Hey everybody, how's it going? My name is Mayuko
and welcome back to my channel where we talk about tech career and life. So today, again, we're going to
talk about salary negotiations. So i posted a video recently about Whether to Negotiate your Salary
and so today we're going gonna follow up and talk about how to exactly do that. And this is from my
conversation that i had with Sarah, who is the Lead Negotiator at levels.fyi. She was on Muko's Corner,
my show about leading a life that feels more you in both your life and tech career. Sarah, again,
just has like, so much great information from her time as a tech recruiter at Amazon, Facebook,
and Google to talk about the do's and don'ts about how to negotiate a salary. So the topics
covered today will be like: how do you answer what are your salary expectations, and exactly what
medium is best for having these conversations. And before we get started, i wanted to say thank
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Thanks again to Skillshare and now let's dive in. Mayuko: Okay next i want to talk more about how
do you actually negotiate. Specifically, i have a lot of questions about this, but i guess like the
first question that i had... i think this was one of the questions that i really was curious about when we
first started talking was: when a recruiter asks you what are your salary expectations, what's
the best way, what's the golden answer, the do's and don'ts of how to respond to that question?
Sarah: Don't give them that number. Don't give them that range, because like i said, the range
is really large. You don't know where you land in that compensation band and so i would recommend
push back on that recruiter and ask: and you don't have to answer anything either. If you don't know the answer, just let them
know, And then, you know,
usually recruiters are pretty respectful of that. Another thing too is, if you're in the state of
Washington or California as the candidate, when you request for a compensation band, legally speaking
they have to share the minimum wage with you And recently with Denver too, they passed a law where
for any employer, when they post a job description, they have to mention like, the minimum salary range
too. So the recruiter can push for it, the recruiter can ask, there isn't anything in place that, you
know, tells them that they can't ask, but as the candidate you're not obligated to answer that question.
Mayuko: that's really good to know.
I think in the past, i recommended to you, all my viewers, that you should say "i expect
to be compensated competitively" which is fine, but i think, instead, flipping the question to them, because as soon as you put out a number out there, you basically might already be giving
yourself away at a discount, which is great for the company, because then they're like "wow we
get someone at this caliber for this cheap, great! let's just like keep going with their number!"
when in fact, you're actually worth a lot more. Sarah: Exactly, and it's just like, you know, once you
give a number, the recruiter will hold you to it So if you say 230k in total compensation, they will
give you exactly that, like, nothing more, nothing less. And let's say you start interviewing
with another company, and they give you 300k. You can't come back and be like, "well just kidding,
like, now i want 300k". You know, now the recruiter can say, "wow he came back, you know, and tell me the
other competing offer, which means that he really he or she really wants this position. I'm not gonna
move the needle, and they will eventually cave and it's the best offer. You know, if i'm a really
aggressive recruiter, they'll do that. And then another thing too, when they give you the range,
don't say yes, don't say no. Let's say you flip it back on them and say and let's say the recruiter tells you, "All
right well the range is 100k-120k, how does that sound to you? Do you like this number? Avoid saying, "yeah no that sounds great" or "no that's really low" Keep things a little bit more
open-ended by saying, "that's a really good start" So that yeah, you open that door to yourself to negotiate later.
Mayuko: For sure, yeah, it's like you leave it as lukewarm as possible, for as long as possible is what i'm hearing.
Sarah: Exactly. With negotiation, you want to be... you want to use really neutral verbage here. You don't want to under share, but you don't want to over share at the same time.
Mayuko: So then at what point do you actually give a number, or like who's the... who should be
the first one to give a number then, i guess? Sarah: So even at the very end when the recruiter, you
know, shares with you the good news like, "all right the team really loves you, they thought you do
really well in (ABCD), they see a lot of growth potential in you," you know, "we're ready to move on to the
offer stage, what are you looking for?" Even at that stage, i still would recommend: don't give your
number. You want to take this call to really understand their compensation philosophy.
They can't just be pushing for a number when when they don't tell you
what goes into it, right? You can't make a decision without being informed, so push it back on them
and say: "truthfully, you know, i've been really busy prepping for the interview, i haven't put much
thought into it. If you don't mind... You know, once they go over everything again, you can just push it back on them one more time
saying, "you know, this is a little bit newer for me and everyone has a different compensation structure,
i know i'm not comparing apples to apples. If you don't mind just sharing the numbers with me first,
it would be super productive or effective or super helpful for me, i would greatly appreciate it."
Mayuko: it's almost like a game of poker. I'm just like, waiting for them to fold, just like waiting
and waiting and waiting waiting, and then having them be the first to show their hand.
Sarah: Exactly, and like once the recruiter has to explain everything for you, they'll just like be i might as well
just share a number now. Mayuko: Right, and like you mentioned, at that stage, you've already gone through the entire interview process, you got a sense for the company culture,
you got a sense of what they're looking for in this role, you have their compensation philosophy
together. You can piece all of those together, even, that when they give you a number, you have the data
and information to be able to confidently say "Actually, based on what i know and what i've
learned, i think i'm this much instead."
Sarah: Exactly, and you want to do a lot of the asking good questions
during that call. Like asking about the bonus structure: how does that work typically, when
is the payout, is it once a year, is it twice a year, is there any other bonuses on top of, you
know, what you guys offer, and things like that. And for companies that don't offer a bonus,
that's the perfect window for you to use that as leverage against them like, "hey since you
don't offer me any bonuses, what i want to be mindful of is inflation, and you know living costs are
just keep going up. So essentially if i don't take this into consideration now, the longer i
stay with the company, essentially the less my take-home pay is going to be, and i don't want to
be in a position where salary is a thing for me to have to leave the company, so i hope you understand
where i'm coming from." They can't say no to that you're going to be the biggest [jerk] if you
say no after that request, right?
Mayuko: that's true! Use all of that knowledge you learned in
AP Econ to talk about inflation, to talk about money, and use all of that to your advantage. This
whole conversation of this back and forth between yourself and a recruiter, recruiter has a hiring
manager and other folks behind them to make decisions about all of this, but what's the
best format to be having this conversation? Sarah: Good question. So typically what i would recommend is to
do that over via email. After the recruiter tells you, we would love to move forward,
they go over the compensation structure with you, perks and benefits, let them know "this is a lot of good
information, let me just take some time to process all of this and get back to you later. Would
that make sense for you/would that work for you?" As a recruiter, for myself, it's so much easier
to, you know, kind of follow the thought process because sometimes it's really hard to like, maybe
when i'm on the phone, someone just pinged me, i got distracted, maybe they were asking me 140 but
i misheard them and i wrote down 104, for example. So just to have everything on paper is
so much easier for the recruiter to you know not make any like, mistakes when it comes to numbers
there. And let's say if i have to get an approval from their manager, it's so much easier for me to
just kind of forward that email to the manager or the compensation team. So as a candidate, you
have so much more control over your narrative because you could be saying the perfect thing, but
communication goes both ways. It's also dependent on what/how the other side is perceiving that message.
So if this person misunderstood what you were saying, and this person is relaying all this
information to the team, you don't know what ran what went wrong in that process, like things can go
sideways really fast. Or maybe this recruiter just explained something completely off and the
manager, she could take it the wrong way and that's kind of what could potentially
jeopardize your relationship with the manager. It makes life so much easier on you to do it over
via email, because a lot of the time too, i i would see this happen with my friends where they, you
know, i'll prep them like "ask for this much" and they were like "yep nope i got it" and then we would
rehearse it and then when they're on the phone they get so nervous that they start to like
discount themselves like "well, i guess like i mean i kind of want 300k, but like i would be okay with
250" and i'm just like "oh no" i'm just like "oh whattt" The best analogy to think of this too
is when you send the recruiter an email, and then you have a call with them after. It's just
the analogy of like when you watch a movie, and you reading the book before the movie is so much easier
to understand, right? Versus if you just watch the movie and you've never read
the book before, you have no idea what's going on in the movie. So that's like kind of taking the
call without priming the recruiter, like what you're going to talk about, and you have to explain
everything live, they're just going to sit there and be like okay like "i guess it makes sense but
i'm not sure" So email is the best way to go: easier for you to lay out your thought process
there, much easier for the recruiter to share all that information with the team. You have so much
more control over your narrative.
Mayuko: Thank you all so much for watching the video i really hope you
liked it. Make sure to check out the other video i did about salary negotiations featuring sarah, and
if you'd like to just watch the recording of the live stream i did on Muko's Corner, then you can
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take care and i'll see you in the next video byeeeee
