Author Topic: BOOM! $5,000 salary increase from 30 second negotiation  (Read 5842 times)

Genevieve

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BOOM! $5,000 salary increase from 30 second negotiation
« on: February 12, 2015, 01:25:20 PM »
My husband just finished negotiating his starting salary. It's about 10% higher than what they normally hire people for, and $5,000 more than the first offer. From my feeling of it, we negotiated right up to their ceiling for the position.

YAY!!!!!!

This is a huge win because:
1) He basically has no specific experience, because he's been building skills as a grad student. For the last 8 years, he's only done research for a university and hasn't had a single internship in industry. Yes, he's highly skilled, but it's not directly in the field.
2) He's fairly introverted and technical. I was in sales, so I coached him, but great job Hubs!
3) It took 30 seconds of talking to HR.

He gets paid a bonus at the end of the year as a percentage of salary, so this is AWESOME!

So running the math, if we save this extra $5,000 in a 401k every year and make 6%, it will be worth $419,008 in 30 years. And this is not even counting the bonus bit.
« Last Edit: February 12, 2015, 01:47:06 PM by Genevieve »

Debtless in Texas

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Re: BOOM! $5,000 salary increase from 30 second negotiation
« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2015, 01:30:39 PM »
Nice!

That is definitely not bad for 30 seconds of work. Congrats.

Gone Fishing

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Re: BOOM! $5,000 salary increase from 30 second negotiation
« Reply #2 on: February 12, 2015, 01:37:01 PM »
From my feeling of it, we negotiated right up to their ceiling for the position.

This is how you will always feel after losing badly to a skilled negotiator.


I don't mean to put a damper on the party, but here is the point I want to make.

Whether you did well in the salary negotiation is not determinable based on how much your increased their initial offer, nor is determined based on what they "normally" pay. It's based on one factor only -- what is your value on the open market, and how much are they paying you to relative to that. Don't lose sight of that if you want to figure out how well you did in the negotiation.

Buy hey, he's $5k ahead of where he would be had he said nothing!  And from what it sounds like he didn't have a whole lot of leverage.

Genevieve

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Re: BOOM! $5,000 salary increase from 30 second negotiation
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2015, 01:38:40 PM »
Yep, it is significantly higher than all of his peers.

Also, it's an awesome company.

We have a bit of an inside lead, and the other person who's received higher had 3 years of actual experience.

I'd say we made one mistake in the negotiation. The other job leads were wayyy behind this one, so we weren't able to have another offer to pit against this one. It would have taken a few months to bring the others along so moving forward was the best move.

Nothing's perfect though. Pretty good considering this is my husband's first real job search.
« Last Edit: February 12, 2015, 01:43:32 PM by Genevieve »

Neustache

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Re: BOOM! $5,000 salary increase from 30 second negotiation
« Reply #4 on: February 12, 2015, 06:33:33 PM »
Yay!  Congrats!

minority_finance_mo

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Re: BOOM! $5,000 salary increase from 30 second negotiation
« Reply #5 on: February 12, 2015, 08:01:03 PM »
CONGRATS! I remember you posted on my journal earlier about your own negotiating experience; I'm glad it worked out so well for your husband too. What a power couple :)

CommonCents

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Re: BOOM! $5,000 salary increase from 30 second negotiation
« Reply #6 on: February 12, 2015, 08:09:22 PM »
If his pay increases are based off a percent of his salary, it's worth even more than you estimate :)

Janie

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Re: BOOM! $5,000 salary increase from 30 second negotiation
« Reply #7 on: February 13, 2015, 09:32:57 AM »
Nice!

arebelspy

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Re: BOOM! $5,000 salary increase from 30 second negotiation
« Reply #8 on: February 17, 2015, 11:51:45 AM »
So running the math, if we save this extra $5,000 in a 401k every year and make 6%, it will be worth $419,008 in 30 years. And this is not even counting the bonus bit.

Nice!  And that doesn't even take into account that future raises, if they're a percent of his salary, will be higher overall.  Depending on the length of his working career, that 30 second negotiation could be worth over 1MM.
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NICE!

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Re: BOOM! $5,000 salary increase from 30 second negotiation
« Reply #9 on: February 17, 2015, 01:40:57 PM »
NICE!

willow

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Re: BOOM! $5,000 salary increase from 30 second negotiation
« Reply #10 on: February 17, 2015, 02:26:39 PM »
Congratulations!

Indio

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Re: BOOM! $5,000 salary increase from 30 second negotiation
« Reply #11 on: February 17, 2015, 02:36:42 PM »
Excellent!
It's always helpful to know what the salary bands are for the position in future negotiations. Bonus is usually tied to more than individual performance so make sure next year any increase goes into base salary because that is guaranteed.

jennc123

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Re: BOOM! $5,000 salary increase from 30 second negotiation
« Reply #12 on: February 17, 2015, 02:53:47 PM »
Congratulations!!  But he won't be working for anither 30 years though, right??  This is an MMM forum after all.