Looking for examples of ranges for the base negotiations. In my opinion, companies usually don’t give you a ridiculously low offer just because they anticipate negotiations. Thoughts?
One time while getting verbal offer from recruiter, he told me the base which was slightly lower than the target I gave. All I said was ok, I’ll think about it. He called me back 10 min later and added 7k onto it.
Smallest base negotiation I've ever had was 30%. In my experience negotiation is always expected and if you don't you are leaving massive amounts of money on the table.
Interesting. This is exactly the kind of example I was hoping to deliberate upon. 30% base negotiation on an offer seems very unrealistic, but if you have had that then kudos to you. What were your responses like to the recruiter? Did you mention having another offer in hand or did you cite market research as a counter for the offer made?
That was the lowest, my first few were between 50 and 100% between offer and acceptance. I've also found smaller the company the larger the swing. Always come with market data, a good explanation of what you are worth and what you'd need to move. Competing offers are cool but rarely available for me as I've only been actively looking once. Good luck!
Yes, but be prepared to walk
One company started with a salary of 180k, I stopped him right away saying I was earning more (not true) and had higher offers (true). He came back with 210 and then 220k because I was not satisfied by the overall compensation. So yes sometimes they have lot of room. Sometimes no, especially if you already have them some high number, but you can definitely try to negotiate.
Excellent stuff. Curious to know the role you had interviewed/offered for.
Sr SWE, but I had nice competing offers, I'm working in a hot market right now, hence high offers. Anyway, try to negotiate keeping the door open or be sure to give a number first and make it higher than you want
Base is often the hardest to negotiate. Internal equity is an issue. But equity offers run on different principles, and that's often easier
With larger companies where they have specific bands it is harder to negotiate. Recruiters often know ppl just love to negotiate and make the offer a bit lower to have the room for negotiation but if you don't negotiate they would just give you those 5-10 anyway because that's what the band is tied to anyway. And the opposite is also true: if the requisition is approved for a certain level, the candidate might be awesome and worth twice more but the manager is limited with the grade/rate pay. She can offer the top of the range but the range itself might not be that large.
That’s a very good insight and pretty close to my latest experience. Thank you for sharing!
In my experience, the only thing that moved the needle was a competing offer. I've talked up a few grand, but only when I said, "well these guys are going to pay me a lot more than that," did the price really go up.
If you get a promotion negotiating base isn’t important since you’ll jump to a new base salary range. Best to get more RSUs and use promotion to get a better base.
This is what I thought once, long ago. Didn't negotiate at all. It turned out I was way underpaid in the new position, and the annual raises didn't get me any closer to median. It's always worth researching the band's, at least.
Ohh for sure. I said negotiate RSUs instead but that’s cause personally I prefer TC over base
I'd say so; I got double my ask. Triple if you count RSUs. It's one of those positions that never existed before so I guess I low balled myself when looking at comp comps*. *short for comparable compensation packages.
TL;DR know the pay grade and system of the company that you are trying to get into, and the pay range for your job title to assist your negotiation. I have negotiated a $3000 increase in base salary within my grade level. I had to state that with my job title, the median salary is around $120k. But the HR person I dealt with was extremely rude when I tried to negotiate the salary. They said they couldn’t offer more within my grade level (7). So knowing the range of salary for people with your job title might help. But eventually the company that I negotiated with is just very stingy. It is rigid with their pay grade and is unwilling to match outside salary. My friend that I recommended for a similar job had a competing offer and the same company was still unwilling to match his offer.