yeah that's an insanely high pay packet even for a developer. Even sensor developers aren't seeing more than 120K around here.

You're worth what people are willing to pay you, good job!

So what if they had told they had someone who would do the job for 60K and so you should feel lucky?

Or what if they had told you "Congratulations! you are moving on to bigger and better things. Have your desk cleaned out within half an hour"?

Sometimes bluffs work, sometimes they don't.

No, I would have asked them to go with that person. I knew current market value and asked that. I would not have accepted on original terms. Negotiation without counter offer is impossible to get that jump which I needed to accept the offer.

People should negotiate. I'm not particularly impressed by the underhand tactics; obviously it'd have been better if you'd countered with "I think I'm worth $260k" and been contracted on that rather than lying about it, and obviously you've given your new employer a free pass to fire you if anyone ever finds out. But the result is definitely a win.

One caveat to that win though - your employer's expectations of the value you'll bring also went up from $170k to $260k. You've gone from 'very good developer' to 'in-demand amazing developer'. You get all the stress that comes with that.

Now take that offer and plan on getting out of this company in the next 6 months. Look for a big multinational with a long term vision with interesting work. You can now go to conferences and network with your new title and pay level.

I think this current company is not great if they were willing to underpay and then reverse course quickly only when they thought there was a counteroffer. I think your job is likely to not go well and you should start looking AGAIN immediately at a higher quality company. While you still have employment.

We were wondering about that. Now several of us have stumbled across this item. So, report to HR tomorrow morning for your exit interview.

Are you actually the hiring manager in this situation, or just highlighting how foolish it is for OP to offer so much detail in his/her submission?

HR is on holiday tomorrow. Can we do it on Monday?

Well done! Don't be guilty though, that's how engineers get underpaid in the first place.

Why do you feel guilt at all? The company could afford to bump your salary up 50%, you just needed to give them a compelling reason to do so. In a world where sociopathic behavior is celebrated, you’re just playing the game.

That was the exactly the reason for lying, though can be justified for the game but you start to question your 'integrity' which is relative to the game you are playing.

That's a bit confusing. Guessing you're in europe and talking euros per month? Cause initially, to an american it looks like you're talking about $1,700,000 a year - a huge salary-- and just dropped a zero.

Its $170,000 total package including stocks, salary etc. per year and not $1,700,000 and I am in Seattle, USA.

Can I ask you what is your job? I'd like to make money like that too.

S/W Engineer. That pay scale is current trend in most good IT companies. Most of my friends in similar experience/field getting this, and I asked for that range too based on current trend.

It's not nice to lie. There is nothing wrong in trying to get the best package possible. You just should not be doing it with lying.

The company was capable/willing to pay 50% more, but in first instance did not. Negotiation tactics, unfairness and manipulation, lies. It's what you should come to expect from companies, especially large ones. On the company side of the table is someone in charge of making sure the company spends as little money as possible on him. I think he did a great job getting the most out of it. He deserves it, for thinking it through. Most people aren't that great at serving their own interest and getting what they deserve in negotiations like that.

I think you mean to say, "Got 50% bump by faking a counter offer".

Is there a good site to see how much one "should" be making?

www.glassdoor.com may help.

Reminds me of myself a few years back, but it was a different tactic. Ok maybe it was 13 years ago, but still... I was offered $14/hr for some job at a factory as computer support. I had an interview with the customer, and the agency accidentally forwards me what they were making. I asked for $17/hr or no deal. It was a fair deal because I knew how much they were making and their profit was still good. They threatened to get someone else, I hung up, they called back later and accepted the deal. After working there for a while I found the timesheets of the previous person ... at $17/hr. So I was glad that I held out. It was a fine moment of negotiation on my part. I could have asked for more, but I gave them a fair number that I knew they couldn't refuse.

DOL has statistics on what every H1b is getting paid

http://h1bwage.com/

You lied for money. EOF

Seattle? Man, I feel underpaid right NOW.

UNITS!!????!!!!

Dollars per year.

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