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Salary Negotiation for Software Developers - Gainesville Dev Academy
- 1. Salary Negotiation for Software Developers Fearless Salary Negotiation
- 3. Overview
- 4. Overview • Prepare for your interviews • Salary negotiation—strategy overview • What if you’re staying put?
- 5. Prepare for your interviews
- 9. “So where are you right now in terms of salary, and what are you looking for if you make this move?”
- 10. “I’m not really comfortable sharing that information. I would prefer to focus on the value I can add to this company and not what I’m paid at my current job. “So where are you right now in terms of salary, and what are you looking for if you make this move?” I want this move to be a big step forward for me in terms of both responsibility and compensation.”
- 11. Don’t divulge salary numbers!
- 12. Don’t divulge salary numbers!
- 15. What is your minimum acceptable salary?
- 16. What is your minimum acceptable salary? • Reference points • Pending raises and bonuses • Overall feel
- 17. Pick your number and stick to it!
- 18. 10% to 20%
- 19. Keep negotiating through the Final Discussion
- 20. What if you’re staying put?
- 21. Define your goal
- 22. Define your goal • Raise: Target salary • Promotion: Target job
- 23. You also need a compelling case
- 24. You also need a compelling case • Raise: What’s changed? • Promotion: Show your work
Editor's Notes
- Welcome to the Fearless Salary Negotiation crash course.
- I’m a computer and electrical engineer and an MBA. I went to the University of Florida. I spent about 10 years in the talent management industry, which is focused on software to help businesses manage employee performance, set goals, work on career and succession planning, and plan compensation strategies. I wrote the Fearless Salary Negotiation book and video courses to help people get paid what they’re worth, and that’s why I’m here today.
- So what will we cover today?
- Preparing for your interviews is a differentiator that will help you stand out among the other candidates. Your goal is to get a job offer and for that offer to be as strong as possible so you’re starting off from the best possible position in your negotiation. Speaking of negotiation—you should absolutely negotiate. It can be intimidating, but it’s worth it because you could make every single paycheck bigger. They’re not going to pull your offer if you use my method. We’ll walk through a summary of my negotiation strategy to give you a strategy you can use in your next negotiation. And for those of you who are staying put, I’ll give you a quick overview of how to get your next raise or promotion by looking at each of them from your manager’s perspective.
- Interviews are mostly just questions you’ll answer. The better your answers, the more you’ll stand out. But first you need to learn as much about the company as you can so you’re answers are as informed as possible. Start with: Visit their website - available jobs (more opportunities), geographic locations, mission statement, look for trends. What are they trying to do right now? What are their goals? How do they make money? Who are their customers? How big are they? Here’s my super secret research tool that will get you everything you need to know to impress everyone who interviews you…
- Put it all together so you understand them better. Are they trying to grow? Build better technology? Break into a new market? How can you help? Think about this before you start interviewing. This is how you “win” the interview. You prepare, learn their story, and then spend the entire interview process convincing them that your story will be better if you’re a part of it.
- You could make your biggest mistake before you even get started.
- This is the dreaded salary question. Notice that there are two parts here. The first part is asking for your current salary. What are you making right now? The second part is asking for your desired salary. What do you want to make if you make this move? Don’t disclose either of those numbers or you’ll cost yourself a lot of money!
- Here’s how you can answer the dreaded salary question while continuing to move the interview forward, build rapport with the recruiter or hiring manager, and continue telling a story about how the company will be better if you’re a part of it. We’ll take this in two parts. First, you’ll respond to the “current salary” part of the question by emphasizing that you want to talk about the current opportunity and not focus on your current or previous jobs. The important thing is that you’re not telling them your current salary. But you’re also indicating that you’re looking ahead to this next opportunity and encouraging them to do the same. Second, you’ll respond to the “desired salary” part of the question. There are three parts to this answer. First, you start by saying you want this move to be a big step forward. Again you’re distancing yourself from your current situation and salary, and signaling to the company that you want to move forward along with them in this new opportunity. Then you indicate that you want to take on more responsibility. So, even if you were up for talking about your previous job—which you aren’t—that isn’t relevant because you’ve learned new things that you can bring to the table at this new company as you take on more responsibility to help make them better. And finally, you make sure to emphasize that you want this to also be a big step forward in terms of compensation. So, you want to make the company better, take on more things, and you want your pay to reflect all of that value you’ll add. This is a signal to the company that they should make you an offer and that the offer should be as strong as possible.
- Don’t divulge your current or desired salary. It will cost you money.
- If your manager isn’t able to help you formulate a new plan for your raise or promotion, that could be a signal that your goal simply isn’t reachable either at your current company or on your current team. CLICK So you may need to consider other options. That could mean finding a new job at a new company, or it could mean pursuing a different job at your current company. Your manager should be able to help identify the best option for you. This isn’t the result you were looking for, but it’s still a very useful result. The fact is that you were working in a situation where your goals weren’t attainable, and now you know that for sure. So instead of continuing to pursue unattainable goals where you are, you now know that you should be pursuing your goals elsewhere. CLICK There’s one more thing to consider when your request for a raise or promotion isn’t granted. You may be “other valued” for the company or role that you’re in. What I mean by “other -valued” is that it’s possible you’re extremely good at what you do and that you have accomplished a lot in your current role, but that your specific company or industry simply doesn’t value your specific skillset. Maybe you’re really, really good at client-facing customer service, but your company is outsourcing that function to another company or is working to automate customer service as much as possible. Or maybe you’re very strong in a certain technology that your company just doesn’t use very much. CLICK This is also a very good time to slow down and do some soul-searching to consider your situation. It’s possible you need to consider other options, or that you’re under-valued or other-valued. It’s also possible you jumped the gun and weren’t quite as prepared as you thought you were. Your manager’s feedback should help with this, so make sure you’re open-minded and listening carefully to any feedback you get on your request.
- Once you’ve aced your interview, the company will hopefully make you a strong offer. Now your goal shifts from “get a good offer” to “maximize my salary before taking the job”.
- Here’s the headline: You should absolutely negotiate your salary! You could be leaving a lot of money on the table if you don’t negotiate. The two main reasons people seem to shy away from negotiating their starting salary are First that they’re afraid to start off on the wrong foot with the recruiter or hiring manager. They don’t want to burn bridges. —- But if you use my salary negotiation method, it’s not abrasive or Most people don’t get many job offers, and they see them as special snowflakes that come along only a few times in a lifetime. This reverence for new jobs spills over into the negotiation process, so they treat negotiations very gingerly, afraid to jeopardize them. From the recruiter’s perspective, your job offer is not a special snowflake. The job you’re applying for is probably one of many that particular recruiter is trying to fill, and one of many more that particular company is trying to fill—it’s no big deal to them. Most recruiters make job offers all the time , and they tend to see everything as numbers—the candidate has an applicant ID, the job requisition has a number, the paygrade for the job is just a range of salary numbers. If they can get a good candidate at a good salary, that’s a good day for them. It’s not just numbers to you because the outcome of this negotiation will affect your life. The numbers have real meaning to you, so you have far more skin in the game than the recruiter. But you’re leaving money on the table—possibly the equivalent of multiple paychecks per year—if you simply accept the company’s first offer. So it’s in your best interest to negotiate. I’m going to show you how to approach your negotiation like the recruiter or hiring manager that you’re negotiating with. Don’t be tentative or hesitant. Don’t be afraid of offending anyone. Be your own advocate. Fight for as much money as you can get because this is your final chance to maximize your pay before you’re in the door, confined by the rules for raises and promotions inside the company.
- Before you begin negotiating your starting salary, you need to decide what your minimum acceptable salary is to do the job. This will be your line in the sand during your negotiation. If the company can’t meet this salary, then you’ll walk away from the opportunity. It’s important to set your minimum acceptable salary now—before you begin negotiating—so that you can be confident you set it objectively and that you won’t waiver when you’re under pressure during the negotiation.
- Here are several things you can consider when determining your minimum acceptable salary. You might start with some basic reference points like: Your current salary Your market value for this job in this industry The salary you think you can get if you don’t negotiate at all What people in this job at this company are currently making if you happen to have that information Consider pending raises and bonuses at your current job When is your next merit increase at your current job? If you have one coming up in the next couple of months, that means your base salary is will likely go up soon, so you might need a little more salary to move to a new job. When is your next bonus at your current job? If you have a bonus coming up soon, and accepting this job would cause you to miss out on that bonus, then you might consider that when setting your minimum acceptable salary. Those are all more objective things you can consider. Overall feel is much more subjective, but can still influence your minimum acceptable salary. How do you feel about this company? For example, if you feel that working for the company may be a really great experience, you might be willing to accept a slightly lower salary in exchange for a great working environment. How do you feel about your target job? Is it an exciting job that you’re interested in doing? Will it be a nice change for you? Are there perks that make this particular opportunity more attractive such that you might accept a lower salary to work there? I recommend beginning with the more objective reference points, and then adjusting your minimum acceptable salary up or down based on the more subjective criteria.
- Once you’ve considered all of those factors, it’s time to determine your minimum acceptable salary and stick to it.
- The short version of this method is that you will counter somewhere between ten and twenty percent above the company’s initial offer. I’ve chosen this range carefully based on my own experience hiring people, negotiating my own salary, helping other people negotiate the best salary possible, and several years of consulting with companies on their compensation structures. Ten percent is the lower end of the range because it’s a relatively small jump up from their offer. The bottom line is that ten percent isn’t enough to raise any eyebrows. Twenty percent is on the higher side of the normal range, but you’ll only counter twenty percent if your specific situation merits it.
- Now that you have received an initial offer and delivered your counteroffer, you have a clearly-defined negotiation window between those two salaries. Pretty much every step of the way, there are opportunities to stop putting in the work to get the best results from your negotiation. This is another opportunity to slow down and simply accept what the company offers in response to your counter. But this window presents one last opportunity to maximize your starting salary, and you should capitalize on this final opportunity to nudge your starting salary higher.
- Those first two segments were for those who are planning to change companies to pursue a new job. This section is for those of you who plan to stay put and want to make sure you’re getting the most out of your current job.
- First, you need to define your goal. What exactly are you after? Before you can ask for a raise or promotion, you need to know specifically what you're pursuing. “I want a raise” is extremely vague. “I want a promotion” is almost just as vague. So what’s your goal?
- For a raise, adjust your market value estimate to account for your current situation at your current company. What should you be paid for your skillset and experience at you company? For a promotion, identify your target job.
- You have to make a compelling case that that some of the available budget should be allocated to paying you a higher salary, or that you should be promoted to the available job and position.
- What’s a compelling case for a raise? Your current salary was set some time in the past. Since then, what new skills have you learned? What other responsibilities have you taken on? What additional things are you doing that add value to your company since your current salary was set? That’s your case. For a promotion, you identified your target job. Do that job, then ask to make it official.
- Document your accomplishments—the things you’ve done to add value to the company. For a raise it helps if these are quantitative, demonstrating the additional money made or saved by the company. For a promotion, it helps if these are qualitative—how have you improved the company? Document your accolades—what are the good things that others have said about your work? Make sure your manager knows that others think you’re doing a good job.
- First, present your case to your manager in a 1-on-1. After you’ve had that discussion, follow up with an email so that your manager has YOUR version of YOUR case in writing in case it needs to be circulated to other approvers within the company.
- You can learn more about the courses at: FearlessSalaryNegotiation.com/gda