Negotiating the offer

1. Some recruiters will try to bring the topic of salary expectations early on in the conversation. Many candidates are not prepared to answer this and say a number that’s too low or too high. Before you speak to the recruiter for the first time, do proper research using tools like Glassdoor, Levels, or Blind, and understand what’s the median compensation for a particular job title, location, and years of experience -- these are the 3 main factors that affect the compensation.

2. Say, you get to know that the median salary range for a particular job title is $100000-$110000. If the recruiter asks your expected salary range, you can say that based on your research about the position, you found out that the compensation is in the range of $100k-$110k. But since you are about to complete your Master’s degree, your ‘X’ years of relevant previous experience using so-and-so technologies, you are targeting a compensation that is on the higher end of that spectrum.

3. After you get the offer, don’t just be fixated on your base salary. Find out what other extra compensation the company is offering, like stock options, 401k match, annual bonus, commissions, sign-on bonus, etc. Make sure your decision to accept or reject an offer is based on evaluating multiple criteria that are important to you, not just salary.

4. Besides your compensation, inquire about the benefits structure: medical, dental, vision insurance, parking/commuter benefits, meal plans, gym membership, charity match, work-from-home or flex-work policies, immigration (visa) sponsorship, etc.

5. If there are competing offers from different companies, make sure your decision to accept or reject an offer is based on multiple criteria, like the team, work, work-life balance, company culture, location, etc. Not just the compensation.

6. If you have a competing offer from company A, you can negotiate a better offer from company B. Do this only when you are indeed interested to join company B. Some candidates play the game of pitting companies against each other and try to maximize the compensation offered by both companies multiple times. Recruiters have a way of sensing this and may rescind their offer.

7. Keep in mind that these job offers have an expiration date. Say, you are about to finish your interview process with company B while company A’s offer is about to expire in a few days, ask the recruiter from company B to expedite your interview process and give the result soon.

8. The ideal situation to be in is where you have multiple simultaneous offers i.e., offers with overlapping “offer periods”, meaning, none of the offers have expired. It can be a little tricky to achieve this ideal situation. It all depends on how well you schedule your interview and how well you ask the recruiters to expedite/delay the interviews.

9. Don’t fake about having a competing offer. Recruiters have a way of sensing these things and you can be easily caught if they dig into details. Honesty is the best policy here.

10. You can find amazing offer negotiation tips from this video, explained by a Harvard professor. Although made for Harvard Business School students, it equally applies to technology students: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km2Hd_xgo9Q