Tips for negotiating your salary (from an ex-FAANG recruiter) - YouTube

Hey everybody, how's it going? My name is Mayuko  and welcome back to my channel where we talk about  

tech career and life. So today, again, we're going to  talk about salary negotiations. So i posted a video  

recently about Whether to Negotiate your Salary  and so today we're going gonna follow up and talk  

about how to exactly do that. And this is from my  conversation that i had with Sarah, who is the Lead  

Negotiator at levels.fyi. She was on Muko's Corner,  my show about leading a life that feels more  

you in both your life and tech career. Sarah, again,  just has like, so much great information from her  

time as a tech recruiter at Amazon, Facebook,  and Google to talk about the do's and don'ts  

about how to negotiate a salary. So the topics  covered today will be like: how do you answer what  

are your salary expectations, and exactly what  medium is best for having these conversations.

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Mayuko: Okay next i want to talk more about how  do you actually negotiate. Specifically, i have a  

lot of questions about this, but i guess like the  first question that i had... i think this was one of  

the questions that i really was curious about when we  first started talking was: when a recruiter asks  

you what are your salary expectations, what's  the best way, what's the golden answer,  

the do's and don'ts of how to respond to that question? Sarah: Don't give them that number. Don't give  

them that range, because like i said, the range  is really large. You don't know where you land in  

that compensation band and so i would recommend  push back on that recruiter and ask:

and you don't have to answer anything

either. If you don't know the answer, just let them  know,

And then, you know,  usually recruiters are pretty respectful of that.  

Another thing too is, if you're in the state of  Washington or California as the candidate, when you  

request for a compensation band, legally speaking  they have to share the minimum wage with you  

And recently with Denver too, they passed a law where  for any employer, when they post a job description,  

they have to mention like, the minimum salary range  too. So the recruiter can push for it, the recruiter  

can ask, there isn't anything in place that, you  know, tells them that they can't ask, but as the  

candidate you're not obligated to answer that question. Mayuko: that's really good to know. I think in the past, i recommended  

to you, all my viewers, that you should say "i expect  to be compensated competitively" which is fine, but  

i think, instead, flipping the question to them, because as soon as you put out a number out  

there, you basically might already be giving  yourself away at a discount, which is great  

for the company, because then they're like "wow we  get someone at this caliber for this cheap, great!

let's just like keep going with their number!"  when in fact, you're actually worth a lot more.  

Sarah: Exactly, and it's just like, you know, once you  give a number, the recruiter will hold you to it  

So if you say 230k in total compensation, they will  give you exactly that, like, nothing more, nothing  

less. And let's say you start interviewing  with another company, and they give you 300k.  

You can't come back and be like, "well just kidding,  like, now i want 300k". You know, now the recruiter  

can say, "wow he came back, you know, and tell me the  other competing offer, which means that he really  

he or she really wants this position. I'm not gonna  move the needle, and they will eventually cave and  

it's the best offer. You know, if i'm a really  aggressive recruiter, they'll do that. And then  

another thing too, when they give you the range,  don't say yes, don't say no. Let's say you flip it  back on them and say

and let's say the recruiter tells you, "All  right well the range is 100k-120k, how does  

that sound to you? Do you like this number? Avoid saying, "yeah no that sounds great" or  

"no that's really low" Keep things a little bit more  open-ended by saying, "that's a really good start"

So that yeah, you open that door to yourself to negotiate later. Mayuko: For sure, yeah, it's like you leave it as  

lukewarm as possible, for as long as possible is what i'm hearing. Sarah: Exactly. With negotiation, you  

want to be... you want to use really neutral  verbage here. You don't want to under  

share, but you don't want to over share at the same time. Mayuko: So then at what point do you actually  

give a number, or like who's the... who should be  the first one to give a number then, i guess?

Sarah: So even at the very end when the recruiter, you  know, shares with you the good news like, "all right  

the team really loves you, they thought you do  really well in (ABCD), they see a lot of growth potential  

in you," you know, "we're ready to move on to the  offer stage, what are you looking for?" Even at  

that stage, i still would recommend: don't give your  number. You want to take this call  

to really understand their compensation philosophy.  They can't just be pushing for a number when  

when they don't tell you  what goes into it, right? You can't make a decision  

without being informed, so push it back on them  and say: "truthfully, you know, i've been really busy  

prepping for the interview, i haven't put much  thought into it. If you don't mind...  

You know, once they go over everything again,  

you can just push it back on them one more time  saying, "you know, this is a little bit newer for me  

and everyone has a different compensation structure,  i know i'm not comparing apples to apples. If you  

don't mind just sharing the numbers with me first,  it would be super productive or effective or super  

helpful for me, i would greatly appreciate it."  Mayuko: it's almost like a game of poker. I'm just like,  

waiting for them to fold, just like waiting  and waiting and waiting waiting, and then having  

them be the first to show their hand. Sarah: Exactly, and like once the recruiter has to explain everything  

for you, they'll just like be i might as well  just share a number now.

Mayuko: Right, and like you mentioned, at that stage, you've already gone through the entire interview  

process, you got a sense for the company culture,  you got a sense of what they're looking for in  

this role, you have their compensation philosophy  together. You can piece all of those together, even,  

that when they give you a number, you have the data  and information to be able to confidently say  

"Actually, based on what i know and what i've  learned, i think i'm this much instead." Sarah: Exactly, and  

you want to do a lot of the asking good questions  during that call. Like asking about the bonus  

structure: how does that work typically, when  is the payout, is it once a year, is it twice a year,  

is there any other bonuses on top of, you  know, what you guys offer, and things like  

that. And for companies that don't offer a bonus,  that's the perfect window for you to use that  

as leverage against them like, "hey since you  don't offer me any bonuses, what i want to be mindful  

of is inflation, and you know living costs are  just keep going up. So essentially if i don't  

take this into consideration now, the longer i  stay with the company, essentially the less my  

take-home pay is going to be, and i don't want to  be in a position where salary is a thing for me to  

have to leave the company, so i hope you understand  where i'm coming from." They can't say no to that  

you're going to be the biggest [jerk] if you  say no after that request, right? Mayuko: that's true!  

Use all of that knowledge you learned in  AP Econ to talk about inflation, to talk about  

money, and use all of that to your advantage. This  whole conversation of this back and forth between  

yourself and a recruiter, recruiter has a hiring  manager and other folks behind them to  

make decisions about all of this, but what's the  best format to be having this conversation?  

Sarah: Good question. So typically what i would recommend is to do that over via email. After the  

recruiter tells you, we would love to move forward,  they go over the compensation structure with you,  

perks and benefits, let them know "this is a lot of good  information, let me just take some time to process  

all of this and get back to you later. Would  that make sense for you/would that work for you?"  

As a recruiter, for myself, it's so much easier  to, you know, kind of follow the thought process  

because sometimes it's really hard to like, maybe  when i'm on the phone, someone just pinged me, i  

got distracted, maybe they were asking me 140 but  i misheard them and i wrote down 104, for example.  

So just to have everything on paper is  so much easier for the recruiter to you know  

not make any like, mistakes when it comes to numbers  there. And let's say if i have to get an approval  

from their manager, it's so much easier for me to  just kind of forward that email to the manager  

or the compensation team. So as a candidate, you  have so much more control over your narrative  

because you could be saying the perfect thing, but  communication goes both ways. It's also dependent  

on what/how the other side is perceiving that message.  So if this person misunderstood what you were  

saying, and this person is relaying all this  information to the team, you don't know what ran  

what went wrong in that process, like things can go  sideways really fast. Or maybe this recruiter just  

explained something completely off and the  manager, she could take it the wrong way  

and that's kind of what could potentially  jeopardize your relationship with the manager.  

It makes life so much easier on you to do it over  via email, because a lot of the time too, i i would  

see this happen with my friends where they, you  know, i'll prep them like "ask for this much" and  

they were like "yep nope i got it" and then we would  rehearse it and then when they're on the phone  

they get so nervous that they start to like  discount themselves like "well, i guess like i mean  

i kind of want 300k, but like i would be okay with  250" and i'm just like "oh no" i'm just like "oh whattt"

The best analogy to think of this too  is when you send the recruiter an email,  

and then you have a call with them after. It's just  the analogy of like when you watch a movie, and you  

reading the book before the movie is so much easier  to understand, right? Versus if you just watch the  

movie and you've never read  the book before, you have no idea what's going on  

in the movie. So that's like kind of taking the  call without priming the recruiter, like what  

you're going to talk about, and you have to explain  everything live, they're just going to sit there  

and be like okay like "i guess it makes sense but  i'm not sure" So email is the best way to go:  

easier for you to lay out your thought process  there, much easier for the recruiter to share all  

that information with the team. You have so much  more control over your narrative. Mayuko: Thank you all  

so much for watching the video i really hope you  liked it. Make sure to check out the other video i  

did about salary negotiations featuring sarah, and  if you'd like to just watch the recording of the  

live stream i did on Muko's Corner, then you can  become a member today by clicking the join button  

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