For many of you, this will be your first time negotiating. Perhaps some of you have never once considered negotiating, and have always accepted what the employer offered. While negotiation isn’t required, it’s often recommended. You should be compensated fairly for your valuable technical skills.
This section will cover a number of strategies to help you get the best compensation possible. You shouldn’t be out to take the employer for all they’re worth. Instead you should look for compensation that works for everyone involved. Negotiation offers the ability to dramatically increase your earning potential in a very short period of time! Negotiating in a way that is researched, open, and strives to create a win-win result for you and the employer tends to have the best outcome.
Effective negotiators understand the difference between negotiating and having a conversation. The conversation is everything that happens before the employer makes an offer. Negotiation is everything that happens after the employer makes an offer. There are a few key things to remember as it pertains to conversation and negotiation.
It’s not an offer until it’s in writing | Many employers talk about compensation early in the interview process. This is not an offer, and it doesn’t mean they’re going to make an offer. No matter how well an interview is going, don’t take anything for granted. It’s not an offer until it’s in writing.
An offer always has a number attached | The employer should tell you how much they intend to pay you for your work. Simply saying they want to hire you is not enough. Offers are specific about expectations.
Never negotiate until the employer has made an offer | Many job seekers make the mistake of talking numbers before they ever receive an offer. This is disadvantageous to the job seeker for a number of reasons.
It’s difficult to ask for more after saying a number | What if you ask for $90,000 only to find out that other people in the role make $110,000? It’s going to be a lot harder to ask for more without sounding greedy. Don’t undervalue yourself It’s better to wait to hear what the employer thinks is fair.
Large requests can backfire | You might think that making a large request as an “anchor” will help. This way they won’t make a low counteroffer. Unfortunately large requests often result in the employer disqualifying a candidate. This is especially true if they ask about compensation in your first interview. The only reason employers ask about compensation early in the process is to filter candidates.
Your compensation should be based on your fair market value—what employers generally pay someone with your skills for a specific task. Not your current salary. Not your previous salary. Not a company’s income. Not more. Not less. If your initial offer is below your fair market value, you may be able to correct this through negotiation.
If you hope to work at the same company for a long time, your future raises and bonuses will be based on the base salary that you start with. For that reason, negotiate as high of a base salary as you can, as that can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars over the span of a career.
Resist the urge to talk about compensation early in the interview process. Always remember that the first person to say a number loses. By stating your compensation expectations first you potentially leave money on the table, or you might disqualify yourself from further consideration (if your initial expectations are seen as too high). It’s better to wait for the employer to make an offer, and from there you can negotiate (if needed).
In most cases, you have no way of knowing what the employer is willing to pay for the role, and you might not even know everything the role entails. It doesn’t make sense to ask for specific compensation for a role you are still learning about. Imagine an employer offered you $20,000 per year for your services. Pretty low offer, right? What if they were paying you $20,000 per year to work for 1 hour per week? Now it’s a different story! Of course offers like this won’t happen, but this anecdote illustrates the point that you have no way of knowing what compensation is fair. Wait for the employer to make an offer.
Rest assured, the employer is probably going to ask you to say a number. It happens in the majority of interview processes. They’ll tell you that you can’t go further in the interview process until you give them a number. Remember that there are lots of companies looking for engineers and data scientists, and there aren’t enough candidates to fill those roles. Most companies cannot afford to reject a candidate for such a small reason.
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“I’d rather learn more about your company and the job I’d be doing before talking about compensation, but it sounds like you want to see if we’re in the same ballpark--is that right?” (They will likely say “yes”.)
- “Cool. I’m really interested in what the market has to offer for my skillset, so rather than give prospective employers my salary requirements, learning more about company culture and reserving conversations about salary until the company is ready to make an offer.”
Sometimes the hiring manager will ask indirectly for your salary expectations. They may ask for your previous or current salary. This is another way of asking for your desired compensation. The same rule applies. Don’t disclose a number. Technically your previous/current salary is none of their business, but you can’t answer with that. Instead you might say something along the lines of, “I’d prefer not to say what my current salary is because if it’s higher than what you expect to pay for this job, I wouldn’t want that to eliminate me from being considered for this job--because I might be willing to accept less for the right position--and if it’s lower than what this job would pay, I wouldn’t want to sell myself short either--I’m sure you can understand.”