Salary negotiation in 30 seconds

• Don’t ever tell them your current salary. “I’d rather not say” is a fine response.
• Don’t ever tell them your salary requirements. “It will depend on the offers I get from the other companies I’m talking with” is good. Or “I’d rather not say” is fine here too.
• Again, don’t ever be the first to say a number. Hold firm, you can do this.
• Wait for them to make an offer, thank them and say that you’ll consider it, then get off the call.
• Later, email back (because email is generally more comfortable) and counter it for 10-20% more.
• They’ll counter your counter, and then you can counter back one more time for a few thousand more.
• Lots of companies have salary bands on base and equity for a given role, and legitimately can’t go higher. So in that case, you can:
  • Negotiate on title, because a higher level means higher band. This can be a tough sell but it happens.
  • Negotiate on signing bonus, which tends to be more flexible that base/equity. Signing bonuses often range from 5-20% of total annual compensation, so push for the higher end of that.
• Don’t be afraid to push too hard. They invested a lot of time in interviewing you and calibrating you and discussing you internally and getting leadership approval for you. So they aren’t likely to say “never mind, we’re going with the other, worse person” just because you’re a tough negotiator.

If you have more than 30 seconds (hint: for something that can mean winning or losing hundreds of thousands of dollars, you have more than 30 seconds), then read Fearless Salary Negotiation.