---
title: Salary Negotiations
created_date: 2024-11-22
updated_date: 2024-11-22
aliases:
tags:
---
# Salary Negotiations
The following is an article recommended by #people/roman_oechslin
[Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued | Kalzumeus Software](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/)
## Summary
- Only enter salary negotiations after mutually agreeing that if an acceptable compensation can be agreed upon, you will be hired. This means that:
	- They **want** you! Because they have already invested thousands of dollars into the hiring process
	- The company is in the sunken cost fallacy
	- Negotiating never makes (worthwile) offers worse
	- Yay-or-nay offers suck: because people behind them are not professional. Negotiation is really important in any business operation, and apparently they don't do that
	- You want a **Yes-If**(we agree on terms) before entering negotiations. Never start from No-But.
- Rule no. 1: **Never give a number first!**
	- Actually by giving a number you show that you are incompetent to negotiate and show that you actually might not be a really good candidate. You might not be a winner, a person like the hiring manager, who thinks he is a good businessman.
	- Practice on how to dodge the salary questions.
- **Research Research research!**
  Find out anything about the company you can by reaching out to employees, ex-employees, etc.
	- What do they value?
	- Who do they value within the company?  (Roles?  Titles?  Groups?)
	- What does the career path look like for successful people within the company?
	- Roughly speaking, how generous are they with regard to axes that you care about?
	- Do they have any compensation levers which are anomalously easy to operate?  (For example, if you asked around, you might hear a few people say that a particular firm pushes back modestly on out-of-band increases in salary but they’ll give in-the-money option grants like candy.)
	- All the fuzzy stuff: what’s the corporate culture like?  Yadda yadda.