How to 1.5x your salary through negotiation
Sigh. Seldom on HN do I see terrible advice, but this is certainly one of them. Here is a summary of the article:<p>&gt; Hi HN! You really like if-else statements, right? Let me frame a humane conversation like salary negotiation as a bunch of conditionals so that it is within your comfort zone. If they say X, then repeat after me: &quot;...&quot;<p>Then HN follows the advice and comes back and complains about being stuck in a soulless job that they just learned to &quot;remove their feelings from it&quot;. Just look at these comments as a tiny example.<p>About me: I have the final say in all of our hirings at a stable startup that many people have told me would be their dream job.<p>I will not hire a person who follows this process. Sure, against a recruiter you may be able to negotiate to push the number up. That&#x27;s because they are looking for their bonus and only care if you finish your probation. Against me, you are trading off your image, because I try to see your role 2 to 5 years down the road. That&#x27;s when a position truly pays off for us.<p>Basically, I am trying to understand if I can make you happy now, and keep you happy in the coming years. For that, you have to help me see you as a person WHO KNOWS WHAT YOU WANT.<p>Now, let&#x27;s follow this article&#x27;s advice on salary negotiation, and see where that lands us:<p>1. I ask you for your salary expectation.
2. You return the question back to me. (“Yeah, I have some thoughts around it but I was actually wondering what the salary range for the position is?”)
3. I either answer you or re-return the question back to you.
4. You give me the answer to question #1 anyways.<p>You are not negotiating. You are running a subroutine. You are also telling me that you are not an open nor a direct person. There is no &quot;money on the table&quot; that you can get from me by just asking the right order of questions. I want to know what satisfies you based on your lifestyle, what you heard from your friends, and what you saw online. I don&#x27;t want to play mind tricks or be played. In the era of ChatGPT, I have seen it all. You hiding behind intricate words does no favor.<p>Same goes with what the article suggesting about leverage. In our previous posting, we got 500+ applicants. If I give you an offer, it is not for bargaining. I think I am a fair person and I try my best to meet your need. If you come back to me and ask for more because Adobe is offering you something interesting, I realize you don&#x27;t really care about us vs Adobe, you are going for the best bid. Again, I want you to think about that 2-5 year timeframe, would I be in the right mind to count on you? Probably not. So I suggest that you take Adobe&#x27;s offer and we move on to a candidate that we feel sees something special in us.<p>That being said, I get why people may try these tactics. people are worried that they are giving too low of a number and if they had said something higher, it would have been fine anyways. Well, you can ask me how do I ensure that people get their fair share and what policies we have to keep salaries competitive through promotion.<p>Trust me, it will be clear.