Salary Negotiation

Zeste said:

So you"d go back and not work for any big-name corporations?

Not just big, but big-name. Recognition that will be with you for decades.

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Nope.

A few big name contractors have tried to recruit me - have told them not to call again period (some new recruiter always comes along every 6 months and tries again anyways) and surprisingly some very big name companies on the commercial side of the industry (my area"s federal/state). Companies that aren"t measured in decades but centuries.

Let me be clear here. You"re never going to get a 33% raise from a big name company. After getting 20% the previous year not including bonuses. You"re never going to be able to write your own ticket. Or define your own title. Everything has a box or a defined role a place that can be filed. Everything has a corporate policy statement or a procedure and MOST annoyingly - you deal with institutionalized incompetence. Like enough to make you want to punch a baby.

The other thing is at this point I"ve gotten to the point in my career where C levels in small/mid firms are feeling me out on taking director roles as a next opportunity - and I"d much rather do that and take stock options for when they sell the company and make a quarter mil or so. I dont need a big name to lend cred to me anymore - my rep isnt based on that its based on results that I"ve delivered. *shrug*

In certain circumstances big names can work for people. I"m just not one of them. I spent time with the biggest in my field after my company got bought by them - no fucking thank you.

^ I disagree with the above, at least regarding IT/tech.

The reasoning is because of the types of people, ideas, environments these global companies provide and allow you to interact with cannot be matched by a small company. Basically, what type of people and knowledge you get exposed to, the breadth and scope of it, and how you learn to grow from it.

I"m no hiring manager, but I would not hesitate to hire an engineer or PM from a huge tech name than a small firm in a heart beat, without question, assuming equal skills. The person from the huge company has probably been exposed to a lot of different types of people and situations on a global level. I"ve worked at both, and while I do love the indie studio and the flexibility it provides (including learning on your own), the breadth of knowledge and expertise I can learn from at a Fortune 100 is unmatched by the small indie company.

Of course there are minuses.. it"s hard to advance; the borg-like atmosphere; difficult to stand out etc. On a day by day basis however, I"ll take those minuses if I get that water hose exposure to knowledge and people that I get with the big guys.

In terms of knowledge and exposure, I don"t see how you can beat it.

Etoille said:

Nope.

A few big name contractors have tried to recruit me - have told them not to call again period (some new recruiter always comes along every 6 months and tries again anyways) and surprisingly some very big name companies on the commercial side of the industry (my area"s federal/state). Companies that aren"t measured in decades but centuries.

Let me be clear here. You"re never going to get a 33% raise from a big name company. After getting 20% the previous year not including bonuses. You"re never going to be able to write your own ticket. Or define your own title. Everything has a box or a defined role a place that can be filed. Everything has a corporate policy statement or a procedure and MOST annoyingly - you deal with institutionalized incompetence. Like enough to make you want to punch a baby.

The other thing is at this point I"ve gotten to the point in my career where C levels in small/mid firms are feeling me out on taking director roles as a next opportunity - and I"d much rather do that and take stock options for when they sell the company and make a quarter mil or so. I dont need a big name to lend cred to me anymore - my rep isnt based on that its based on results that I"ve delivered. *shrug*

In certain circumstances big names can work for people. I"m just not one of them. I spent time with the biggest in my field after my company got bought by them - no fucking thank you.

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I had a post and deleted it. I re-read what you wrote, and you"re talking out of both sides of your mouth.

You say you have your own ticket now... due to working at places that gave you street-cred and recognition... but don"t need that anymore because now your rep is based on results *shrug!!!* So instead of focusing on where you work, you should focus on results.. but also on where you work so those results get noticed!

/boggle

You don"t necessarily have to be working for a big company in order to be in a position to have your work noticed.

Personally, I have had bad experiences with larger companies. I don"t really see the benefit of subjecting myself to that type of corporate environment. In a smaller company I am more valuable, but on the flip side I have to be shit fucking hot in order to take advantage of more limited mobility/promotion options. And in my experience larger companies don"t want to pay.

I definitely do not want to go out and look for a large company. I look at their offers, but mostly I find them lacking.

Killivek and Etoille are not really disagreeing, they are just looking at it from different perspectives. The complete story is pretty much what you can consider one of the prototype ideal career formats.

Working at big companies and multinationals is good for your career potential, provided you play the market and keep changing companies/jobs every few years. Working at smaller companies is good for you, as a person.
So, you go for that bigname company you"re talking about and put in a few years there, see how it goes. If after a few years you are completely fed up with corporate bullshit, you cash the street cred you"ve gained and go looking for a nice, smaller company that appeals to you. However, if it"s been a few years at the big corp and you"re still having a blast in that scene, switch jobs to some other giant and see how things are there, gain more experience, gain more street cred and expand your horizons. Oh, and raise your salary of course; that"s what this thread is all about after all.

You just repeat this cycle until your youthful energy and ambition has burned away enough to no longer provide you with the necessary airbag against corporate idiocy and then you hopefully end up at a company where you can do exactly what you want (which your years of working experience should have given you a pretty good idea about by now).

Obviously this kind of thing is easier said than done and there are a million snags along the way. It also not by any stretch the only way or the best way, or any of that stuff. However, it seems like an obvious way to approach your situation.

Lyrical said:

If you can"t see the other side, obviously, you"ve never managed people before.

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I agree that salary privacy is a good thing. Here at the government we"re on the GS system and it"s just a pay band based on your rank. Everyone knows about what a person makes if they know what rank and step they are in the pay scale.

The entire pay system is a product of mediocre or worse employees bitching that they should be equal to any other employee of the same rank. We just switched from a pay system that gave more opportunity to reward individuals that deserved it back to the GS system that basically rewards everyone the same. The GS motto should be something like, "You"re all special but none of you are..."

One of the problems with the GS system is its a disincentive to all employees to work harder. The employees that would naturally work harder may not because there is no benefit for it. The employees that would work hard just to try and keep up with others working harder so they don"t look bad don"t. Then there"s the slack asses that don"t do jack that everyone else sees and they say to themselves why work harder than him when he"s making the same as I am?

It goes deeper than that though... If the slack ass employee gets pissed off he didn"t get quite the same rating as an employee that really does deserve a good rating then slack ass can go to HR and file a complaint for discrimination. The paper work starts piling up and no manager wants to deal with that shit so managers just level off the ratings and make everyone the same to avoid the headaches...

Kilivek said:

Of course there are minuses.. it"s hard to advance; the borg-like atmosphere; difficult to stand out etc. On a day by day basis however, I"ll take those minuses if I get that water hose exposure to knowledge and people that I get with the big guys.

In terms of knowledge and exposure, I don"t see how you can beat it.

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I don"t know if I agree with you fully. While you may be exposed to more; large companies also tend to be bogged down with legacy.

Small companies have more power to maneuver into new technologies.

Then again, if you do manage to get into one of the R&D areas of a large multinational it can be amazing. Heck, my company is a direct result of a project developed by Credit Suisse"s R&D Division.

I guess I should clarify my question more:

You are getting a law degree. You can get it from Utah State University, or Colombia. You have the means/scholarships to go to either.

Now, I am not Etoille, and I am sure she"s alot smarter than me - but it seems like coming out of Columbia Law instead of Utah State Law would make you more noticable and marketable at first.

That"s how I see this - I"m not trying to stay somewhere forever. But with "Apple" on your resume, if you want to go into consulting or move to a smaller, higher paying company, seems like "Apple" would open alot more doors, and really make your future, new gigs, a whole lot more lucrative.

Also, I"m not a software engineer. I am a front facing product designer. So if I am doing consulting or looking for a higher paying job in a small company and I say "I was on the team who designed the iPad 3 and iOS 6"... seems like that 2 years slaving away at Apple and putting up with corporate red-tape would be worth it.

But really, I have no experience either way to have any useful things to say here.

Do you perceive any downsides to working at the bigname company? Because your posts look like you"re trying to weigh some factors that you are not all disclosing to us. I mean, the way you"re posing your question about the benefits of working for a bigname company makes me think that you"re trying to determine if those benefits are high enough to weigh up to whatever downsides there are to working there, or to whatever benefits working at the other company has.

I mean,everything else being equal, of course there is an upside to working for a big name. Of course it"s going to stand out on your resum?. If that is what you are wondering about then yes: it will make you more noticeable and marketable. But at what cost? You"re not letting much on here.

Or are you really just trying to figure out if there are any downsides to working for a big name that you might not seem obvious to you right now? In that case, I"m not sure. I don"t have experience at both a bigname company and one of similar size that is relatively unknown to make a comparison with.

Dynalisia said:

Do you perceive any downsides to working at the bigname company? Because your posts look like you"re trying to weigh some factors that you are not all disclosing to us. I mean, the way you"re posing your question about the benefits of working for a bigname company makes me think that you"re trying to determine if those benefits are high enough to weigh up to whatever downsides there are to working there, or to whatever benefits working at the other company has.

I mean,everything else being equal, of course there is an upside to working for a big name. Of course it"s going to stand out on your resum?. If that is what you are wondering about then yes: it will make you more noticeable and marketable. But at what cost? You"re not letting much on here.

Or are you really just trying to figure out if there are any downsides to working for a big name that you might not seem obvious to you right now? In that case, I"m not sure. I don"t have experience at both a bigname company and one of similar size that is relatively unknown to make a comparison with.

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I really just wanted tips on how to not be strongarmed by a big corp during offer negotiations.

Zeste said:

I fully expect it to have a tremendous personal cost to myself and family for a few years. Maybe even make me negative money. But in 5 years, I feel I"ll be much better off and actually be ahead of where I"d be otherwise.

Really I just wanted tips on getting the most out of your salary offer, to offset the sacrifice. This is not a short term financial gain, it"s a long term experience and knowledge investment.

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I gave someone this same advice down in the Development forum.

If you have interest from Big Name Company A that you want to work for for the name recognition, and smaller company B that"s less stable but more pay, take B"s offer back to A and say that you have an offer from B, and while you understand that they may not be able to match the offer completely, you"re willing to sign an offer on the spot (and thereby not take it back to B to let them get in a bidding war).

If they say no, go work for the smaller company, bank your funds to pay for training or to take another opportunity down the road. If they offer any sort of increase, sign it on the spot, and be happy that you got a few extra grand to take a job you already wanted at the lesser amount.

Whenever you"re playing offer letter negotiation, the biggest key is to head off one of the companies from thinking you"re getting them in a bidding war, because that"ll get your offer rescinded quite quickly. Get an original offer, take it to the other company and ask if they can beat it. If they do, go to the first company (assuming it"s the one you really want to work for) a final time, ask if they can match the offer (with cost of living difference if the two companies are in different areas with different COL), and if they do, sign on the spot. If they don"t, go work for the other company.

However, if you have your heart set on this gig, and you"re more worried about job satisfaction and future worth compared to current compensation and are convinced that this larger firm is your best option, and do not want to try to mess it up at all....well, they have the power in the negotiation then, and you should take whatever they offer so that you don"t get your offer rescinded.

Also, be sure to use pay resources like glassdoor.com and salary.com. This"ll let you find out the average and median pay for your profession, experience level, education, company size, etc. for the company"s area. This, at least, will give you a range of salaries considered acceptable for your skillset, so that you have a starting point for your negotiations, know what numbers sound reasonable, and you can make an educated decision to find out what salary is not only reasonable, but attainable.

Cad said:

Once again, you miss the point.

He"s not saying $24k is too much for anybody to make or that he"s jealous. He"s saying he"d manage his company differently, probably make a little less, and focus more on employee satisfaction and morale rather than having to threaten people with termination if they discuss certain topics with each other.

You can"t see it because you are just fixated on the money, as if making a successful business justifies any tactic you please, and if someone disagrees you feel it is class envy.

Like I said, douche.

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Lyrical stated he pays his guys better than ANY other similar company does. How much more does a person have to do? He said he gives them 35 hours even if they only work 10 in the winter months also.

I see the point that if Lyrical benchmarks his company against his competitors it"s fair for his employees to be doing the same against each other. Seems like human nature and smart business sense. What"s good for the goose is good for the gander... Maybe it"s just how I take it but it seems like Lyrical"s motivation for not sharing salary information between employees is to prevent drama within the company more than subdue his employees. Conspiracy theory too much you guys?

The thing with a lot of companies is.. and this is speaking from experience.. you really don"t know how they initially filter resumes.

I used to work for a very popular videogame company.. one of the big ones. You know how HR initially screened resumes simply because they got so many? A lady told me she used to look at the city the applicant put on the resume. If she knew the city, she put them in the keep pile. If she didn"t know it, the trash pile.

This is the kinda stuff that happens all the time everywhere. Ideally, no, it shouldn"t matter what companies you worked for, only your subject matter knowledge and experience. But that"s too long a process to sort through thousands of people.

Seeing cities people know? Check. Seeing companies people know? Check. Seeing skills people know? Check.

Zeste said:

I had a post and deleted it. I re-read what you wrote, and you"re talking out of both sides of your mouth.

You say you have your own ticket now... due to working at places that gave you street-cred and recognition... but don"t need that anymore because now your rep is based on results *shrug!!!* So instead of focusing on where you work, you should focus on results.. but also on where you work so those results get noticed!

/boggle

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not what I said at all. My ticket is due 100% to where I"m working now - has zero to do with the big name or the fact that its on my resume.

Hope that clears things up.

Vinen said:

I don"t know if I agree with you fully. While you may be exposed to more; large companies also tend to be bogged down with legacy.

Small companies have more power to maneuver into new technologies.

Then again, if you do manage to get into one of the R&D areas of a large multinational it can be amazing. Heck, my company is a direct result of a project developed by Credit Suisse"s R&D Division.

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Agree. Agility is not something a large company is capable of. Its just not.

Zeste said:

I guess I should clarify my question more:

You are getting a law degree. You can get it from Utah State University, or Colombia. You have the means/scholarships to go to either.

Now, I am not Etoille, and I am sure she"s alot smarter than me - but it seems like coming out of Columbia Law instead of Utah State Law would make you more noticable and marketable at first.

That"s how I see this - I"m not trying to stay somewhere forever. But with "Apple" on your resume, if you want to go into consulting or move to a smaller, higher paying company, seems like "Apple" would open alot more doors, and really make your future, new gigs, a whole lot more lucrative.

Also, I"m not a software engineer. I am a front facing product designer. So if I am doing consulting or looking for a higher paying job in a small company and I say "I was on the team who designed the iPad 3 and iOS 6"... seems like that 2 years slaving away at Apple and putting up with corporate red-tape would be worth it.

But really, I have no experience either way to have any useful things to say here.

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Your law school hypothetical only makes sense if you have no other work experience.

Same thing on the resume. This isn"t going to be your first job. It isn"t going to be your last. So while having a name thats super awesome on a resume is nice it isn"t necessarily the end all be all because ..... there"s other shit on there.

does this make sense?

Being on the other side of it now when I see resumes (granted they"ve gone through an HR filter by the time they get to me) I don"t give a damn where someone went to school or who they worked for before they got to me (in my field, as I alluded to earlier, if you"ve worked only for big companies or primarily for big companies that"s actually a big negative with not only me but a lot of folks). I"ve seen people who have Harvard on their resume not be able to get through a softball interview. I"ve seen someone say on their resume that they were the lead of a team not be able to explain a damn thing about the situation, anything about the project, or how what they did brought any value to the situation.

I care about results. I don"t care if you were on a team that did x. I want to know what your contribution to the team was and what directly resulted from your contribution.

I"ve seen a lot of people "on teams". I"vecarrieda lot of people "on teams." Tell me how you made a difference somewhere else so I can imagine you making a difference when you work for me. I don"t give a shit if its on a 60 million dollar project or a 500 million dollar project. Results matter. Everything else is just fluff and I"m way too busy for fluff.

You see what I"m saying on a lot of resume tip sites etc and there"s a reason for it - people like me want to hire people like that. My entire linked in profile is set up like that and that"s why I get the non personal networking (ie people i dont know or people cold calling me) that I do. Its "I did x, it resulted in y". No one gives a damn about the fact that I worked for alpha or omega. Because alpha and omega are huge and anyone worth working for is going to know that huge places provide a lot of cover for fails to hide and huge place allow for a whole lot of people looking to say "I was on the team that did x" to be able to try and use that as a launchpad for their careers when often they don"t deserve the credit they"re trying to take.

Theres what - tens of thousands of people working for intel "on the next chip." Actual number of people really working on the next chip? 200 ish. Anyone looking to hire a chip guy is going to be able to tell by the way someone writes their resume whether their role is really relevant or whether you"re just a straphanger. The fact that its at intel versus some other company is just a bonus. If you"re a non straphanger type of course working for Apple>all. But if you"re a straphanger no one will give a shit.

Also, typically the person making the decision has had a LOT of experience in bad interviews, bad hiring decisions with straphangers and will be able to ferret this out in an interview in a second so that makes how you write the resume all the more important. People that are good at their jobs just aren"t going to be distracted by a big flashy name.

I"ll at least get up and leave an interview if the person is wasting my time - I"m one of the nice ones. My husband will just continue to give people rope to make themselves look like fools in a group interview so that that person gets blackballed. The scary part? My husband is SO efficient at rooting these people out that in less than a year with his current company his team designated him as their lead for tech interviews.

Hope this helps.

Etoille said:

Agree. Agility is not something a large company is capable of. Its just not.

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No, disagree. Because those very same, large companies are the ones who create the things you need to be agile for. Learning a very marketable skill or technology from, well, the company that makes the skill or technology is pretty invaluable.

Doing Websphere at IBM, Fusion Middleware or Java at Oracle looks lightyears better than doing those same things at Bob"s Tech Corp down the street. Because you"re using these technologies at the very same company that made it, and you"re exposed to a lot more knowledge and people surrounding it.

Kilivek said:

No, disagree. Because those very same, large companies are the ones who create the things you need to be agile for. Learning a very marketable skill or technology from, well, the company that makes the skill or technology is pretty invaluable.

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Depends on the market. In my field its just not the case.

And niche companies generate an awful lot of those differentiators to which you"re referring in other fields.

And you"re talking about large companies being the ones generating the requirements - that"s not the vast majority of businesses.

Getting businesses to respond to requirements which require flexibility is just not something they can do with a whole lot of speed because they aren"t set up to do that.

I think you"re talking about something completely different than what Vinen and I are referring to.

I don"t know law whatsoever, but I don"t see how that"s the case too. If you get into some hotshot law firm in NYC or DC, compared to Smith, Smith, and Smith attorneys at law in Bumfuck, Nowhere, does that not speak volumes in terms of the very same metrics as I alluded to in tech?