Salary negotiation: the day of

This is my last planned post for my series on salary negotiation, particularly for those coming out of a coding bootcamp like Hackbright Academy. I'm going to just go over a few things to keep in mind right before and during the salary negotiation conversation itself. I'm assuming that the salary negotiation happens over the phone.

First, you should watch Amy Cuddy's TED talk on body language and the "power pose":

...if only so you'll know what people are talking about when they reference it, because it'll probably be brought by someone, at some point :) There's a transcript here, if you don't like to watch videos, though you'll probably need to get at least some visuals to go with it to understand what she's talking about, so here's one: \o/ (that's you with your arms raised above your head in a victorious V, more or less)

I don’t know how much those power pose techniques actually help me directly, but in general, getting in some movement to get my blood pumping a bit and psyching myself up helps. As always, do whatever works for you to cheer you up and get pumped, whether that's a power pose and/or a pep talk to yourself in the bathroom mirror. One thing I might try next time is to do some jumping jacks or something, so that I can tell myself that my raised heartrate is not due to fear, but from that exercise.

On that note, this is also a useful TED talk, on how you can re-interpret your physiological responses to stress to your own benefit (and I swear I'm normally not that TED talk fan type, I much prefer reading articles to watching videos):

Anyway, if none of the above works for you, draft some friends to be on call to help! Your friends are probably a better cheerleader for you than you are for yourself.

Remind yourself of your achievable goals, and how you want to express how positively you feel about this offer, and how it’s a collaborative effort to make this opportunity even better on all sides.

And lastly, bring whatever notes you need to remember all the stuff that you've practiced and prepared. I pretty much always also write up a Post-it note as a reminder to myself to SLOW. DOWN. when I’m talking, so that I sound more confident and competent.

Once you wrap up the negotiation itself, remember to end the conversation on a positive note, expressing your excitement about the company. If they ask you what you're feeling right then about the offer (as code for "can you just tell me or give me a hint on whether you're going to accept?"), you can say something like this:

"I'm really excited about this opportunity! I will just need to take some time to consider all* the factors for my decision. Thank you so much for taking the time to discuss all these details with me, it's all been incredibly helpful."

*This is basically code from you, for "you could always consider sweetening the pot further and letting me know to help me make this decision in your favor."

Needing to take some time to consider a decision really isn't something that can be reasonably argued against--and if you get pressure to accept very quickly, that is a very bad sign. Either this company culture is tending to be abusive, or the most charitable interpretation, you're working with a recruiter that isn't very good. See this essay from Joel Spolsky on the "exploding offer":

Almost any company, when pressed, will give you a chance to compare offers. Don’t worry about burning bridges or pissing anyone off. Trust me on this one: there’s not a single hiring manager in the world who wants to hire you but would get mad just because you’re considering other offers. It actually works the other way. When they realize you’re in demand, they’ll want you more.

Finally, end the conversation by clarifying next steps, like what you or they have agreed to do--they need to get approval from someone else on what you've asked about, they'll send you a revised offer with the new details, you need to get back to them with a final decision by a certain time, etc. This is just to make sure you're all on the same page about what's been agreed to (or not).

I hope you find this series of posts helpful! Please do let me know if it has in fact helped you at any point so I can validate some of my opinions (though you should also let me know if any of this advice is really horrible or seems misguided too, of course). Best of luck!

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Update: here's the full series of posts

1. Salary negotiation after Hackbright
2. Preparing for salary negotiation, part 1: general perspectives to consider
3. Preparing for salary negotiation, part 2: what to even ask for
4. Preparing for salary negotiation, part 3: practicing for the negotiation
5. Salary negotiation: the day of

Preparing for salary negotiation, part 3: practicing for the negotiation

Over the last few years, I've realized that practicing a lot is paradoxically what I need to sound less rehearsed. Not sure where I first read this, but I saw something a few weeks ago that said that when you're under stress of any kind and your emotions are heightened, things that you know really well become easier and things that you don't know well become harder, so that you're pushed in opposite directions due to that stress. That seems true to me for public speaking and salary negotiation both.

It's helpful to actually practice saying these things out loud to someone because with practice, the words will feel less awkward in your mouth. Even if you don't want to practice to another person (though you should, because all your friends will be more encouraging to you than the hiring manager or recruiter, right?), you should still say them out loud, maybe to yourself in the bathroom mirror. This is what I do for practicing talks and it's always eye-opening to watch myself be all fidgety and motivates me to stop that.

I like to think about the different paths the conversation can go, with both best and worst case scenarios, just to map it out a bit in my head. You can plan out and group out the different things you want to ask for based on your read of how the conversation is going.

For example, if there’s utter shock when you state what you want for your salary, you could use phrasing like,

Can you tell me more about the average range for __[role]__ at your company is?

It’s better to ask for a range rather than the exact average, I think, so you can get a sense of the deviations from the average. Also, you’re setting yourself up for this:

(Dilbert, 3/16/98)

Alice being awesome aside, I thought the best piece of advice from Lean In was that because of the penalty women can face more than men when they’re seen as “selfish”, you should try to phrase your requests in how you’re asking on behalf of the team, or how you want to set an example for the rest of the women to follow, like

We talked a lot at Hackbright about how a pay gap is introduced when women don’t ask to negotiate their salary, and so we all promised we would ask.

This isn’t to give them an easy out by saying how your goal is just to ask, so don’t say “we would at least ask,” but just phrase it so you can minimize any burden you might take on yourself for having asked.

Remind yourself that it's ok to take pauses and just let the awkward silence sit. It is not in fact your job to fill it in order to reduce the tension!! It's really hard to resist this urge if you're a woman, we've been socialized for a very, very long time to always be keeping an eye out for other people's comfort--which isn't a bad thing, we should socialize boys to do this more too, I think, but it's not always your job to do that.

Practice slowing down--this is the one that I always, always have to remind myself. Literally I will write "SLOW DOWN" on a Post-It note and stick it right at eye level or at the top of my notes. You may also want to consider using the deeper end of your voice range and keeping an eye on any tendencies you might have for upspeech, where your tone goes up at the end of sentences and makes it sounds like everything you're saying is a question and therefore sounds uncertain. This can vary a bit depending on what your voice is like normally, though, so just in general, do whatever you need to in order to sound like yourself but the serious and confident version.

Lastly, if you’ve gotten actual, real feedback in the past to be more assertive, use it! Like, “hey, I know one piece of feedback you had for me in the past was to speak up." So that again, even if you don’t get what you asked for, you can deflect aspersions on your selflessness and also show that you listen to feedback that you get.

Next up, the final post I have planned for things to do right before and during the negotiation itself.

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Update: here's the full series of posts

1. Salary negotiation after Hackbright
2. Preparing for salary negotiation, part 1: general perspectives to consider
3. Preparing for salary negotiation, part 2: what to even ask for
4. Preparing for salary negotiation, part 3: practicing for the negotiation
5. Salary negotiation: the day of

Preparing for salary negotiation, part 2: what to even ask for

To negotiate, of course you have to figure out what you want to actually negotiate for. For me, it helps to basically have a ranked list of what you want, so you can start off with the most important items to you and work your way down.

Generally at the top of your list will be your base salary. How to figure out what number you want to ask for:

• There are lots of places to do research on what you can expect, in your location, like glassdoor and such.
• If you have mentors you trust and feel comfortable with, you can also just share the direct details with them to get their take on it and they can advise you based on their own experience. I did this with my Hackbright mentor Sebastian and it was really great for having a neutral third party who’s interested in my welfare.
• If you don’t know what number to ask for at all, a base rule of thumb that seems reasonable to me is to ask for 10-15% over whatever the number they gave you is.
• I’ve also read somewhere that it’s better to ask for a number that’s not a completely round number, because then people will be primed to round down to the next round number. So for example, if your target is the high 80ks, it might be more effective to ask for 92k so that people naturally round down to 90k, vs. asking for 90k and having that be mentally rounded down to 85k. I don’t know how true this is in practice, but it makes an intuitive sense to me.

In terms of phrasing your salary request, you can use phrasing like:

My frame of reference is the Hackbright community, where the average starting salary as a junior software engineer for graduates in the Bay Area is __$$__. 

It’s a nice non-confrontational way to state your expectations by placing the responsibility for where they came from elsewhere, so you don’t run the trap of being seen as specifically and individually “aggressive” which is a particular concern for women trying to negotiate their salaries (see this post on why it's perfectly rational--though still something I would like to see changed--for women to feel hesitant about "just asking").

After general salary, the next item you can ask for is probably a signing or relocation bonus if applicable. If you were told that they can’t increase your salary because there isn’t room in the budget, you can phrase this request as:

Is there room in the budget for an increase in the signing bonus, as this is a one-time investment for the company?

The idea being that it's harder for people to deny that money in a budget can’t be shifted around for a one-time item.

In the workshop she ran for our Hackbright class, Poornima strongly stressed not justifying why you’re asking for what you are, but the urge to do so is really strong and hard to overcome. So, you could use wording like:

Because [company] is not a partner company, I would like a higher signing bonus to help pay back my Hackbright tuition. (when this is applicable, of course) 

I think it sounds better to talk about it in the third person as opposed to saying “because your company is not a partner company…” so it seems more just a dispassionate statement of fact vs. coming across as an accusation or criticism.

Other items to consider negotiating on:

• start date (this was personally my own most important item, due to some travel I had already planned and needing time to get my life together to move)
• vacation days, other benefits
• timing of your performance review or a firm agreement on the next time your pay will be re-evaluated

I like this last one one because it’s a way out where no one has to lose face if the conversation is going in a direction where it seems like they’re unwilling to yield anything at all to you. You can kick it off with something like:

Can you tell me a bit more about the performance review process?

After they answer that question, you can say:

Ok, would you be open to setting up my performance review to be [some period of time that’s earlier than usual] so we can make sure to check in and I can get feedback on how I can better help the team?

It’s an easy thing for them to agree to, it shows how you’re committed to doing a good job above all, and it makes starting your next attempt as negotiating that much easier to bring up once you're in the role.

Next up, another post about the secret ingredient to preparing for the negotiation: practicing!

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Update: here's the full series of posts

1. Salary negotiation after Hackbright
2. Preparing for salary negotiation, part 1: general perspectives to consider
3. Preparing for salary negotiation, part 2: what to even ask for
4. Preparing for salary negotiation, part 3: practicing for the negotiation
5. Salary negotiation: the day of

Preparing for salary negotiation, part 1: general perspectives to consider

First off, the below is mostly assuming that you’re going to have a conversation over the phone about the proposed salary and such in your offer letter. If the idea of doing this over the phone really, really frightens you, though, there is no shame in conducting it in another format that’s less intimidating to you, like email. You should do whatever you feel will set you up the best for succeeding in getting what you ask for, while noting that it tends to be easier to adapt to the atmosphere over the phone than through a "cold" medium like email, where it's easier for people to assume the worst.

And now, some thoughts on how to think about the whole negotiation process:

If this is your first salary negotiation, I think it helps to somewhat set a goal that feels really achievable. For me, it was just to go through with trying to negotiate it my salary at all. I felt like I was going to puke all day beforehand, I was so nervous--but hey, I didn’t die! So next time has to be better than that!

One perspective that made the salary negotiation process feel a lot more palatable to me is to NOT think of it an adversarial situation but instead, to think about it as both you and who you’re negotiating with have a shared goal of working together to make this offer even better for both you and the company. You don’t at all have to lie or pretend like you’re not interested, if those are tactics that make you feel uncomfortable (they do for me, for sure). Instead, you can make the conversation sound really positive and express how excited you are about the opportunity, they're excited, and an attitude of “let's work together to make it even better!” The official offer is not a binding contract, it’s just a starting point for your conversation.

I also prefer to think of this as NOT a reflection or judgement on your value as a person! I’m not a fan of advice that’s centered on “asking for what you’re worth” because that’s tied to your own, potentially wrong (in either too positive or too negative) assessment of what you’re “worth.” Instead, it should be all about the value you bring to the company and how hard it would be for them to find someone to replace you. This is also just a much more business-savvy way to go about the negotiation, where you’re not asking for more just because you’re a special snowflake, but because you’re a special snowflake that they are investing in and will get an excellent return on in value you provide.

If you are still nervous about the whole prospect of negotiating your salary in light of the story of the philosophy professor whose offer was rescinded after negotiating over email, this blog post on How Not to Negotiate Your Next Job is a good read. I particularly like #4 and #6 on her list of guidelines.

Next up, I’ll get into some details on how to figure out what exactly what you want to ask for, which is probably going to end up being the longest post in this series.

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Update: here's the full series of posts

1. Salary negotiation after Hackbright
2. Preparing for salary negotiation, part 1: general perspectives to consider
3. Preparing for salary negotiation, part 2: what to even ask for
4. Preparing for salary negotiation, part 3: practicing for the negotiation
5. Salary negotiation: the day of

Salary negotiation after Hackbright

Update 10/15/14: I still stand by what I wrote in this series, but if you're interested in reading more, you really should check out this piece on how to ask for raises by Jocelyn Goldfein, former Director of Engineering at Facebook. 
Update 4/15/17: Also this two part series from Haseeb Qureshi, who is a bootcamp grad that went from 120k to 250k in total compensation in the job offer negotiation process.

In the past few months, I’ve tried to help a few friends gear themselves up for their first salary negotiations, so I thought it might be useful to get those written down and organized a bit into a series of blog posts. Some of these are a bit more Hackbright-specific for getting your first job as a junior software engineer, where you might still be a little bewildered by just getting into the industry at all, but I hope that most of the advice can be generally applicable to your own situation. As with all career advice ever, take everything that follows with the appropriate size grain of salt. I would also love feedback on whether any of it seems like particularly good or bad advice so I can course-correct my ideas if needed.

To start with, here are a few points to be considered before you even get the offer:

Some companies will just give you their standard offer with all the numbers in there already, while others will more or less try to ferret out what your expectations are at various points along the way. I like this piece of advice from Ramit on just using this canned line when you get asked about your salary expectations:

"I'm sure we can discuss salary when the time is right, but for now I just want to see if there's a mutual fit for you and me."

Sometimes if it’s clear there’s going to be a severe mismatch though, the non-jerk thing to do is not to waste anyone’s time, of course. Try to turn the question back on the questioner with “why don’t you let me know what the range you’re thinking of is, and I’ll let you know if that’s potentially workable before we go any farther with this process?”

Still, I’m just bad at not answering a direct question honestly when it’s put to me, like “what do you make now?” If you are unable to resist the urge to answer this question, please be smarter than I was and give a number that’s your total compensation, which includes your bonuses and estimated value of your benefits on top of your base salary. I didn’t think to do this and worry that I could’ve put a better foot forward here, having worked at Google where I got a significant annual bonus and the benefits are very valuable. I thought oh, I’ll just give the base salary and compare the benefits after I get more details but I think it would’ve been better to put a higher number out there to start. Don’t know if it would’ve made any difference, but I’d have more peace of mind from leaving no stone left unturned in that arena.

Similarly for evaluating your current offer, if you can, you should try to talk to an HR or benefits person who can give you more details on what’s included. For example, my offer letter was very general about the various medical benefits available, but I wanted more details on what exactly the options were and how much it would cover or not, to inform what I’d want to negotiate for.

To set the stage for negotiating your salary, I think it’s good to lead in to it with a general request to “discuss the details of the offer”, which most people will understand as implying you want to negotiate your salary. It’s nice and neutral though, and you can also make sure you’re addressing the right person for the requests that you want to make. And bundling in your salary negotiation with other general questions you might have helps it feel less scary.

Next up, I have a few posts on how to prepare for the salary negotiation.

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Update: here's the full series of posts

1. Salary negotiation after Hackbright
2. Preparing for salary negotiation, part 1: general perspectives to consider
3. Preparing for salary negotiation, part 2: what to even ask for
4. Preparing for salary negotiation, part 3: practicing for the negotiation
5. Salary negotiation: the day of