Haseeb Qureshi: Negotiating a job offer

Written originally in two parts: part 1, part 2

General points

A good negotiator is empathetic and collaborative. They don’t try to control you or issue ultimatums. Rather, they try to think creatively about how to fulfill both your and their needs.

Think more like negotiating dinner plans with a group of friends

If you don’t sign the offer, they lose. Losing a good candidate sucks. No one wants to believe that their company isn’t worth working for. They want to win. They will pay to win.

understand what the company values.

Don’t assume anything’s off the table until you’ve tried bringing it up. That said, don’t throw the entire kitchen sink at them.

“Getting a job” implies that jobs are a resource out in the world, and you’re attempting to secure one of these resources. But that’s completely backwards. What you are actually doing is selling your labor, and a company is bidding for it. Employment is just striking a mutual deal in the labor market.

Setting the stakes

• communicate your alternatives, that shows when/why you’d walk away from the negotiation
• your best alternative is often referred to as your BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement). Basically, it’s what you’d do if you walked away.
  • Your best alternative might be “interview at more companies” or “go to grad school” or “stay at your current job” or “go on sabbatical in Morocco for a few months”
    • one of the biggest mistakes I see here is from people who are currently working. If you already have a job, staying where you are is often your BATNA.
  • Your BATNA’s strength comes from 1) how strong the other side perceives it to be, and 2) how strong you perceive it to be.
    • if you tell your interlocutor that you hate your current job, then they know your BATNA sucks…Always emphasize the pros of your current company, your seniority, your impact, and whatever else you like about where you currently work.

Have other offers

• it doesn’t matter that much where your first offer is from, or even how much they’re offering you. Just having an offer in hand will get the engine running.
• If you’re already in the pipeline with other companies (which you should be if you’re doing it right), you should proactively reach out and let them know that you’ve just received an offer. Try to build a sense of urgency.
• You want to be strategic about the timing of your offers. Generally, you should try to start interviewing at larger companies earlier. Their processes are slower and their offer windows are wider (meaning they allow you more time to decide).
• Your goal should be to have as many offers overlapping at the same time as possible. This will maximize your window for negotiating.
• When you receive an offer, often the first thing you should ask for is more time to make your decision.
• Exploding offers are anathema to your ability to effectively navigate the labor market. Thus, there is only one thing to do. Treat the offer as a non-offer unless the expiration window is widened.
  • In no uncertain terms, convey that if the offer is exploding, it’s useless to you.

Proclaim reasons for everything

• frame why you’re asking for more
• e.g. if they turn down your request now, they’re implicitly telling you “no Jennifer, you can’t buy your house. I guess you don’t deserve one.” No one wants to do that. They want to be the one who says “Alright Jennifer, I talked with the director and I made it happen. You’re getting that new house!”

Assert your qualities

• Be confident without boasting or trying to hold yourself specific metrics…It reminds them of the carrot and shows that you’re still excited to add value.
• This is not appropriate in every negotiation, especially for very junior positions, where it’s harder to differentiate yourself.

Be motivated by more than just money

• e.g. How much training you get, what your first project will be, which team you join, or even who your mentor will be
• There is no bigger turn-off to a company than somebody who only cares about money.

What to ask for

• if you want more financial compensation, you should think about structuring as much of it as possible outside of salary. A signing bonus, for example, is easier to give than salary.
• Remember that you can always get salary raises as you continue to work at the company, but there’s only one point at which you can get a signing bonus.
• Relocation expenses often come out of separate budgets at big companies, so this is generally very easy to get.
• The easiest thing for a company to give though is stock
  • If you are genuinely risk-neutral or early in your career, then you should generally try to assume as much stock as possible.
  • If the company is public (i.e., it has IPOed and is listed on the stock market), then its stock is as good as cash
  • If the company is private, then things get a lot more complicated. For private companies, most of the time they will not actually issue you stock grants. Usually, they will issue you stock options. An option is a pre-agreed right to purchase shares of stock at a frozen price.
    • It’s important to note that when you want to leave a company, if you have options, your life becomes really complicated. You may have to pay a bunch of money to actually exercise your option (that is, buy your pre-agreed upon stock at the previous frozen price, or risk losing it), with no way to actually sell it yet. The only way to truly liquidate your options is when the company IPOs or is acquired. And many companies don’t ever do either.
  • Many companies will try to play mindgames with you when it comes to equity. Several companies pulled these on me.
    • A common one is presenting the total value of the stock grant rather than the annualized value, despite the the stock not vesting evenly, or vesting over 5 years instead of the standard 4.
  • investors see the financials and the growth rate of the company, and invest at a price that reflects the current growth rate of the company. In other words, they invested at a valuation that already took their 10x growth rate into account
• Look for creative benefits that would be particularly valuable to you. Maybe it’s covering your commuter expenses, asking for dedicated volunteer or learning time, getting sponsored for conferences, or even charity donation matching.

Don’t give up negotiating power

always keep the door open. Never give up your negotiating power until you’re absolutely ready to make an informed, deliberate final decision.

keep breaking out of their shenanigans, and don’t let yourself be pressured into ending a negotiation until you’re actually ready to make a final decision.

Protect information

• It’s a silent auction, and to keep it that way, you must protect information.
• you should not reveal to companies what you’re currently making.
  • if you have to be liberal in noting the total value of your package (incorporate bonuses, unvested stock, nearness to promotion etc.), and always mention it in a context like “[XYZ] is what I’m currently making, and I’m definitely looking for a step up in my career for my next role.”

Have everything in writing.

• doesn’t matter if they’re going to send you a written version later, write everything down. Even if there are things that are not directly monetary, if they relate to the job, write them down. If they tell you “we’re working on porting the front-end to Angular,” write that down.
• You’ll forget a lot of this stuff, and it’s going to be important in informing your final decision.

set up a paper trail

• Send a follow-up e-mail confirming all of the details you discussed with your recruiter so you have a paper trail. Just say “just wanted to confirm I had all the details right.”

When they ask for a salary

• don’t be the first to give a number
• if you’re forced to give a number, do so by appealing to an objective metric, such as an industry average (or your current salary)
• make it clear that you’re merely starting the negotiation there, not ending it. e.g. “that’s a good place to start”
• When you say “can you do 90K instead of 85K,” you’ve told them exactly what it will take to make you sign. The sheet’s pulled back, the secret auction is up, and they’re going to bid 90K (or more likely, 87K)
• What if you were the kind of person who wouldn’t even consider an offer below 110K? Or the kind of person who wouldn’t consider an offer below 120K?
• By staying silent, they don’t actually know which of those kinds of people you are. In their mind, you could be any of the three.

Stay positive

• Even if the offer is shit, it’s extremely important to remain positive and excited about the company. This is because your excitement is one of your most valuable assets in a negotiation.
• Remember, you are the product! If you become less excited, then the product you’re selling actually loses value.

Don’t be the decision-maker

• Even if you don’t particularly care what your friends/family/husband/mother thinks, by mentioning them, you’re no longer the only person the recruiter needs to win over. There’s no point in them trying to bully and intimidate you; the “true decision-maker” is beyond their reach.

Be winnable

• It’s not enough to just continually ask for stuff. Companies need to sense that you’re actually moving toward a final decision, and not just playing games with them.
• this is more than just giving the company the impression that you like them (which you continually should). But more so that you must give any company you’re talking to a clear path on how to win you.

Making the final decision

• Be clear about your deadline.
  • “A weekend with the family.” I found works nicely, as it has the added benefit of roping other decision makers in. Then when companies push you to end negotiations early, you can re-assert this deadline.
  • This deadline also lets you defer your decision while still improving offers. Your narrative should basically be “I want to see the strongest offer your company can muster. Then I will go into my cave, meditate for 10 days, and when I emerge I will have decided in my heart which company to join.”
• Assert your deadline continually.
• Use your final decision as your trump card.
  • Eventually, deadline day will come. Try to make this a business day (say, a Friday or a Monday) so that you can communicate with recruiters during this day. If a hail mary is going to happen, it’ll happen here.
    • Even if there’s only one company in the running, you should always always wait until the last day to sign your offer
  • Your trump card is these words: “If you can do X, I will sign.”
    • Every company that’s still on the table, let them know what it would take to sign you (unless there’s nothing they could do). And when you make the final ask, don’t forget reason-giving, even if it’s the same reason as before!
    • yes, once say you’re going to sign, you should always sign. Never go back on your word.