JoshDoody

This is really cool to hear—thanks for sharing! Cheers!

:waves:

Reading through the thread and saw your comment. Just wanted to say hi, I'm glad you had a good experience, and say thanks for the kind words. Hope you are doing well!

Josh here (I wrote Fearless Salary Negotiation), and I just wanted to say that it's fantastic to hear that you got such a great outcome. Great work!

And thanks for sharing this publicly, if for no other reason than it made may day.

Cheers!

I have a unique perspective on this as my job is coaching Software Engineers (and others) through salary negotiations when they change jobs.

I would describe the current SWE market as "stuck". I'll start with what I've observed over the past year, then I'll opine on why I think I'm seeing that.

In 2021 and early 2022, there was basically a hiring boom in tech, and particularly Big Tech. This was superficially obvious, but I personally saw it in my business as Jan 2021–August-ish 2022 being the best stretch my business has had _by far_ (and I've been doing this full time since 2016).

Then the macro economy saw some significant changes (maybe the most in-your-face data point being interest rates going up in the US). Big Tech slowed the hiring, froze it, then starting laying folks off in pretty big numbers.

I saw _this_ in my business via a pretty rapid cratering of applications to work with me. People overuse the term "fell off a cliff", but the inbound web traffic to the pages that drove my coaching business ... fell off a cliff. (For screenshots, you can check out this writeup I did earlier this year: https://www.joshdoody.com/2023/06/focus-on-high-earners/)

Traffic to those pages dropped like 90% in 6–8 weeks. It was a dramatic, sudden shift.

Those are pages that one would find if one were searching for, eg, "How to negotiate [big tech company] job offer". So, at least from my business' vantage, interest in negotiating job offers with Big Tech companies cratered around September/October 2021.

Why is that relevant? By now, we all know that happened because there were layoffs brewing, etc. But at the time, that was not widely known and, much to my chagrin, inbound interest in my business was a leading indicator of what was happening with hiring at Big Tech companies.

Fast forward to today: Traffic to those pages is still more or less down 90% from where it was in mid-2022. I believe if there were to be a spike in hiring in Big Tech, I would see it pretty quickly. So, for now, I don't think there's much of a change there.

Why is the overall market for SWEs still "stuck"?

My guess is a lot of those layoffs were mid-level and junior engineers—not the experienced Senior Engineers, who were probably spared. So the market was suddenly flooded with mid-level and junior Software Engineers with Big Tech experience and Big Tech-level salary expectations.

Since those folks couldn't go to another Big Tech company, they just sort of sat on the sidelines (pay in Big Tech firms is very, very good, and even a little fiscal responsibility would net someone a nice cash cushion to live on while sitting on the workforce sidelines).

Meanwhile, the normal attrition in Big Tech SWE jobs that typically happens ground to a halt either because those folks were not working at all (laid off and on the sidelines) _or_ because they were Senior Engineers—who would normally have been looking to hop to their next Big Tech job—deciding to just hunker down and see how things shook out. When there are layoffs happening all around you and you wonder whether you're next, it's easy to just sort of switch to survival mode, lay low, and see how long you can keep your job (I speak from experience here).

So, for several months, everyone was frozen: Either sitting at home waiting for hiring to ramp back up _or_ holding on to their Senior Level job. Eventually, the folks on the sidelines realized this might be a longer-term adjustment, and they needed to get back to work, so they started looking and applying for jobs. Unfortunately, Big Tech still wasn't hiring, so they had to look elsewhere. The good news is "elsewhere" needs SWEs, the bad news is the pay they're offering doesn't look nearly as attractive as what Big Tech was paying during the boom. They also aren't "Senior" level in their experience, so they can't just apply for Senior-level roles at other tech companies (where they might be able to get comp approaching their mid-level Big Tech comp from before).

Or they _can_ apply to Senior-level roles, but they're under-qualified for what that firm needs. A lot of firms saw lots of inbound applications from mid-level Engineers with Big Tech experience and salary expectations applying for Senior-level roles that they just weren't ready for. So those firms are getting inundated with candidates and just trying to figure out how to find qualified candidates among the deluge of applicants.

Meanwhile, you (OP) are applying for jobs at those firms along with all of those folks who are migrating from Big Tech, which means you're not landing interviews.

How does this resolve?

Unclear. But _eventually_ Big Tech has to start hiring again. Not at the rate they were hiring during the boom, but at a normal rate to support normal levels of business growth. When they do, the Senior Engineers will start moving again, and things will start to unstick. All of those sidelined Engineers from the layoffs will start to mix back in with normal Big Tech hiring, easing the pressure on non-Big Tech firms' recruiters, and opening up more interview slots.

I could be totally wrong here. I'm only going off of what I've seen. I can say that when I _do_ coach folks through salary negotiations, the process is the same as it always has been. There are just fewer negotiations happening because fewer people are getting jobs. I have no idea when the market will come back, but it _feels_ like things are slowly unsticking right now.

I know this probably isn't much comfort to you, OP, and I'm sorry you're not getting any traction. I hope you find something great soon.

I had never seen Fakespot - that's... interesting. I appreciate you mentioning it. I need to see why it thinks those Amazon reviews are fake.

The good news is you don't have to buy it on Amazon to read it - there's a link to the online version of Fearless Salary Negotiation in another comment on this post - so you can read it for free and see what you think :)

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Another response to your comment says that salary negotiation is different than asking for a raise - I totally agree. I treat them as separate things that require unique processes.

Specifically, check out Chapters 1 & 2 (they're pretty short) to get a sense of how companies decide what to pay you and then jump to Chapter 7 for specific steps to take as you prep for your meeting.

(Thanks for the pointer @f_allwein, I appreciate it!)

If you MUST work with a recruiter (staffing firm, for example), I think it's important to be firm that you're excited for good opportunities, but that your salary history and expectations are your private business. I also recommend going around the recruiters whenever possible by using your own network (people who work at the company or in the industry who can make phone calls to put you in touch with the company directly).

I don't dislike recruiters at all. They're making a living helping place people in jobs - that's a useful thing to do. But it's important to distinguish "placing people in jobs" from "looking at for the best interests of those people by getting them the best compensation package possible".

It's important to take agency of the salary conversation because it can be so valuable for the candidate to handle that and maximize salary. Unfortunately, maximizing salary often conflicts with the recruiters' goal of placing as many people as possible as fast as possible.

Thanks for the question and for giving me a chance to clarify!

I'm currently a salary negotiation coach, and most of my clients are in tech (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, some smaller tech companies). In my previous life, I was a project manager and consultant in the HR Software industry. I live in Florida, but have worked for companies based in Florida, California, Indiana.

This is great to hear! I wish your story were more common - I think everyone would be better off if it were.

Ah, thank you! Fixing that now. (And thanks for the kind words!) UPDATE: Fixed the typo. Thanks again for pointing that out.

It’s true that the CURRENT salary question is illegal in a few states, but salary EXPECTATIONS are still fair game. So there’s still a lot of room to make a misstep, unfortunately.

I didn't submit this, but it's my guide, so I'll answer here :)

Two things come to mind:

1. Ask your network about companies that pay well. Pursue jobs at those who do pay well, and avoid companies that don't pay well. (Hopefully your friends getting lowball offers are telling other friends to steer clear of those companies.) 2. Use sites like Glassdoor, PayScale, salary.com and paysa to look for companies that appear to pay well. I say "appear" because these sites are a good place to start, but they're usually working with a pretty small sample size and their data could be biased depending on how they collect it.

"...I just think it could help me learn more, faster and to improve my communications skills."

That's reason enough to write about what you're learning. Patio11 talks about this a lot - it's important that people learning new things write about what they're learning _as they learn it_ because they'll encounter things that only someone new to that domain will encounter in that particular way.

There's a lot of value in writing about the issue you had setting up your dev environment or getting your "Hello world" app to work because other people will encounter those things too.

And just writing about something will help reinforce what you're learning so you'll learn faster and forget less.

I wrote this guide to answer the most common questions I'm asked about how to counter offer. Most of my clients and readers are software developers, so I thought this could be useful for HN readers.

It answers questions like... "What if the offer is way below what I would need to make the jump?" "Should I counter even if the offer is already strong?" "How do I use another offer as leverage to negotiate the offer I really want?"

Even if you're not negotiating an offer right now, you might want to bookmark it for next time you're expecting a job offer.

Great question. My top answer is the article you linked to in your original comment: Don't disclose your current or desired salary. That will cost you a lot of money.

Since you mentioned mock interviews, I'll assume that Twitch channel is mostly focused on interviewing, getting more interviews, and ultimately getting job offers. If that's the case, the single best thing they can work on is their positioning - telling a story about how they'll make the company better if they're a part of it.

I have a video of how Software Developers can do this effectively here: https://fearlesssalarynegotiation.com/software-developer-pos...

This is especially useful for internships and entry-level jobs because most of the resumes submitted for those jobs look very similar. But positioning can help a Developer stand out from the pack. Sometimes, standing out as a slightly stronger candidate is all it takes to get an offer.

Thanks for the mention j_s! This is a really interesting thread and a long article by Cliff. I'm working my way through it now.

Looks like the "current salary" question came up. Any other topics I should jump on for this thread? (Soooo many comments, it's taking a long time to get through them.)

Cheers!

There are two layers to this answer:

1) Before you even get a job offer, it's important to decide what your "walk away" number is (I called this Minimum Acceptable Salary). Having this number decided—and I recommend literally writing it down—before you get the offer helps you answer this question directly: You should negotiate hard enough to at least see if they will meet your walk away number. If they can't, you can walk away knowing it wasn't a good fit for you.

2) Once you're beyond your "walk away" number—meaning you'll definitely take the job and you're just trying to get the best compensation package possible before you start—things are pretty straightforward. You basically start by counter offering on base salary to see what they can do. Then look for opportunities to negotiate other things that are important to you (paid vacation time, signing bonus, RSUs, etc.).

When you negotiate salary, it should look more like a conversation about the small details than a pound-your-fist-on-the-table-and-shout-at-each-other-until-someone-relents type of negotiation.

"I'd be more comfortable at $X." "We can't do $X, but can we do $Y." "Ok, thanks for working with me. I was hoping to get $X, and I understand you can't meet me all the way. Can you do $Y plus an extra week of paid vacation?" ...

It's a collaborative back-and-forth and both of you should feel like you're just discussing details, not fighting over salaries.

Here's a link to the still-short, but slightly-more-detailed survey on Google Forms if you can spare 2 minutes: http://bit.ly/Survey-FSN-ASKHN

And I'll be around here in the comments for the next few hours as well.

I highly recommend Quora as a marketing channel. It's worth exploring for your subject. Some areas aren't great, but some are very good. Mine (interviewing, salary negotiations) is particularly good on Quora because people have LOTS of questions about those things.

You could just search for a few terms in your area of expertise and see what comes up. You'll know pretty quickly if there are a lot of questions about it, or if Quora might not work for you.

My site is https://fearlesssalarynegotiation.com

It seems like you're just asking about the SEO side (not Quora), so I'll focus on that.

My book is about salary negotiation, so most of my focus is on variations around "salary negotiation". That's a pretty competitive search term, so I focus on more long tail terms like "salary negotiation email", "salary increase letter sample" and "current salary interview question".

The tools I use are all free: Google analytics, Google search console, Google keyword planner, MozBar, and Google itself.

When I want to write a new article - I have a topic in mind - one of the first things I do is hop into the Keyword planner and figure out what people are ACTUALLY searching for around that topic. Most of the time, the way _I_ describe the topic is not the same as what people are searching for.

Once I know what people are searching for, I write the same article I would've written, but I try to use the more common terms rather than my own made-up terms. (For example, I would not usually say "salary negotiation email sample" - I would say "counter offer email template" or something like that. But when people want that email template, they search for "salary negotiation email", so that's the terminology I used for that article on my site.)

I gave a very, very brief overview of some other tactics I use in a talk at this year's MicroConf in Las Vegas. Here are my slides, a link to a video, and links to some of the tools I use: http://www.joshdoody.com/microconf

Hope this helps!

I have had two pretty big wins.

Pretty easy (results in days): Answering questions on Quora was a relatively easy, quick win. I answered a question on salary negotiation or job interviews every day for a month, and immediately saw a lot more interest in my site.

Harder (results in 90+ days): A focus on SEO has really paid off. SEO takes a while to build up, but once it's built up, it's pretty reliable traffic source. That means I can spend time working to offer more value to visitors so they'll stick around and come back later.

Fixed, thank you! (Typos that evade spellcheck are tricky!)

Not too much you can do in that situation, unfortunately. I usually approach that as a "focus on getting a raise"-type strategy, which is a little different than negotiating starting salary. You did the right thing in your situation and just got unlucky :(

Good note - I've seen this sort of legislation getting a lot of traction lately. I'm not sure how it affects asking for "desired salary" or "salary requirements", so that's something else to look out for.

Thanks for sharing!

My whole philosophy is to be nice/considerate AND careful/calculated.

In a nutshell, I see salary negotiation and interviewing as a collaboration, not a competition. Working to get a good result for everyone involved is the best way to approach it.

Glad to hear you're looking out for yourself - you're always going to be your own best advocate!

Thanks for the kind words!

A pretty good summary of my "Why you should always negotiate" speech.

"Because why not?"

I love it.

That's extremely frustrating to hear and seems VERY short-sighted by the company itself. If they already determined that person would be a good fit at $100k salary, it seems so silly to change their mind just because they learn about the candidates PREVIOUS salary.

Another reason not to disclose salary requirements, but also seems like a case of management myopia. Thanks for sharing :)

Picking a biggish number is better than just telling them the actual number (in terms of "What's your desired salary?"). Better to give them a big number, all things considered.

But giving NO number is MUCH MUCH better.

How you decide what's right for you is a personal decision. But when it comes to salary negotiation, you can be sure the company is very much working to do what's right for itself and its shareholders, and I think you should similarly be just as focused on doing what's right for you.

Negotiating your salary is better for you. Disclosing your current salary or desired salary when asked is worse for you and better for the company.

I wrote this article specifically to help folks understand the interview and negotiation processes better so they could make a more informed decision about what's right for them.

Does this help? I'm happy to clarify - just let me know!