As with anything it's about practice, negotiation is an art. For an unskilled negotiator the best thing to know is your BATNA.
A great rule of thumb is if people aren't saying no you didn't ask for enough.
The first time I negotiated I shot way over, apparently even the lawyer didn't make that much, my reply was that the lawyers work usually wasn't scalable across multiple clients and that any code I made was a capital good that could be resold again and again generating value in the company for years, then I pulled out a sales spreadsheet showing how the code I wrote for various product lines brought additional revenue to the company and then multiplied by the average length on the contract. (Make a really big number and ask for a small part of it).
Needless to say I was so successful in my negotiations that I was no longer allowed to have access to sales data.
The best part is once you negotiate a good salary you can use it in future negotiations as an indication of skill to get even better salaries. (eg. Does the competitor want to steal the $50K per year coder, or the $250K per year coder?)
For salary negotiation, I don't think knowing your BATNA is that helpful. Your BATNA is either accepting their initial offer or walking away.
I think your best course of action is to gather up salary data based on the job responsibilities of the job you're applying for. There are lots of online resources for researching salaries and you'll be able to grab data points like median, and quartiles. You can then massage that number up or down based on extra criteria like your unique skills, additional education, etc.
In any negotiation, finding objective criteria that you can show will always put you in a stronger position than creating semi-arbitrary bargaining positions.
The other best advice I could offer to would-be negotiators is to avoid setting any initial price until it's no longer reasonable to avoid it. If you have to name a price, name a price you're going to be very happy with.
If they are a strong no, try and trade off that $15k for increased benefits in some way
If they are a weak no, lower your ask.
They will almost certainly give you $5k above what they quote, maybe $10k
And keep in mind: if you're a typical software engineer going through a typical full-day on-site software engineering interview, they've dumped the better part of $1000 worth of dev-hours just to interview you (double that if they flew you out!) so seriously, asking for an extra $5k is no skin off their back. Just do it.
Read 'Getting to Yes' and 'Bargaining to Advantage' for more specifics about this discussion. I think everyone should read them. It doesn't hurt to include 'Influence.'
pkamb|12 years ago
gohrt|12 years ago
Employees, take it to heart.
Employers, you have been warned.
fleitz|12 years ago
A great rule of thumb is if people aren't saying no you didn't ask for enough.
The first time I negotiated I shot way over, apparently even the lawyer didn't make that much, my reply was that the lawyers work usually wasn't scalable across multiple clients and that any code I made was a capital good that could be resold again and again generating value in the company for years, then I pulled out a sales spreadsheet showing how the code I wrote for various product lines brought additional revenue to the company and then multiplied by the average length on the contract. (Make a really big number and ask for a small part of it).
Needless to say I was so successful in my negotiations that I was no longer allowed to have access to sales data.
The best part is once you negotiate a good salary you can use it in future negotiations as an indication of skill to get even better salaries. (eg. Does the competitor want to steal the $50K per year coder, or the $250K per year coder?)
ssharp|12 years ago
I think your best course of action is to gather up salary data based on the job responsibilities of the job you're applying for. There are lots of online resources for researching salaries and you'll be able to grab data points like median, and quartiles. You can then massage that number up or down based on extra criteria like your unique skills, additional education, etc.
In any negotiation, finding objective criteria that you can show will always put you in a stronger position than creating semi-arbitrary bargaining positions.
The other best advice I could offer to would-be negotiators is to avoid setting any initial price until it's no longer reasonable to avoid it. If you have to name a price, name a price you're going to be very happy with.
usea|12 years ago
eqdw|12 years ago
Do not tell them what your previous salary was.
Whatever their number is, ask for $15k more
If they are a strong no, try and trade off that $15k for increased benefits in some way
If they are a weak no, lower your ask.
They will almost certainly give you $5k above what they quote, maybe $10k
And keep in mind: if you're a typical software engineer going through a typical full-day on-site software engineering interview, they've dumped the better part of $1000 worth of dev-hours just to interview you (double that if they flew you out!) so seriously, asking for an extra $5k is no skin off their back. Just do it.
rgraham|12 years ago