I imagine this is too late, as it's Thursday morning now. Best wishes on yor meeting, hope it goes well.
Lots of great advice in here, a few things I wanted to emphasize.
From myself, know what's important to you. Maybe salary doesn't do it for you, but time off is super important (or whatever). Salary's not the only place you can negotiate your compensation.
My bolds below to highlight points.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeC2012
This. There is a serious chance you could get an extra 5-10k/yr, no questions asked. And because salaries are pretty sticky, this is a massive amount of money, because it's really an extra 5-10k/year (+compounding?) for as long as you stay in the industry. There's absolutely no downside to negotiating either.
Also would echo El D's earlier point that 50k/yr for a UC comp sci major feels really light, unless of course you're getting appropriate equity.
Remember,
nobody is going to be your agent except you. If salary is a big thing to you, it's o.k. to say that you've done research and found the $64K number, see how they react. Seems unlikely they'd show you the door, more that they'd consider and counter your counter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chopstick
No matter what happens, things are going to work out just fine.
Going to have to disagree with the OOT consensus on negotiating here. It's not optimal to just snap accept their initial offer, but it's also not a huge error given your specifics.
Seems like a lot of the folks advocating negotiating are not taking into account:
- your desire to escape the milk carton NOW
- your lack of negotiating skills
- this would be your first job in the new field
- how often people switch companies in tech
- your anxiety related to a massive life change
- your inaccurate self market valuation
- etc
Negotiating is clearly the optimal approach, but that doesn't necessarily make it the right one, given your circumstances.
If you are at all concerned about it and want a simple negotiating plan, just go in with the plan to ask for 110% of what they offer, which will guaranteed be in the range of the position budget. If they offer 50k, tell them you are looking for at least 55k. They will be expecting you to ask for at least 60k and will snap accept your counter.
If there is any pushback or if you aren't comfortable with making a counter, then another approach is to say you were looking for more but are willing to accept now with the agreement that compensation will be addressed again in 90 days during a post-probationary period performance review. You will be much more comfortable having this discussion after having already been there for 90 days.
We let ourselves get full of anxiety, but the truth is, most of the time things work themselves out.
The rest of chopstick's post makes a lot of sense to me as well, especially the second bolded part.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry Legend
Get a good night's sleep, be properly hydrated, and have enough food/energy.
Be prepared to answer awkward questions, it is impossible for you to be over-prepared for things that may make you uncomfortable. Some of these might not even be legal to ask in California anymore, but people usually dont give a ****.
Be careful with saying things too specifically about "weighing other options", if they are worried about losing you, they are going to immediately want to understand more about this. If they are willing to pay you 70-80k but are about to lowball 50k, they won't want to get caught with their pants down and be against a much better offer. You run the risk of facing a million questions if you give some vague answer about this being one of several choices.
I would look to maybe make small talk and build a bit of rapport by saying something like "well to be honest, after 4 weeks I was disappointed because I thought you weren't going to get back to me, so maybe I do have another couple offers coming, but otherwise I don't expect another one imminently". This is possibly going to be a divisive point, but I think avoiding the awkward lying if the person becomes paranoid you might not accept is a win here.
When they make you the offer, it might be worth it to just have some cheesy line prepared. Something like "I know that I'm supposed to go back and forth with you, and get an offer from another company, but I came in here wanting to make (70-80k), and if you give me an opportunity in that range, I'll be ready to get started asap, and I am incredibly excited about what you do here, and absolutely cannot wait."
While I think in the grand scheme of things, making an extra 20-30k over the next 12 months is incredibly insignificant compared to getting the absolute **** out of your current job/apartment/gf/life, it is a very small amount of your time with a large amount of leverage for your future. It won't hurt you to be a strong advocate for yourself.
It is clear you are going to be very effective at this job, so there is no need to sell yourself short.
This being your first position, just getting out of what you're into and getting some experience has value that (I don't think) can be quantified. Get a year or two in, get yourself in a better place.
Seems like it's the first job that's hardest to get in IT. Once you're in, it's usually not too hard to move along as needs dictate.
