I have recently finished interviews for Frontend dev role with a remote company and expect a decision from them by next week. During my first interview with the HR I set an expectation of $40 for my hourly rate. But during my subsequent interview with the CTO, he complained about my hourly rate and said that it was too high compared to your skillset and expertise. I deliberately pitch too high in the start so I can get away with a good deal later.
The interviews are over, right now it is not guaranteed they will go with me. But assuming they give me an offer, I have a feeling they will offer me some where around $30/hr (just this rate, no other compensation) for this position which I am happy to accept.
The question is, when they offer me with a lower rate how should I deal with the situation so that I don't loose the position and get away with the best deal?
P.S The company is US-based with a development team spread all across the globe. I am from South Asia and even $30/h is a very big deal.
When you receive the offer, you should comment on the differential between expected and offered wage, even if you intend to accept. For example, you might say with a gently puzzled tone, "this is lower than what I would ideally be earning, based on my experience and capabilities. Can you explain how you came to this number?"
You may be able to push back on them a little bit. You will be able to tell if there's room to negotiate, based on the response to you. Don't overdo it, as simply commenting on the differential and seeing how they respond is a way of gently squeezing them. If it seems the number is negotiable, ask if they can compromise with (for example) $33. The art is in doing this in a confident and friendly way, so that the position doesn't collapse.
Whatever number you set as the price you want, don't waver on it after it escapes your lips. Let them consider the number unless it's clear there will be no budging. If possible, do some research on other roles or other engineers you know in the business, so that you can justify your ask. It's not your standard of living that sets the price, it's your alternative job and their alternative hire.
While the general advice of open ended questions is sound, this question rarely works with companies. They'll simply respond with a vague answer.
"We did market research and determined that this is a competitive rate for your skills."
You have to counter that showing actual market data that disagrees with them.
I'm a but surprised no one mentioned the other "trick" in NSTD: Politely insist on a fringe benefit that they cannot provide (e.g. N weeks of vacation). This will make them more likely to increase the compensation to counter the benefit they cannot give you.
Or maybe the more open ended question is better?
I do like Never Split the Difference, great book. The most common complaint against it is that the author is a bit arrogant, but having read a couple other negotiation books first, I found the author's approach more fair and "real" than the bag-of-manipulative-tricks I found in the other books.
Also, since it's the CTO your talking to, try to establish an (for lack of a better term) "tech people versus the rest of the world" mentality, then he will be more likely to side with you. As we've all seen, people side with their own perceived group. I don't mean this to be as aggressive as it sounds, just try to use the natural camaraderie between tech workers.
So even if they do offer the 30 you'd be happy with, still negotiate. The outcome can only be happier for you.
Here's how I evaluate this if I was evaluating you:
1. I already have a salary budget already allocated for this role based on industry average for position and location (but location _could_ be irrelevant depending on skill mostly).
2. I look at your skillset and put you at the bucket for the position where you are at: low-med-high
3. I make my offer based on my evaluation.
4. If you are "worth it", meaning in the high bucket, then I would go out of my way to give you a good offer, up to max of my budget or to match how much you are asking. Else, I would say the offer is where it stands and either you take it or don't.
But to answer your question, it doesn't hurt to push back as long as you are confident in your skills and know your value is worth more. That one you have to make up for yourself by evaluating yourself with peers and other factors.
Oh. And if you do push back, make sure to give a good reason why it is so. For example, if I happened to put you in the low bucket, I might have evaluated you wrong or the tests did not show much of your skill, then make sure to outline why you deserve that salary increase with good reason. As a quick example, if the industry average in where you are is $50,000 and you are offered $30,000 which is the starting for a junior, you can say that you've been developing for awhile with at least 5 years experience and that $50,000 would be a fair salary etc etc.
> Disclaimer, I'm a CTO.
That's not a disclaimer, it's.. a claim. It's not even a 'disclosure' (which is what people saying 'disclaimer' often mean) really, it's more like a 'source', or just.. remove the word?:
> I'm a CTO, here's how I evaluate [...]
Sorry, just bugs me.
How do you evaluate people? Given the following information, how would you determine someone's skillset?
- hobby projects on the same technology stack
- open-source contributions (library with 15,000 monthly downloads)
- hobby projects on a different technology stack
- hobby projects on a different technology stack that made it into production with thousands of users
- previous companies
1. Paper screening the candidate. Looking at resume to see if they have skills for the job on paper. If so go to Personality Screening.
2. Personality Screening is done by talking to them and seeing if there's a cultural fit and also throw in some programming questions or feature discussions to see how they think.
3. Technical Screening by way of pair programming on a problem set that is based on the position that should show a mix of skills, tracing bugs or implementing features. If Frontend, mostly JavaScript and a Frontend Framework like React if needed.
As far as your questions go, we put weight on hobby projects but just so that we can see their code writing and some logic up front. As an example, I have seen one candidate with a recent Ruby on Rails project that had all their spaces and newlines everywhere, and I'm not talking about spaces or tabs here, think one chunk of code has 2 spaces, next had 3, another had 5, just everywhere that made the code super hard to read together with the messy logic/abstractions, from this, I assumed that they are still junior. On the contrary, I've seen a candidate that has really good code on a similar Ruby on Rails hobby project that reflected well on their work.
In most of the world you can hire a junior programmer for $30k.
Even in larger groups, I wouldn't be surprised if the CTO participated deeper than you might at first assume.
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There are no guarantees in negotiation. Projecting confidence and being willing to walk away from a lowball offer will help you negotiate.
If you give the impression that you have no other options and that you will be taking the job even at the lower price, they will likely offer the lower price.
If you give the impression that you are not interested in the job unless they accept your higher price, they will be more likely to negotiate. However, they might also look for alternate candidates who are willing to accept the lower rate. This is a risk you must accept.
One of the best things you can do for yourself is to continue searching for other jobs until you have accepted an offer. Getting too attached to any one job will diminish your negotiating position and the other side may sense this. There will always be more job offers, so don’t sacrifice your requests just to take the first one.
That sentence helps both with confidence and understanding the dynamics at play.
(The trick to negotiating well, then, is being good at finding an agreement that leaves you both happy while still talking to each other. But keeping the talk alive is the most important bit.)
- have another offer
- have a job that’s better the offer you get
In my experience, having the job is easier timing wise. When Company A wants to extend you an offer, you can’t really get Company B to accelerate their hiring most of the time (and pushing them might just make them say you should take the other offer).
I’d just read through that.
Boy did I got fucked a few time at hire. I think it’s better now ? Who knows. Probably still getting fucked.
Summary (for OP or anyone else reading): assuming you bring a useful skillset and are likely to actually argue over $30/hr or $40/hr rates, you should charge more.
Do not assume $50/hr is off the table, if you bring that much value.
Do not assume $100/hr is off the table, if you bring that much value.
Do not assume $150/hr is off the table, if you bring that much value.
Potential employers care about what value you bring, and what compensation they can talk you into. Nothing else matters.
The OP should negotiate up (especially if they have data on comparable pay they can use), but what others in the market with comparable skill are willing to take also matters.
The way you know is to get paid that much already, or to have multiple firm offers for that much from other potential employers. If neither of those are true, then you don't know what your value is, and you're negotiating from a point of weakness. If you can't reach that level of confidence, then the next best thing is to find out exactly what the job entails, and learn what the local market pays for that skillset. If you bring extra skills, point them out and use them to bring your price up. If you bring only a subset of those skills, use that to set expectations for future rate increases when you can prove you've added value.
It sounds like you're guessing as to your worth, and negotiating based on the pay you want. Do the research, get competing offers, and know what you're worth. Be prepared to explain to a potential employer how you arrived at the number. It's the only way to get paid fairly.
If $30 an hour pleases you, then don't mess it up by getting greedy.
If there are other issues with the job that you haven't told us about, bring those issues up and perhaps they will go higher.
The way negotiation works is by joining people with different expectations. It's not a contest or a battle of wits you have to "win." For them $30 an hour is great; for you, it is great. That sounds like a successful deal to me.
But, if you are really satisfied with $30ph (if you don't have a better offer to fall back on), you probably won't get (much) more. Your weak negotiating position will inevitably shine through.
The best thing you can do is find another alternative at the rate you want. Then you can say, “I want to work for you. You are my first choice. Just please match my other offer.”
The other offer shows you are coming from a position of strength, and validated your market price.
Bingo. Know your BATNA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_alternative_to_a_negotiat...
2. Always politely reject the first offer.
Then make a specific counteroffer, don’t just say “More money, please.” Give a specific, reasonable-sounding justification. It doesn’t even have to be that great.
“I am excited by the opportunity to join $COMPANY as a $ROLE. It is directly in-line with my career path, and I’m confident that I will bring my skills and enthusiasm to this role. However, based on my research into prevailing industry wages/salaries in our region, I believe $X is more appropriate for someone with my educational background and level of experience.”
3. Ask to see the entire compensation package, not just the wage/salary.
Stock options/RSUs? Employee stock purchase plan? What kind of health insurance do they have? How many paid holidays? Vacation policy?