Ask HN: How do you deal with a low ball salary offer?

[mxmpawn]

A friend of mine is starting a position at a new startup whose founder is a former colleague of him. He recommended me, we had a quick interview and I've already received an offer.

As the title says, the salary is almost half of what I'm earning at my current job so clearly I'm not considering it, but before rejecting the proposal it'd be nice to give it a shot and see if they can improve the offer. I'm pretty burned out from my current job and it'd be great to move to another place.

Have you dealt with a similar situation? How do you handled it and what was the outcome?

[shmapf]

I've been given the "we're a small start-up so can't afford to pay what you're currently on" line. I believed it at the time, and told them that's ok, I understand but I'm not willing to take such a big cut.

Then they multiplied the offer salary by 2.5X.

This dishonesty left me with such a bad taste in my mouth I no longer wanted to work for them and declined.

I've personally found honesty to be the most effective way to negotiate. Identify what you want, and what they want, then you've got nothing to hide and can have a grown up conversation to see if you can find a mutually beneficial agreement.

[landa]

This doesn't seem dishonest to me. I'd do the same thing. If my company is truly strapped for cash, I'd offer a low salary (to "keep the lights on") and give more equity instead. If someone told me their bills are too high and they need more cash, I'd double the salary but give almost no equity. The whole point of going to a startup is to have ownership of something small that you grow to become something big, so you usually don't care too much about the salary.

[mytailorisrich]

Unless your current salary is extravagantly high this means that either they think your desperate or they are low paying as a matter of policy/financial situation, or they do not want you to actually accept. All these options are not good for you.

So I would thank them for their consideration, politely decline, and move on.

[rl1987]

Why would they give an offer if they want him to reject it?

[codegeek]

I would say "sorry I really am interested in working with your organization but I am already making $x. Would you be able to at least match it? ". Then wait for their response.

[itamarst]

You're assuming you have two options:

1. Stay at current, unpleasant job. 2. Take a huge paycut.

But there are other jobs. So what you do is, you start applying elsewhere, and meanwhile you try to negotiate with the startup.

The chances are that they won't go up that much. That's OK, you can:

1. Stall them, and use existing offer for negotiating with another company that gives you an offer. Even just mentioning you have another offer is helpful.

2. Negotiate for something else. "Hey, this is 50% less than my current salary. Would you be willing to raise it by 20% and then have me work 4 days a week?" I haven't done the math to figure out if this makes sense, but there might be some combination of hours and higher offer that might work for you. Most startups are unlikely to say yes, but I have successfully worked shorter work weeks at startups.

[CRConrad]

> "...Would you be willing to raise it by 20% and then have me work 4 days a week?" I haven't done the math to figure out if this makes sense,

At three days a week, it "makes sense" arithmetically: that gives the same daily salary they have now. Working on the money end in stead, you'd need to ask for a sixty percent raise to achieve parity at four days a week.

[Trias11]

I accepted lowest salary offer in my life a long while ago.

The employer was clearly lawballing me knowing my life situation.

I accepted and continued search. In 2 weeks got an 2x - proper offer from another place.

The lowball company forgot to make me to sign an employment agreement stating 2 weeks advanced notice.

So I left the very next day after casual email resignation email to boss.

It was fun to listen to his nervous tirades about me needing to stay two weeks and just hanging up on him.

Karma knows it way back.

Do what you got to do.

Sometimes it's ok to patch your life situation with what you've got - but always striving for more.

[giantg2]

It might be low because it's a startup. Maybe the equity makes up for it.

I'd just tell them that it's much less than your current salary and see if they can do better. If they can't, then move on.

[sircastor]

I’m curious if this is actually a low ball offer, or something like not-a-FAANG-or-SV-Startup-offer. Outside of The Valley salaries can be much lower, and outside the industry they are even lower. So, assuming US, are we talking 100k-ish or 50k-ish

That said, definitely push back. I wouldn’t be surprised if you can get 20% more on a first offer, or you might negotiate other parts of compensation.

How interested are you in the role? If it’s something that makes your days better then a pay cut might be worth it.

[opendomain]

Even if you work for a FAANG or another company that pays you a top salary now, an offer for half that means they do not want you.

Just tell them "no thank you". do not waste your time.

[giantg2]

They mentioned it's the salary at a startup. It might be that the offer includes equity and they are only focused on salary. It might just be that the company compensation model is different from what they are looking for.

[mxmpawn]

Update: I've (politely) declined the offer and told them to 2x the number if they wanted to bring me in. They've asked me if I can work some hours for the rest of the year in order to help the engineering team launch the first iteration of the product and then revisit the proposal in January.

Thanks for all the comments, you're all being very helpful.

[rdtwo]

Did you laugh at them?

[mxmpawn]

Why?

[simonblack]

It's very unlikely that they would double their offer to what you are now receiving. If they did, it would point out that they have the mindset to nickel and dime you to death whenever they can. That would indicate a bad place to work.

Stay where you are to keep a good income coming in while you actively keep looking for a better job at another company.

[marto1]

Don't wait to receive an offer. Make the first step and set their expectations as soon as you have enough details. You'll also be able to quickly gauge if you're dealing with people that are building a sweat shop by their reaction.

[Bostonian]

Tell them you are interested and politely make a counteroffer, explaining why you cannot accept their current one. I once rejected an offer but accepted an offer that was about 20% higher. A boost of 100% is less likely.

[JohnFen]

If you're fine with not taking their offer, then you have nothing to lose. Make a counteroffer that you'd be happy with. Perhaps your current salary plus some percentage?

[p0d]

You say you are burned out and now you are about to take on more work on a promise. I would be cautious.

[mxmpawn]

Yes, I'm not really thinking about doing freelancing hands on work. The only possibility would be to help them come up with a high level solution, as I had built a very similar product in the past.