Negotiating a salary when offered job

[jond]

never heard of a bonus like that in tech. only in sales and exec positions. biggest bonus i think ive ever seen in tech was $1-2k, usually i'm lucky to see a few hundred bucks.

First I've heard of it was this year. I've heard of two different places doing it.
One is a fortune 500 healthcare company, the other is capital one.
I think you have to be manager level, but not 100% on that.
Either way, that's like a free car as a bonus every year.

 

[itrsteve]

never heard of a bonus like that in tech. only in sales and exec positions. biggest bonus i think ive ever seen in tech was $1-2k, usually i'm lucky to see a few hundred bucks.

We do 15-16.5%, and I'm not on the sales side either. My previous job didn't, but they did referral bonuses and rather hefty certification bonuses.

Negotiating salary sucks so bad. When I was approached by my current employer they gave me a pre-screen questionaire and I put the most asinine number as a salary number on there. Then the next 4 months of technical screenings/personality interviews/etc went and never was there a mention of salary so I assumed that I was going to be alright.

Keep in mind this wasn't just any company but it was THEE company I dreamed to work for so when I was told my offer letter was being prepared I prematurely started the celebration amongst friends on my team. I watched my email like a hawk and waiting for the email to come in and low and behold the number was 38% less than I put on the thing and only 20% more than I was currently making in my current position that was 0% travel versus this one that was 75%.

I remember just smashing my face off the desk after 5 months of torture was over. Although it was my dream company I knew that it wouldn't fly at home. So I sucked it up and told them that I would have to deny the offer and that I was sorry. I was devastated as I had my heart set on the opportunity to work for the industry leader of my niche of IT and now it was over.

Well, fortunately they called back within not even 4 minutes and shot that number up to an amount that was effectively a 65% increase from my current. Needless to say I definitely accepted it.

Lesson learned, they went that far and kept their cards close but never take the first offer. I had later found that I was against 12 other candidates, so there was some luck on my side that day.

I know this post is a little too late as you already landed your position, but I figured it was appropriate to share the story. Congrats on the new gig!

 

[HockeyGoalie]

YES! And America should switch to compressed work schedules, too! 4/10s or 3/12s. It's good all the way around: you still get 40 hours of productivity per week per employee; less expensive weekly commutes; longer weekends etc.

Unfortunately i don't think anyone only works a 40 hr week. An easy week for me is 5, 10 hour days, an average week is 5, 11 hour days. At least i get weekends off.

 

[jond]

Unfortunately i don't think anyone only works a 40 hr week. An easy week for me is 5, 10 hour days, an average week is 5, 11 hour days. At least i get weekends off.

That seems to be the norm with upper middle-class.
I would love to see a graph showing the average hourly breakdown when OT is factored in at 1.5x between lower-middle class, middle class, and upper-middle class..
I see so many people around me, myself included, doing nothing but work. We make good money, but I see people delivering pizza and at 5:30 they're D O N E. There's no studying for certifications after work, no "1 more hour to finish up", there's no working on a project over the weekend. None of that. What I wonder is if the average 'successful' upper-middle class person put in as many hours delivering pizza(assuming time and a half) which job would make more?

I haven't had a vacation day in MONTHS which is why I'm probably thinking about this...

 

[Arshad]

I see so many people around me, myself included, doing nothing but work. We make good money, but I see people delivering pizza and at 5:30 they're D O N E.

I hear ya. I make good money, but for the last 3 months I've been on an 80hr/week schedule. It's not possible to do that for a long period of time without getting completely burnt out and neglecting everything else including your family. Sad part is that my "normal" schedule is probably 55-60 hours/week. If I only worked 40hrs/week I don't know what I'd do with all the free time!!

 

[naaman]

Meh... when I was in the army, I netted about $43,000 a year and was working 11-hour days MINIMUM every Mon-Fri. Depending on the unit's mission, this could change significantly. For example, during patrol shifts which were supposed to be 8 hours, after you factor in paperwork and procedure and other military obligations, this could literally transform into several 18-hour days back to back.

Generally speaking, for the year-and-a-half that my unit was working patrol, the average work day was about 14 hours, and most people were working 6 day work weeks.

As for people who make salary w/o overtime putting in more than 40 hours, having a "compressed" work week would still cut down on days at work, which cuts down on travel/commute and allows larger blocks of time to actually do what you want, even if you have to squeeze the 5th day's hours into the other four days.

 

[JonBoy]

Unfortunately i don't think anyone only works a 40 hr week. An easy week for me is 5, 10 hour days, an average week is 5, 11 hour days. At least i get weekends off.

I only work 40 hours a week. I'm the head of product development for our North American group. I worked harder when I was a senior engineer than I do as a senior manager.

 

[robr]

So...... here we are 4 months later and we just unexpectedly began CHAPTER 2 of this story. Therefore I need more advice as I'm just as uncomfortable today talking about money as always but I do have a great relationship with the US CEO and am perfectly comfortable talking to him about anything else .

Things have been going unbelievably well. I love this job, I haven't been able to say that in a long time. But to cut to the chase, there was a big global re-org and I have been asked to find someone to do the job I have been doing and to staff and manage all US technology teams (of which today there is only the test team). I have 9 reqs for IT, network, development/architect, and PM roles. Test also reports to me now rather than operations. Some of these reqs will demand more $$$ than I make. This is all very new, I don't want to seem opportunistic, I have a lot of work to do before the US can stand on its own two feet from a technical standpoint, but it's now my job to make that happen. I've done this before, I have no concerns about being able to do the job, but my wife is in my ear saying I should ask for more $$$ tomorrow. I feel this hasn't even been announced yet to the company and it's too soon nor am I certain how to approach the subject. Help me afford to get back into an NSX .

How/when would you go about asking for more $$$??

 

[docjohn]

first off i think you and your boss need to get a better handle on the full scope of your new role,so asking for a raise now may be premature.If your boss is reasonable he will know if he "should" pay you more,his actual doing that may be constrained by his corprate responsability to the owners/board...but I think you'll know when the time is right.

 

[robr]

Well it sort of took care of itself. We have a candidate everybody likes who is asking for more money than I make. Told him while I liked the guy, I can't get past the idea of having somebody work for me that makes more than I do. He said that issue will be remedied.

 

[docjohn]

great news...sometimes things have a way of working out.