[throwaway929394]

Using a throwaway, because of my position.

I recently withdrew an offer to a VP candidate because he negotiated too much (without being a jerk). He probably took advice from an article like this, and he wanted a) higher pay b) more vacation time c) special dispensation for items involving pay and time whose effect is even more pay.

He has been pursuing me to accept my original offer for the past 2 months and I have been lukewarm because I got turned off.

Summary: all successful negotiation comes down to leverage and it all comes to who has the leverage in a given situation. If you don't have the leverage, you may want to think about how much you negotiate. I have been in situations when I had no leverage at all, like my first job - where I had only one job offer, due to a) irrelevant educational credentials b) tough economic times - and thankfully, I had not read articles like this and that job led me to life outcomes that today I am quite successful and wealthy.

One of my classmates negotiated hard for that same job, and while he got more money, he left a bad taste in people and eventually got fired (I won't say he got fired because he negotiated hard in the beginning but he started out with a negative vibe, and I heard that from managers, and it went downhill from there). In fact, later on, when I became successful, he approached me for a job, and again negotiated hard with me. I passed him on.

So don't just blindly follow advice like this article. In fact, don't just blindly follow any advice, including mine. Negotiate if your situation permits, and know when your situation doesn't permit.

[dunpeal]

> One of my classmates negotiated hard for that same job, and while he got more money, he left a bad taste in people

Care to elaborate what "negotiating hard" means?

I've been on both sides of the hiring process multiple times. Never seen a candidate get any serious downside from negotiating.

In fact, there were a couple of cases I wish they did! The worst was when you find a good candidate, give them what seems like a competitive offer, then they disappear, and you learn after a couple of months they preferred my position, but got better pay elsewhere, where the difference is definitely small enough that we would cover it. If only the candidate wasn't so polite!

Recently there's also a trend of recruiters encouraging candidates to negotiate counter-offers, which in my eyes is efficient.

> He has been pursuing me to accept my original offer for the past 2 months and I have been lukewarm because I got turned off.

Clearly his mistake was negotiating with no leverage.

That said, I'll turn the table here: if I got an offer for a senior position, and a polite attempt to negotiate was met with immediate rescission, I'd assume the weren't quite so interested in the first place.

[contras1970]

> you find a good candidate, give them what seems like a competitive offer, then they disappear, and you learn after a couple of months they preferred my position, but got better pay elsewhere, where the difference is definitely small enough that we would cover it. If only the candidate wasn't so polite!

or maybe: "If only you didn't try to shortchange the candidate!"?

numbers on offer are the honest signal free agents get in the job market. if the jobs are similar enough, why should the candidate expend extra energy to achieve what is the default state elsewhere? why should they risk receiving a could shoulder because they negotiated "too hard"?

[dunpeal]

Without going into all the details of the situation: I sincerely believed my offer was very competitive for that candidate. It was a very substantial raise over his current comp, and the number I gave him was vetted by our recruiter as very competitive.

The difference also wasn't very large. As I said, had he told me about the other offer, I'd have offered him more, no problem. That's why I encourage candidates to negotiate in this situation. Just say "look, I really liked your offer, but I just got another offer for $X." Worst case, you'll get politely declined. If my impression of you was positive so far, I won't change my mind over this.

[throwaway929394]

>Care to elaborate what "negotiating hard" means?

He was one of those people "I should get the absolute maximum I could ever get out of any situation." He did get a better offer, and so he was successful in that. He also created much higher expectation of what he could do "he really negotiates hard, I hope he is worth it" kind of vibe.

Fortunately for me, I went in creating reasonably modest expectation (let's say I don't stand out) and I was able to vastly exceed those expectation while he came with inflated expectations that he fell short. Not a great way to start a career. And it went downhill from there for him.

People do make judgments about another person based on factors like this. In my friend's case, I wasn't the one judging him as a tough negotiator (I was a nobody), it was the manager who hired him.

My point is: articles like this should not be taken as the gospel and my own advice is not gospel either. Evaluate your particular recruitment situation (as a job seeker or as a recruiting manager) and act with judgement and common sense.

[dunpeal]

> He was one of those people "I should get the absolute maximum I could ever get out of any situation."

The problem then seems to be coming across as greedy and/or difficult / demanding person. So he's creating a concern over his personality, which goes far beyond the mere act of negotiating.

I maintain that if you negotiate politely and realistically, no such personality concerns should be raised. If a company still responds to that by rescinding, then either they are unreasonable, or they were never too interested, both of which are reasons for you to decline - especially the latter.

> People do make judgments about another person based on factors like this.

Yes, exactly.

Also, I'm guessing since it was a junior position, your friend's "tough negotiation" got him a few more thousands of dollars at best.

Negotiating hard over such a small amount will earn you the disdain of a hiring manager, who will see it as pettiness and lack of vision concerning future career.

> Evaluate your particular recruitment situation (as a job seeker or as a recruiting manager) and act with judgement and common sense.

Definitely! Still, imho, most candidates err on the side of not negotiating enough, so articles like these are welcome.

Employers do have an advantage in negotiations: they know a lot more than the candidate (certainly junior candidate), and have people whose full-time job is to hire you on the best terms for them, while you are presumably an expert in something like writing software or designing electric circuits, not contract negotiations.

So I welcome articles like this, that should hopefully even the playing field a bit.

[mercutio2]

I’m so glad you wrote all this. I’ve had exactly the same experience.

It matters very little what your initial salary is, if you’re working at a well run company.

If you come in low on the totem pole, expectations will be low, and if you exceed them, you will get rewarded as a high achieving person.

Coming in with high expectations doesn’t seem like a good play unless you were really happy where you were before, and just want to see if you can make it in a new place.

[rstephenson2]

Can you explain what turned you off about his negotiation, if he wasn't being a jerk? Just the fact that someone would have the audacity to do it, when you didn't feel he had the necessary leverage to pull it off?

Every company you'll ever interview at will negotiate, and most will do so whether or not they have leverage. They usually do this via a recruiter or in-house HR, to try to disassociate any negative vibes that the candidate may feel towards their potential new boss due to hardball tactics in the negotiation process.

Your stance seems designed to deter any candidate from negotiating at all, and you can probably do it because there are enough people out there that are hesitant to negotiate. Which is exactly what this article is trying to fix.

[throwaway929394]

To emphasize: n=1, so I don't want to overgeneralize my experience, nor would I overgeneralize the OP's experience.

I had told him in the very beginning that my strategy is to hire people at a reasonable, but not out-of-the-world pay, and move them up fast if they prove their worth, and try hard to keep them for the long term (which I can only do if I am paying well, because the sector I am in is hot and our people do get a lot of recruiter calls).

The reason I do this is I want to send a clear signal to the people with me long term that I put their interests first, and I won't chase after the new-new-candidate with the best offers. This message is quite well known in the company, and when people have done their fact-checks on this, they know it to to be true: indeed, our long term people get the best pay.

After hearing all this, and after indicating he really wanted to work for me, he proceeded to negotiate hard, and at that point, I wasn't comfortable with him anymore. As I said, he is still chasing me (he has a job, but wants this job more) but I felt he revealed an aspect of himself that I am afraid may create a mis-fit between us - and this is a highly-paid executive management position.

[friendlystabb]

I'm not making any judgements on you, but in my experience "not out-of-the-world pay, and move them up fast if they prove their worth" usually turns into "cannot afford significant/any increases/bonuses due to market conditions/losing major clients/my new boat".

Unless it's in writing, promises of large future adjustments are not really worth relying on. At best you might actually get what was promised, or you will end up feeling ripped off and mislead.

[joshuamorton]

Do you put those growth expectations in writing? As in, do you say "here are the criteria you will be evaluated on in 6mo/1yr/18mo", and your promotions/raises will look like XYZ as a result"? And do you provide performance bonuses to true-up people who you have been under-compensating for their performance?

Because if not, its not clear that you're putting their interests first. You're trying to get work at potentially below market rate, and then perhaps raise them up to market rate. That's not putting their interests first, it's getting cheap labor for a few months. Why would that engender trust?

[throwaway929394]

People do "fact checks" on if I am fair to them. Recruiters do call on a lot of our people often, and we do retain them.

People have reputations that spread in a company and among friends of employees. If I routinely exploited people with false promises, I will have to keep hiring new people to exploit and it becomes self-defeating.

A reputation for unfair dealing is toxic to morale too and morale is what dictates if people put in their best work or unwillingly put up with the job for a paycheck.

[joshuamorton]

You went to a lot of effort to write a lot of things while explicitly avoiding actually answering any of my questions. This leads me to think that a simple "no" would have sufficed.

It's possible to treat people well enough that you can retain them while still not keeping promises and paying below market. There's a balance, and you can do a lot of "exploiting" before its enough of a nuisance to want to leave, and many fair things are also exploitative.

For example: refusing to hire someone because they attempted to negotiate a better offer for themselves is perfectly fair, but it also appears to be exploitative. It also becomes much easier to keep your promises when those promises are not explicit.

If no one asks for true-ups, you never need to promise them. But by not paying them, you are being exploitative. It's no different than contract-to-hire positions that exploitatively underpay people for months or years before bringing them on as full-time employees (or not doing so, for any of a variety of reasons).

EDIT: To add, since elsewhere, you explicitly mention that you undervalue new hires, the fact that you don't true-up candidates for overperformance of your (lowered) expectations is telling. Again, why would I, as a candidate, want to engage in a long term relationship with someone who doesn't put enough faith in me to pay what I'm worth, but who wants me to trust them that they'll eventually pay me what I'm worth? And who won't at least promise to make me whole during the vetting process? That to me implies two things:

1. They want me to trust them immediately, but don't want to trust me in return.

2. They won't fully compensate me for the work I'm doing.

Neither of those things make me want to trust you or form a long term relationship. If you want such a relationship, the trust goes both ways. You don't get to say "trust me that I'll eventually pay you what you're worth, but in the meantime I'll pay you less until things are verified." That's not a relationship. Its exploitation of a power imbalance.

[abraham_lincoln]

I agree with this 100%.

Not answering the question seems evasive.

[werbel]

It totally makes sense to reject a person who talks only about the salary/perks and in that way shows he's just looking for a cool job to satisfy himself.

Of course it doesn't mean that one should expect "Yes, I waited my whole life to join your company to change lives of your customers." attitude from everyone. There's a whole spectrum of people in between and each company has to find its own keyhole.

Aside from that. I never accept "start lower and re-evaluate each month, quarter, half a year" strategy. I'm pretty sure I'm going to bring 90% of my value during the first month and probably 100% the next one.

I'm glad to have one more interview, maybe a day with your team on site so you can be more sure if I'm a good fit. I also understand that there's a chance I might turn out to be a mis-hire for some reason and after a month or two it'll be clear that the initial expectations are not met on one or the other side. In that case I'm happy to re-evaluate which could also go both ways.

"I was hired as a software engineer but it turned out my experience with leading projects, working with product team on developing fresh ideas etc is extensively utilised on daily basis."

"You do have the skill but your work organisation and focus are a bit lacking which results in lower output compared to the other guys that are in your salary range. We need to work on that aspect or re-evaluate your compensation."

Both of those I'm fine with. I'm not fine with being under-compensated for half a year because you have too weak recruitment process.

[PenguinCoder]

You say you value the people yet get 'turned off' on someone negotiating for their pay? It seems you value being in control more, and dangling the carrot of 'if you do good you'll get more'. Maybe.

[throwaway929394]

Again n=1. I value people who have been with me long term more than I value people who I am newly recruiting. That just seems like common sense to me.

It comes from the idea that we often over-value the worth of people we don't know and devalue the worth of people we know well; the magic always seems to be "somewhere else".

[eropple]

> I recently withdrew an offer to a VP candidate because he negotiated too much (without being a jerk). He probably took advice from an article like this, and he wanted a) higher pay b) more vacation time c) special dispensation for items involving pay and time whose effect is even more pay.

Why, I'm positively poleaxed that he wanted things that would make his life better! Quelle surprise.

I don't and never will understand the mindset you express here. A VP is important to the health and success of your company. If a candidate won't fight for himself, why the hell would you think he'd fight for you?

[throwaway929394]

>If a candidate won't fight for himself, why the hell would you think he'd fight for you?

There is balance here, won't you concede? There is "fighting for yourself" and then "fighting too much for yourself". Part of the success of a team of people is that there is a spirit of shared rewards and shared sacrifices. I felt he had crossed that line to want too much for himself (or at least conveyed that strong impression to me).

Again, n=1 and I am some random commenter here. Just that a) this has worked for me b) the candidate, even though he has a job, still wants the job I offered at my original offer.

[balladeer]

Negotiating hard or casually is a two way process - you can't "negotiate" alone. If the offer was made that means both sides were negotiating hard. So isn't is off why that offer wasn't made at an early stage when the company was ready to make that offer and they eventually did

This situation reeks of an endorsement of some sort which if I may crudely put as - "if a potentially employer is trying to screw you over financially, do not resist too much".

What do you check in an employee "for sure" when you hire that employee - their performance in the interview. And you do that "hard"! What does the employee know about you "for sure" before they join you (and in fact for a some time even after joining) - that is how much they are going to get paid. That's the only thing they are sure of and I'd sure want to negotiate for that hard.

[gshakir]

I feel you lost a good candidate. I think he negotiated all those things because it had to exceed his current level. Having a VP with that negotiation would have been good for the company.