I got a new job and negotiated my salary. I've always been interested in how to do this and wanted to share my experience.
My Negotiating Beliefs
Several times during this process I thought to myself that there isn't a winner or loser to this negotiation, there's only mutual understanding. If the company and I can find mutual understanding of my value, then we're both winners. This was not the situation to let my ego dictate my value, I never kept a specific salary number and I think that benefitted me throughout the negotiation.
The Original Offer
I felt that the original offer was a very low-ball. After receiving the offer I did market research on salary for Junior and Intermediate developers in Toronto and asked some friends in the industry as well. I learned that the company chose a salary on the lower end of the Junior range. I felt my base should have been the lower end of the Intermediate range (about a $10k- \$15k) difference.
This being said, I did understand the company's perspective. On paper, I only had 1 year of work experience, but I knew with a Computer Engineering degree, several summer jobs, a UI Design Certificate and startup experience, that I could provide much more value than that 1 year communicates on paper.
Approaching the Negotiating Table
First, I wrote a large draft email outlining my research and my experience which my cousin immediately shot down. With such a large gap between how I felt and the company's offer, the better direction was to call.
He advised me that I'm the seller and they're the buyer. My job is not to rationalize my price, but to communicate to them how valuable I can be. He also gave a few rules:
- Be joyous - positive attitude and happy people are more fun to talk to. Show your excitement about the opportunity to work with the company. This isn't about "winning", it's about coming to a mutual understanding.
- Ask questions - understand that they want to hire me, hence the offer. Ask questions that build on that excitement.
- Don't give a number - at this stage, you still don't need to get into the specifics of a number. The goal is to come to a mutual understanding first.
- Don't boast about the other offer - I had another offer (verbal only at that point), but this call needed to be about how excited I am to join their company and not be standoffish.
On the Phone
The phone call went surprisingly well and was only 15 minutes long. I asked only 3 questions: "How did you come up with the compensation number?", "What stood out about my application?", and "How do you see me fitting onto the team?".
The recruiter and I talked about how excited we were for me to join. We were both bringing up good moments throughout the interview process and my application that spoke to how valuable I can be for the team. After about 10-12 minutes we were both really hyped on having me start at the company, and so I brought up my compensation. I politely asked if she could take another look at it considering what we talked about.
Her response was really positive and she asked if I had a number that I would say "yes!" to. Of course, that would break rule #3. So I instead diverted as humbly as possible that I had another offer coming and would like to evaluate that before giving a number.
Updated Offer
By the end of the day, the recruiter got back to me with a new offer, an additional $10k in salary and a \$15k bonus. Completely taking me by surprise!
The next Monday my second offer came in with a slightly hire total package. But the excitement I generated with this company was unparalleled. I knew we were the better fit for each other.
I asked the recruiter if she could go up another $5k, to help make the decision easier, but really I had all intention to sign the offer regardless. It was the best fit for me.
She updated the offer once again, and I signed immediately. We accomplished the goal of coming to a mutual understanding of my value, and the company more than matched my excitement. I couldn't be more excited to start working.
Takeaways
One of the significant underlying takeaways I learned by doing this is how attitude can be a superpower. As an innate optimist and positive-person, my cousin would always tell me about my superpower and I never really believed him. But through this process it became so apparant. People like happy people.
There was some parts of my research that I left out from above. We took the yearly revenue of the company and divided by number of employees to get an idea of how much each employee contributes to the revenue. It shed some light on why the company wanted to open a Toronto office and how much they could save by doing so. Using public data like this is smart and I will continue to do so in the future.
PS: Comment on the Wage Gap
An interesting reaction I had to this experience was a bittersweetness about the wage gap. This came from talking to a friend who did not negotiate her contract and is now upset with her low pay relative to her peers.
Yes it's great that I negotiated my salary up so much, and I deserve the money I got - but I can't help to feel a little bad that from a pure numbers perspective, I know that it will look like a huge contributor to the wage gap.
Part of the reason I'm transparent in this blog post is to combat this issue. I hope others, especially women, can be motivated by my negotiation and negotiate for themselves.
Another perspective that my cousin brought up is that relative to the billionaires that rule our society, we're all losers. I believe this is the attitude of 2020, to work together to balance our society in bigger ways.