“Whoever can least afford to walk away, loses.”
That’s what the best negotiator I ever met told me when I asked how he was so good. He had a new car every six months or so, usually top of the line. He bought them new, drove them for a while, then sold them for a small profit. Consistently. For years. While the details of his car flipping magic are interesting they are not germane to this post.
If you need a job to put food on the table next month you are screwed. There is an old saying that goes “For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.” When I was a child this seemed nonsensical, even unfair. The older I get the more I realize how deeply the concept is woven into reality. Management can walk away from the negotiation table at any point with little consequence. Can you afford to walk away from the job? With a nice pile of Fuck You Money you have a strong position for negotiating salary and growing your bank balance further. Without it you will end up being forced to accept lower salaries and smaller titles. It’s hard to claw your way up from the bottom.
Yard sales are an interesting phenomenon. People set their beloved treasures and unwanted birthday presents out for complete strangers to bid on. Prices are often little more than suggestion of magnitude. My grandfather used to buy lawnmowers for a few dollars, perfectly good tools for pocket change, and heaps of junk for almost nothing. It was better than watching Bonanza reruns I suppose. One amazing thing about watching him bargain with strangers over kitsch was the suave nonchalance as he went about it. He would hem and haw and beat around the bush but never let emotions get involved. Never underestimate the spite of a manager with a damaged ego. Losing your cool is fatal; they may even fire you out of pure spite ( a few weeks later under false pretenses of course). Desperation stinks, insolence breeds contempt, and impatience induces stubbornness. Your approach must be professional, relaxed, and unemotional.
It is important to know how much you are worth. Market value is how much other people at large are willing to pay for your skills on average. Organizational value is how much you are worth to a specific company in a specific role. Job boards are full of lies and incomparable situations; ask around to find out how much other people with similar experience in similar niches in your town are making. Use some common sense. If someone with 5 years on you is only making $100k there’s no way you can expect to get $95k for a job at a poorer company. If someone with half your experience is making $120k for doing half the job you can easily get more. Figuring out how much you are worth to a specific company is much harder. You can gather clues through the grapevine and compare against coworkers if you already work there. An accurate figure will be hard to come by beforehand. These two numbers provide perspective during negotiation. If you can make substantially more elsewhere go do so. If they are already paying you more than you’re worth to them it’s time to polish up your Github account. If they offer a fair market wage but you know they desperately need you there is room to demand more.
Ridiculous offers have their place. Using them out of place can ruin your position. A high or low ball offer is useful for deflecting the opposite. Suppose $100k is the market wage. They offer $60k. You laugh and counter with $150k. Reasonable offers have a tendency to meet in the middle. Plan for this. Suppose they say $150k is way to much so you come back with $100k as a fair wage. They counter with $90k then you end up settling for $93k and an Aeron chair. Don’t ever give what you think is the center point; you will only get argued down from there. Supposing you offered $110 instead, still a very reasonable offer, there would have been room to come down and still arrive at or above the market wage.
Don’t try to negotiate with the HR ditz. She can’t make decisions outside of a limited scope. If “salary requirements” are requested by middlemen, deflect and evade. “Ha ha, let’s see if we want to work with each other before talking money. First things first, you know what I’m saying?” People with actual authority tend to act like it. Know who to negotiate with and when to do it. Generally the later the better. Nobody cares if a stranger walks away. Questions will be asked why the charming young candidate rejected an offer. Perhaps a second will follow.
These tips are not exhaustive by any means but should provide a decent foundation for negotiating. More to follow.
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