Today I had a very interesting conversation with my father about negotiation. He noted to me that when he was 32 and I was born him and my mother had just purchased our house in the suburbs with a small down payment and he had little savings to speak of otherwise. He worked at the company that would employ him for his entire life. While he earned a good salary and obtained raises throughout his career, he never once asked for a promotion or a raise. He concluded his career earning over $200k in the 1990s, plus additional stock profits on the sale of his company, which was still a lot for our middle class neighborhood, and this enabled my mother to stay at home and raise me (and take us to the mall a lot) while still managing to have money left over to save for retirement.
When I talk to him about negotiation his general reaction is that I’m silly to attempt it. I find it quite alarming that my father – who I view as this tough guy – never once negotiated for a raise. Despite throwing a thousand temper tantrums a day he’s the most risk adverse person I know. In fact, one could say he’s rather paranoid of change. He likes things the way they are. My parents should have gotten divorced long ago but god forbid such change were to occur. When I told him I’m playing hard to get and trying to obtain a higher offer he basically suggested that I was being stupid as I didn’t have a job and I wouldn’t want to lose this opportunity (even though I told him I have two offers.) I wanted my big, tough father to encourage me in my negotiation, and perhaps even provide some supportive professional advice, but all I got was that I’m crazy for attempting to negotiate.
At the same time, both offers are real, and I’d like to decide which one I want without pay being part of that decision – but of course pay is part of the decision. Every other minute my mind swings one way and then the other. They are just such different opportunities. I’m madly excited about one that would require a crazy commute and would be much more unstable than the other. But then I think if I can succeed in the larger company it would provide a good base to go in different directions. Either way, I want to negotiate with both companies and see what I can get without losing the offers. I hate how the hiring managers always say “think about what you need to live on.” Well, I can live relatively cheap, but that’s bs. I want to save. I want to save a lot. I have a future family to support. I hate feeling like people who hire me see me as this woman (cheaper than men) who isn’t married and doesn’t have kids (cheaper than woman who is and who do.) Age discrimination isn’t even illegal if you’re under 40.
In any case I always feel like I’m being paid too much but I’ve come to realize that everyone is only paid what they can convince someone else they’re worth. I didn’t at all learn how to take risks from either of my parents so how can I do this well? I seem to stumble left and right on negotiations and it just seems clumsy and embarrassing. But no wonder I suck at negotiating, it certainly wasn’t a learned skill.
Maybe it’s a generational thing? Like your dad might be part of an era where perceived company loyalty actually resulted in higher pay. I know my parents are definitely negotiators, but they’re also salespeople so that doesn’t come as a surprise.
Regarding your own negotiations though you really should “think about what you need to live on.” Which in your case includes big, lofty, and important financial goals that you want done by the time you hit 35.
Questions to ask yourself might include:
* How much would you need to make to reach those goals?
* What’s the difference between that number and what these companies are offering you?
* Did you talk about how career progression/ salary increases would work in these companies?
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You’ll have to count me on the side of your dad, at least to some degree. I’ve read your posts with interest from the time you were laid off several months back, and I guess some things strike me:
When you first got let go, you spent a lot of time looking at how the job had paid well but wasn’t a fit, and how you needed to make sure that your next job was a right fit, and even looked at taking jobs with lower income. Maybe your posts aren’t representing the full picture of your thoughts, but the posts themselves have been very heavily focused strictly on the money aspect.
Be careful on how much muscle you choose to put into the negotiation. You’re perfectly within your right to negotiate, but at the same time, an employer might see it as already pulling out all the stops, and could get insulted by asking for more, especially if you bring an attorney in or something like that. They might get insulted or see warning flags or have a policy against negotiations, and they could even determine its in their best interest to walk away.
I applaud you for thinking long term about your savings and life goals, but again, keep in mind that you have to be successful in order to achieve the income long term. Just make sure you’re looking back at some of the reasons that things didn’t work out, and make sure that you’re comfortable that they don’t look to be potential roadblocks moving forward. You’ve pointed out a lot of different things that you’ve learned about yourself as you’ve gone into your 30’s, so I think you probably know more about yourself than you did, and you need to do an honest assessment now that you’ve got history to build on, in looking at what has allowed you to thrive and what hasn’t, and making sure that whatever position you take aligns with that. Money should not be a part of this aspect.
Good luck.
You are right the posts aren’t representing my full thoughts. In order to keep this anonymous I do not go into that much detail about the specific jobs. That said, it’s possible one where I can make a good salary is also one where I can do a really good job. While there are some similarities to my former position (which does scare me) it’s also very different. I understand the space a lot better and the actual company is further along so there is a strong foundation I can build on. I also have a team signed up of people I’ve worked with in the past who are rockstars who are going to fill in the gaps I had at my previous company. It’s still a huge risk but to be honest not that much more of a risk then going to the other company where the role is lower level. It’s just a different type of risk.
I would also hesitate to negotiate too much. I, too, work in the bay area for a small company and know for a fact that my company will not negotiate an offer that it’s made. Our CEO likes to make fair first offers and if the person questions it, our CEO typically will pull the offer. I thought this was pretty rare, but my husband recently interviewed at a company for a new potential job. The offer that came in from this new smaller company was equivalent to his current job in terms of salary, but when you took into account the whole package including benefits, it was a bit worse that his current compensation. He told them this and that he needed at least some small incentive to leave his current job since the new company represented some more risk. They said we think our offer is fair but we’ll see what we can do and then got back to him the next day saying they didn’t think it would work out and pulled his original offer. So just be careful with your offers. If they are fair, negotiation may not always be worth your while.