Salary negotiations

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

Her being in NY explains a lot of the confrontational attitude.

no kidding

Substitute a request for a follow-up discussion at a point in the future - eliminate urgency. Make it as far out as you think you can get away with.

Just like dating - you can't seem too eager. Don't call back for a while. Works (or used to for me) every time...

This past Thu, I pushed it out as far as I could... - this coming Monday.

I guess now it comes down to her and my ultimatum and who wants it more.

[masraum]

Crud, had lunch with a buddy today that knows my situation. He just started a contract gig at a major oil company. After lunch he texted me to tell me that one of the engineers hasn't shown up for the past 3 days, so they are canning him and need a replacement ASAP. I've spoken to the recruiter. It would be essentially the same money that I'm making now. It could possibly turn into long term, it could possibly turn into a permanent position, but neither is definite. At the same time, it could whither and die in a few months. They want someone to start ASAP, like next week if possible. I have an interview potentially setup for Mon, if not then definitely on Tue.

So, now I've potentially got backup in case I want to call the HR chicks hand. At the same time, the new gig could be great, or it could suck, who knows. It's a gamble either way. Now I'm not sure which option I would rather have, but at least I have options.

[Hugh R]

Late to the game, but do you see working for either firm in say 5 or 10 years. I perceive that you are relatively young. I bounced around on jobs for decades, mostly consulting firms, so no pension stuff. I wish I had the good sense and opportunity to join my current employer decades ago. I've been here 10 years and love it. 401Ks, and pension stuff add up.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Hugh R

Late to the game, but do you see working for either firm in say 5 or 10 years. I perceive that you are relatively young. I bounced around on jobs for decades, mostly consulting firms, so no pension stuff. I wish I had the good sense and opportunity to join my current employer decades ago. I've been here 10 years and love it. 401Ks, and pension stuff add up.

I just don't know how long I would stay at either place ultimately. I'm always open to staying some place long term, but haven't found that special place yet. It's not unusual for a place to change radically and go from someplace that you love to work to someplace that you'd rather not work. Hmm, I guess I could be relatively young. I'm 41.

I do have 3 401Ks from previous jobs. It's unfortunate that it took me so long to find my path. I was sort of a late career bloomer.

[masraum]

OK, so I still have to talk to the HR chick on Monday. I'm certain she's still going to push for an answer to:

"Are you saying that you are turning down the offer of $xx?"

I don't like that question. This situation is a little stickier than usual. Normally, you have job A and you want to move to job B, but if the negotiations for job B fall through, no problem because you still have job A. Now, it's like I'm negotiating to keep my job which means that there's no fallback. Fortunately, it sounds like there might be something to fall back on with this other job, but I won't know for sure in time. Also, I think I want to keep my current job, but I do want to get paid more.

My thinking is that this may be a good answer to "are you turning down the offer?"

I think something like this may be a good answer.

"I won't go on record as saying I'm rejecting the position; I am still interested in the position, and want to work with you to obtain my services. I am not completely satisfied with the offer and would like to know if you can go to $xx or how close you can get to that."

To me, there's a big difference between rejecting an offer and being happy with an offer. Would I reject it, possibly putting myself out of work at Christmas time? No. I'd take the job and find another, better one 3 months, 6 months or a year down the line. I was thinking the other night, this small increase is not that much money in the grand scheme of things. But if it's not much money to me, than it should be even less substantial to the company.

Any thoughts to help answer the question tomorrow?

[JeremyD]

Late to the party here - But I'd ask for more time - actually what I would probably do is ask her to put the offer in writing - and I would ask her what IS negotiable? HR people always take a long time to put stuff in writing...

Can you count you time worked as a contract worker able to be applied to provide you a PTO from the start? Can you set a review time for salary increase for 6 months from now instead of a typical annual anniversary date?

Stall to get more information about the other job - then evaluate.

[masraum]

Excellent suggestion, thanks

[Shadetree930]

Part of the issue here is that the HR department's goal is to keep your salary within range of other similar positions. Although you may be 'better' than average, the HR goal is to manage the entire spread of employee salaries in your position range. If your manager is not willing to advocate strongly for you based uopn specialized skills or departmental needs, you will to have to fit into the pre-determined salary range. The same goes for negotiating time off. Most companies will not flex much on benefit deviations for that level position. it creates too many problems with the other employees in the pool (exec level positions and hard to find skillsets exempt from this generalization).

Since network engineering is a 'commodity job' they are not going to move you too far from the salary range they have in mind. Even more so with respect to benefits.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by Shadetree930

Part of the issue here is that the HR department's goal is to keep your salary within range of other similar positions. Although you may be 'better' than average, the HR goal is to manage the entire spread of employee salaries in your position range. If your manager is not willing to advocate strongly for you based uopn specialized skills or departmental needs, you will to have to fit into the pre-determined salary range. The same goes for negotiating time off. Most companies will not flex much on benefit deviations for that level position. it creates too many problems with the other employees in the pool (exec level positions and hard to find skillsets exempt from this generalization).

Since network engineering is a 'commodity job' they are not going to move you too far from the salary range they have in mind. Even more so with respect to benefits.

Very good points that I did not touch on in my posts but should have. Partly because I didn't have enough info on the position or industry he's going for, and partly because it didn't occur to me.

I'm guessing the positions I've negotiated could be considered highly specialized so maybe I got away with more than folks going for different positions, or maybe I just pushed my luck more than others. Maybe a little of both.

[masraum]

Thanks all. The call went well. I didn't get much extra, but I don't think there was much left on the table to get. I think Shadetree hit the nail on the head. And frankly, the offer is not bad. There are actually lots of little perks. It already comes with 4 weeks of vacation. It's a salaried position but if I work over 40 hours I get OT at 1.5x. Then of course, there are also several other perks.

The important thing is that I've learned a bunch from all of you. I have more experience including experience with an unusually difficult situation, and I still have a job.