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Tell: Got 50% bump for faking a counter offer
I lied about another counter offer at negotiation time and the new company bumped the total offer package from $170,000 (base $130,000) to $260,000 (base $155,000 ) to match the fake counter offer and also bumped the offered titled two levels up. Shows the importance having a counted offer. I have 9 years of software development experience and current and new company is in Seattle Area. Just wanted to say it to somebody about the guilt which I cannot refuse to have.
- artie_effim 12y agoUNITS!!????!!!!
- seanflyon 12y agoDollars per year.
- MCRed 12y agoThat's a bit confusing. Guessing you're in europe and talking euros per month? Cause initially, to an american it looks like you're talking about $1,700,000 a year - a huge salary-- and just dropped a zero.
- fakeusername 12y agoIts $170,000 total package including stocks, salary etc. per year and not $1,700,000 and I am in Seattle, USA.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- breakinggood 12y agoWhy do you feel guilt at all? The company could afford to bump your salary up 50%, you just needed to give them a compelling reason to do so. In a world where sociopathic behavior is celebrated, you’re just playing the game.
- fakeusername 12y agoThat was the exactly the reason for lying, though can be justified for the game but you start to question your 'integrity' which is relative to the game you are playing.
- notjustanymike 12y agoYou're worth what people are willing to pay you, good job!
- ForHackernews 12y agoI have a question: How do people even have real counteroffers? Do you apply for multiple jobs and two or more happen to make you an offer? How do you manage to get the times to line up so perfectly?
- joezydeco 12y agoOne way is to go back to your original company and say you're leaving. You then either sit back and see if they offer you more money to stay, or you explicitly tell them "NewCo is offering $X" and see if they match or beat that. This move, while very gutsy and sometimes very effective, only really works in an industry where you're in high demand and/or you're essential to the operation of your current employer. But, in either case, there's no guarantee. Your old boss might certainly counter-offer and give you the higher salary, but only long enough to find a replacement employee at (or even less than) your old salary. Then your salary very abruptly drops to $0.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Igglyboo 12y agoApply for a new job and put in your 2 weeks at your old job, If they need you enough your old job might offer you more money.
- kenrikm 12y agoI can't help but think that taking the more money at current company could turn out bad unless you sign a contract with breakup terms.
- serve_yay 12y agoWell, when you go job searching you don't just apply for one job, do you? So the timing is the interesting part. In my experience, companies want you to be open with them about this, so that they do not lose good candidates by being too slow. If you tell them you're interviewing elsewhere or entertaining other offers, they will take that into account. You can straight up tell them what your timeline is like and they will work to accommodate it. (Of course if they're not interested in you anyway it doesn't matter how many offers you have.) Remember, recruiting is a job too. The people who do it at the company want to hire you, they want to get those positions filled, that means they are doing their job well. Or you can just lie about it, as OP did. Perhaps a risky maneuver, but if it's plausible for you to be in demand, I don't see why it's not worth trying. Personally my approach is a bit more basic. I ask for what I want, and if you don't wanna give it to me then fine, someone else will. But, my numbers are definitely not on OP's level, that is an impressive level of compensation.
- serve_yay 12y agoWell done! Don't be guilty though, that's how engineers get underpaid in the first place.
- EGreg 12y agoJust out of curiosity, what is the industry your company is in, and what kind of position were you hired for? This is not at all to find out who you are, but I haven'f seen such salaries as the norm for most developers so I am always curious to know more as to what field and position attracts this kind of compensation out of the gate.
- Someone1234 12y agoYeah that's an insanely high pay packet even for a developer. Even sensor developers aren't seeing more than 120K around here.
- talmand 12y agoWhy feel guilty? If they are willing to pay that much, then you are worth that much to them. I see it as the opposite, they were willing to pay you less than what they see as your potential value. For their own benefit.
- edman 12y agoHow can one not feel guilty when lying?
- talmand 12y agoThat is the intriguing question in this type of situation. Is it okay to lie to someone that's taking advantage of you? Is it okay to lie if you and your family benefits with no real harm done to the second party? Is it okay to lie in response to a lie? I guess the real self-judgement has to be based on whether one knew the nefarious behavior of the other party beforehand or not. It's a tough one. But I understand your point, I often wonder if law enforcement officers ever feel guilt over the fact they can, and do, outright lie as part of their jobs.
- gyardley 12y agoI hope the area of residence / years of experience / original offer / new offer / title bump have all been changed at least somewhat, because if not, the people who hired you could potentially see this and identify you - and they might not appreciate that you lied to them. If you're feeling guilty about something, tell it to your dog.
- martco 12y agoI think you mean to say, "Got 50% bump by faking a counter offer".
- chrisan 12y agoIs there a good site to see how much one "should" be making?
- fakeusername 12y agowww.glassdoor.com may help.
- nobodysfool 12y agoReminds me of myself a few years back, but it was a different tactic. Ok maybe it was 13 years ago, but still... I was offered $14/hr for some job at a factory as computer support. I had an interview with the customer, and the agency accidentally forwards me what they were making. I asked for $17/hr or no deal. It was a fair deal because I knew how much they were making and their profit was still good. They threatened to get someone else, I hung up, they called back later and accepted the deal. After working there for a while I found the timesheets of the previous person ... at $17/hr. So I was glad that I held out. It was a fine moment of negotiation on my part. I could have asked for more, but I gave them a fair number that I knew they couldn't refuse.
- 3minus1 12y agoDOL has statistics on what every H1b is getting paid http://h1bwage.com/ http://h1bwage.com/
- onion2k 12y agoPeople should negotiate. I'm not particularly impressed by the underhand tactics; obviously it'd have been better if you'd countered with "I think I'm worth $260k" and been contracted on that rather than lying about it, and obviously you've given your new employer a free pass to fire you if anyone ever finds out. But the result is definitely a win. One caveat to that win though - your employer's expectations of the value you'll bring also went up from $170k to $260k. You've gone from 'very good developer' to 'in-demand amazing developer'. You get all the stress that comes with that.
- jamespitts 12y agoI am going to go out on a limb and say that fake anything is a bullshit way of doing business. In a small way, you probably have made our corner of the world a worse place to be in. Why not just ask for 260K? To lie in order to get it may seem like the only way to guarantee a realization of what you are worth, but this fosters a business climate that you ultimately may not want to live in. Companies may feel the need to be more defensive at the negotiating table, put the squeeze on developers in terms of hours or reduced open source contributions, or even to illegally collude in order to force people to stay at their... oh wait that one already happened. A business climate in which parties are faking information can be a dangerous place. It is in our collective best interest to be honest and to foster an environment in which honesty is expected. Think on that the next time you buy a food product. Another example that is more general: company leadership feels the need to produce a certain kind of quarterly financial result in order to appear favorable to investors or customers. The company that has the most accolades fakes it the most, leading to a lot of pressure on everyone else to do the same. Someone has to pay for this though, often it is paid in increased risk. EDIT: removed irrelevant examples.
- erickj 12y agoGet off your high horse. Either congratulate or ignore, but in the end just move on.
- jamespitts 12y agoI am not commenting here to feel good about myself or to spread my moral views. I am attempting to appeal to his personal and our collective self-interest.
- sharemywin 12y agoThey could have just said good luck. If it back fired he would have had a hard time saying he was taking a lower offer. it was a gamble and it paid off.
- fakeusername 12y agoAny argument against this? Jamespitts seems to make perfect sense here. @jamespitts, thanks for the valuable comments. As per my experience just asking $260K from the professional negotiator would have not landed me anywhere near this figure, he would have at-most increased 10K. Not arguing against what you said, just saying I cannot win with recruiter on negotiation without counter offers.
- iterationx 12y agoYou lied for money. EOF
- mrbonner 12y agoSeattle? Man, I feel underpaid right NOW.
- djan92 12y agoForget the guilt and channel your energy to creating more than $260,00 of value for your company. During my first internship at a a start up that was about to IPO, I was so grateful, I would have worked for free. After a semester and the IPO, I was offered a different internship that I thought would provide more learning value. I told my mentor/manager, and he pulled me aside. He said, "name a pay hike, and we can easily get it for you." I remember being so surprised because I was replaceable, and my work could easily be shifted to a new intern. Also, I remember the chance they took at taking an unproven undergrad on a rocketship of a startup. He told me that I didn't understand how businesses work yet, and I would soon learn that you are worth the value you provide. Since then, I focus on knowing that at any company, I will provide incremental value, not just the status quo, but against competitive peers. And if a company offers more than I believe I can provide at a given time, I'll work my ass off to get to point where I can provide commiserate value.
- jasonpeacock 12y agoMore money is good, congrats, and this is just part of negotiation. But the company itself sounds broken. Any company that will give you a higher title/pay based that's not based on skill is not doing job leveling properly. Going from (for example) "Jr. SDE" to "Sr. SDE" just because of a counter-offer/negotiation? No way. I'd be worried who else at the company is employed at a higher level than they should be...
- Satoshietal 12y agoWe were wondering about that. Now several of us have stumbled across this item. So, report to HR tomorrow morning for your exit interview.
- jchung 12y agoAre you actually the hiring manager in this situation, or just highlighting how foolish it is for OP to offer so much detail in his/her submission?
- fakeusername 12y agoHR is on holiday tomorrow. Can we do it on Monday?
- jqm 12y agoSo what if they had told they had someone who would do the job for 60K and so you should feel lucky? Or what if they had told you "Congratulations! you are moving on to bigger and better things. Have your desk cleaned out within half an hour"? Sometimes bluffs work, sometimes they don't.
- fakeusername 12y agoNo, I would have asked them to go with that person. I knew current market value and asked that. I would not have accepted on original terms. Negotiation without counter offer is impossible to get that jump which I needed to accept the offer.
- edman 12y agoIt's not nice to lie. There is nothing wrong in trying to get the best package possible. You just should not be doing it with lying.
- reinier 12y agoThe company was capable/willing to pay 50% more, but in first instance did not. Negotiation tactics, unfairness and manipulation, lies. It's what you should come to expect from companies, especially large ones. On the company side of the table is someone in charge of making sure the company spends as little money as possible on him. I think he did a great job getting the most out of it. He deserves it, for thinking it through. Most people aren't that great at serving their own interest and getting what they deserve in negotiations like that.
- fakenametoo 12y agoCan I ask you what is your job? I'd like to make money like that too.
- fakeusername 12y agoS/W Engineer. That pay scale is current trend in most good IT companies. Most of my friends in similar experience/field getting this, and I asked for that range too based on current trend.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- ladytron 12y agoNow take that offer and plan on getting out of this company in the next 6 months. Look for a big multinational with a long term vision with interesting work. You can now go to conferences and network with your new title and pay level. I think this current company is not great if they were willing to underpay and then reverse course quickly only when they thought there was a counteroffer. I think your job is likely to not go well and you should start looking AGAIN immediately at a higher quality company. While you still have employment.