Error converting content: marked is not a function
- Source - - 4/ The Power of Silence - If one party says more than the other, it creates an imbalance of power. - The party who has listened more now knows both their motivations and the secondary parties motivations. - Be the person who knows the most by listening. - - Source - https://haseebq.com/my-ten-rules-for-negotiating-a-job-offer/ - Give away nothing. Retain your power. - Stay positive and excited. - Don’t be the decision-maker. (Use your wife) - Recruiters love trying to trick you into ending the negotiation early. They’re going to do this relentlessly. Don’t fault them for it—I suspect they can’t help themselves. Just keep breaking out of their shenanigans, and don’t let yourself be pressured into ending a negotiation until you’re actually ready to make a final decision. - - And yet, when people talk about the labor market, they think “oh, a company wants to give me a job! What a relief!” As though having a job were in itself some special privilege for which a company is the gatekeeper. Dispel yourself of this mindset. A job is just a deal. It is a deal between you and a company to exchange labor for money (and other things you value). - You might think to yourself: “well, I don’t want to set high expectations, and the offer is already generous, so I ought to just take it.“ No. Negotiate. Or maybe: “I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot and look greedy with my future employer.“ No. Negotiate. “But this company is small and—“ No. Shut up. Negotiate. - Rule #1 of negotiating: have everything in writing. - Your recruiter will now say something along the lines of “so what do you think?“ This seems innocuous, but your reply here is critical, because there’s a lot you can say to weaken your position. This is your first decision point. A decision point is a moment in the negotiation where your interlocutor wants to compel you to make a decision. If they succeed in tying you to a position, they will close the door on further negotiating. Of course “what do you think?” is a subtle prod. But it is the beginning of many attempts to get you to make a premature commitment. - This leads to rule #2 of negotiating: always keep the door open. - Rule #3 of negotiating: information is power. - To protect your power in the negotiation, you must protect information as much as possible. A company doesn’t give you insight into what it’s thinking. It doesn’t tell you its price range, how much it paid the previous candidate with your experience, or anything like that. It intentionally obfuscates those things. But it wants you not to do the same. A company wants to be like a bidder in a secret auction. But unlike the other bidders, it wants to know exactly how high all of the other bids are. It then openly intends to exploit that knowledge, often by bidding one cent more than the second highest bid - A corollary of this rule is that you should not reveal to companies what you’re currently making. There are some exceptions, but as a rule you should assume this. If you must divulge what you’re making, you should be liberal in noting the total value of your package (incorporate bonuses, unvested stock, nearness to promotion etc.), and always mention it in a context like “[XYZ] is what I’m currently making, and I’m definitely looking for a step up in my career for my next role.“ - Think like the watermelon farmer. This offer is just is the first businessman who’s stopped by your watermelon patch, glanced over your crops, and announced “I’ll take all of these right now for $2 a melon.” Cool. It’s a big market, and you’re patient—you’re a farmer after all. Just smile and tell them you’ll keep their offer in mind. And this is super important: always be unequivocally positive - Even if you don’t particularly care what your friends/family/husband/mother thinks, by mentioning them, you’re no longer the only person the recruiter needs to win over. There’s no point in them trying to bully and intimidate you; the “true decision-maker” is beyond their reach. - This is a classic technique in customer support and remediation. It’s never the person on the phone’s fault, they’re just some poor schmuck doing their job. It’s not their decision to make. This helps to defuse tension and give them more control of the situation. It’s much harder to pressure someone if they’re not the final decision-maker. So take advantage of that. - Send a follow-up e-mail confirming all of the details you discussed with your recruiter so you have a paper trail. Just say “just wanted to confirm I had all the details right.“ Groovy. Next step is to leverage this to land other offers and find the best deal we can find in the job market. - Hello [PERSON], I just wanted to update you on my own process. I’ve just received an offer from [COMPANY] which is quite strong. That said, I’m really excited about [YOUR AMAZING COMPANY] and really want to see if we can make it work. Since my timeline is now compressed, is there anything you can do to expedite the process? - It is the oldest method in history to galvanize a marketplace—show that supplies are limited and build urgency. Demand breeds demand. Not every company will respond to this, but many will. - it’s rational for companies to care that you’ve received other offers. They care because each company knows that their own process is noisy, and the processes of most other companies are also noisy. But a candidate having multiple offers means that they have multiple weak signals in their favor. Combined, these converge into a much stronger signal than any single interview - Exploding offers are anathema to your ability to effectively navigate the labor market. Thus, there is only one thing to do. Treat the offer as a non-offer unless the expiration window is widened. In no uncertain terms, convey that if the offer is exploding, it’s useless to you. - I have one big concern. You mentioned that this offer explodes in 48 hours. I’m afraid this doesn’t work at all for me. There’s no way that I can make a decision on this offer within a 48 hour window. I’m currently wrapping up my interview process at a few other companies, which is likely to take me another week or so. So I’m going to need more time to make an informed decision. - Another important difference between good and bad negotiators is that bad negotiators tend to think of a negotiation as a zero-sum game. Imagine we’re negotiating over a cake. In a zero-sum negotiation if I get one more slice, you get one less. Any gain I make comes at your expense. This seems obviously true with cake, right? So what makes a job negotiation any different? Ah, but it’s not actually true for cake. What if I hate corner pieces and you love them? What if I really like the cherries? What if I prefer to scrape off some of the frosting, but you love extra frosting? What if I’m full and you’re starving, but you’ll agree to treat me to my favorite cake next time? - In negotiation literature, your best alternative is often referred to as your BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement). Basically, it’s what you’d do if you walked away. - Realize that when you are agonizing over whether to ask for another few thousand dollars, what they’re doing is praying with bated breath that you’ll sign the offer. If you don’t sign the offer, they lose. Losing a good candidate sucks. No one wants to believe that their company isn’t worth working for. They want to win. They will pay to win. And yet, you might worry: “but if end up negotiating more, won’t they have higher expectations? Won’t my boss end up hating me for negotiating?” No, and no. - So if you’re forced to give a number, do so by appealing to an objective metric, such as an industry average (or your current salary). And make it clear that you’re merely starting the negotiation there, not ending it - Well, okay. I know that the average software engineer in Silicon Valley makes roughly 120K a year salary. So I think that’s a good place to start. - rule #8: be motivated by more than just money. Note, this is not code for “if you seem like you’re motivated by more than just money, you’ll get more money -